"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."

"Musil’s originality of mind and perfectionism of temperament are evident throughout these pieces, which range from delicately enameled miniature portraits of the natural world & to casual yet trenchant little essays and parables on art, culture, kitsch, psychoanalysis, and even feminism."

"What sense might ‘Musilian’ evoke? Perhaps a tense equilibrium between an exhilarating philosophical intelligence and a certain emotional detachment; between a powerfully curious imagination and a soldierly stoicism; between a Viennese worldly skepticism and a mystic’s yearning to penetrate to a ‘mysterious second life.’"

"Funny, sad and true—or rather funny because they are both sad and true—such observations are, to use a typical Musil phrase, a form of ‘daylight mysticism,’ shafts of light in a darkening world."