58 In History There is No Turning Back

This chapter is really an extension of the previous chapters except that Liensdorf is now discussing his "qualms" about the Parallel Campaign with Ulrich.  Ulrich, of course, has his own quixotic take on the situation:

"After all, the Parallel Campaign is supposed to raise everyone's spirits, isn't it? Surely that is what Your Grace intended? . . . But the opposite is happening! . . . I have the impression it's make all the best people unusually concerned, even downhearted! . . .  whenever I get into conversation with someone it doesn't take three minutes before he says to me: 'What is it you're really after with this Parallel Campaign? There's no such thing nowadays as great achievements or great men!'" 

But Leinsdorf has his own concerns to express:

"I'm afraid it looks as though each individual may still be satisfied with himself, but collectively, for some universal reason, mankind seems ill at ease inside its own skin, and the Parallel Campaign seems destined to bring this condition to light."

Suddenly Leinsdorf finds himself saying something that "surprised no one more than Count Leinsdort himself": "In the history of mankind there is no voluntary turning back!"  The implications are disorienting to him, to say the least:

For one assumed that if there was indeed no voluntary going back in history, then mankind was like a man driven along by some inexplicable wanderlust, a man who could neither go back nor arrive anywhere, and this was quite a remarkable condition.

The chapter concludes with Leinsdort leaving Ulrich with what he hoped would be "some word of comfort": "A great experiment naturally makes everyone nervous."

* * *

This is a short entry, so I'll add a brief disclaimer regarding these blog entries as a whole.  I realize I've been primarily reduced to summarizing the plot and the ideas brought up as the plot "evolves." (I was going to say "thickens," but that sounds too melodramatic.)

I keep hoping for a lull in either the plot or the ideas, but Musil's novel is so massive and the ideas so tightly woven that I haven't be able to do much else but try to pin down things as they come up.  Perhaps later, I tell myself, I can comment on them.

For now, I'm just going to have to continue to go along for the ride and try to point out bits and pieces of the vast landscape that catch my eye as it flies by. Maybe that's all you can expect from a first reading of something so rich in comedy and thought.