Musil’s linguistic facility – the merging of aim, manner and result – is virtuosic. He’s such a consummate stylist that after him Kafka may seem immature, Mann chatty, Brecht arch, Rilke precious and Walter Benjamin hermetic. And Peter Wortsman’s translation is splendid, succeeding in capturing this author’s unique combination of quizzical authority and austere hedonism.

I don’t read German, but everyone I have talked to who does and who has read Musil has told me how difficult it is to render in English the carefully considered but revolutionarily radical way he had with words. Fortunately, here Musil has Peter Wortsman, who works wonders with the text.