Uncaging Musil's Amsel

Abstract

Few modernist short narratives achieve the richness of Robert Musil's novella “Die Amsel” (1928). The work's autobiographical elements fragment into different narrative voices whose origins remain undetermined, thus giving the writing subject latitude to participate in the ironic spectacle that he is creating. After years of silence about three decisive experiences in his life, A2, a wise fool, tells his childhood stories to his childhood friend A1 in such a way that the truth of the stories cannot be fixed and their meaning is suspended in the ongoing process of the telling. Like Ulrich, Musil's “man without qualities,” A2 has a basic need for openness and spontaneity, and his stories, with their sardonic and selfparodic accents, are playful exercises in fluid, hypothetical discourse. The blackbird that reappears in A2's third tale is the product of A2's verbal jesting at the expense of the all too serious and literal-minded A1.