The European Union, the Habsburg Monarchy and my nightstand.

"Downton Abbey's" okay, but quite unexpectedly in 2012, the history and legacy of the Habsburg dynasty again became a theme with me, reflected by three novels forming the core of my reading since the middle of June:

Robert Musil, “The Man Without Qualities”
Joseph Roth, "The Radetzky March"
Gregor Von Rezzori, "An Ermine on Czernopol"

Musil was a lengthy commitment, and Roth a far easier read, though no less compelling. The latter novel is ongoing, but may prove to be the most interesting of  them all.

I covered some of this in an earlier post: European Journal. Well, sort of. In the following essay, Cooper picks up where the late Otto left off.

The European Union and the Habsburg Monarchy, by Robert Cooper (Eurozine)

The Habsburg Monarchy lasted five centuries. It was both solid and flexible; it aroused genuine affection among its citizens. But it vanished in a puff of smoke. Should we expect the European Union, shallow in history and unloved by those it serves, to do better?

To be fair, it was more than a puff of smoke. The bullets from Gavrilo Princip's revolver killed the Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia. What killed the Habsburg Monarchy was the four years of pounding by artillery that followed. This brought death and ruin to the old Europe; in Russia it brought revolution and tyranny, and in Germany regime change accompanied by failed revolution, then inflation and depression, and finally world war and genocide.

What arose from the ashes? The answer is: the European Union and NATO. It is the EU and its resemblance to the Habsburg Monarchy that is the subject of this essay, but something needs first to be said about NATO which was and is its indispensable partner.

ON THE AVENUES: The sound of Musil.

ON THE AVENUES: The sound of Musil.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Regular readers of this column know that at periodic intervals, I enjoy reviewing books I’ve read. They also may have noticed a recent absence of such reviews.

This saddens me. Perhaps my earliest childhood memory is looking at the illustrations in the volumes of our Compton’s Encyclopedias, and trying to teach myself to read. I’ve been reading ever since, and have continued to do so in 2012, albeit less often than I should, and I come before you today readily equipped with excuses as to why this has been the case.

The cruelest irony occurs each spring, when numerous publications release their lists of summertime reading. I scream aloud. Presumably this custom owes to normal readers having the time to take actual holidays and relax, but for me, warm weather brings with the fervent clamor of NABC’s beer and brewery event season, generally set amid the extended daylight of the great outdoors.

Accordingly, opportunities to improve the mind steadily dwindle from the period of May through October. My usual routine during these long summer hours is to stagger to bed, either exhausted or intoxicated, often both, and managing perhaps ten pages before sleep quickly overtakes me.

But nighttime never was the best reading time for me, anyway. I’ve always been a morning person, and my quality cerebral hours occur before lunch. Not unexpectedly, these tend to be taken up with business matters (in addition to the expected boring reluctant capitalist’s minutiae, I remain my company’s chief propagandist) and personal writing. The NA Confidential blog doesn’t lay out itself, and I have ongoing column commitments at Food & Dining magazine and Louisville Beer Dot Com.

After all, you’re fully entitled to my opinion.

In spite of it all, I persevere. Recreational reading has continued when time and coherence have permitted, which brings me to my final qualification: Seemingly, the whole year has been spent reading just one novel: Robert Musil’s “The Man Without Qualities,” which proceeds over the course of two massive paperbacks. The first volume of 700 pages was cracked in June and finished in September, and currently I’m only a dozen chapters from a stopping point in the second one.

In terms of reading, you’re probably already in trouble when books are measured by page counts rather than pleasure or ideas, but there are times when an odometer is a lifeline, because reading Musil’s masterpiece has been akin to bicycling across Siberia without a paddle.

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Robert Musil (1880-1942) was an Austrian writer, and “The Man Without Qualities” is his best known work. Amazingly, given its epic length, the novel was not finished during Musil’s lifetime. This means the translation I’m reading may or may not be definitive, because obviously the author was no longer alive to explain his literary intent.

Previous editions of the novel did not include finished chapters withdrawn by the author, and the most recent translation includes these, as well as numerous notes and sketches, which I plan on skipping.

Knowing all this suggests a slight sensation of dread. Will the reader trudge through these many difficult pages, only to find in the end that the identity of the murderer never is revealed?

In Musil’s case the answer is no; fortunately, the murderer’s identity is revealed quite early: He’s an itinerant carpenter named Moosbrugger. Unfortunately, he also is one of at least two dozen recurring characters, the majority of them upper class Viennese, with a few “downstairs” servants thrown in.

As Moosbrugger languishes in jail in late 1913, his story resurfaces periodically as the narrative unfolds, and we get to know these people. They have been brought together for a very important project, planning a gala celebration of their Emperor Franz Joseph’s 70th year on the throne, which slated to occur in 1918.

Of course, we know all too well that this anniversary will not take place. Franz Joseph died at 86 in 1916, halfway through the inexcusable conflagration his empire did so much to initiate, and consequently, the reader’s omniscience colors every perception, as Musil no doubt intended (he began writing the novel in 1921). However, this is not an exercise in nostalgia, with requisite fin de siècle, La Belle Époque or Downton Abbey shadings.

In fact, the one abiding memory I’ll have to keep after reading “The Man Without Qualities” is the clearly delineated contrast between the stilted, convention-bound tradition of the Austro-Hungarian empire at sunset, and the highly modernist sensibility of the characters inhabiting Musil’s pages. There are subtle hints, but no suggestion of the fratricidal tidal wave to come, which will sweep away a glorious but doomed world -- except that it’s not altogether glorious for the novel’s central characters.

Rather, they are immersed in their own interior worlds, seeking to digest supercharged scientific and intellectual advances amid a framework of archaic social norms. The omniscient, again: Much of the empire’s purpose at this point in time is to ignore the advance of knowledge as a threat fully at odds with the archaic, seeing as the archaic is all the glue remaining to hold together disparate elements.

That said, the unlikely focal point of the story is Ulrich, a mathematician and former imperial cavalryman in his early thirties, seemingly paralyzed into inaction, unable to formulate aims or make sense of his station in life.

Ulrich endlessly ruminates, pondering the meaning of existence and his own inability to fathom it. As he does, the machinations of his friends and acquaintances swirl around him, with their hopes and schemes strangely projected onto his meticulously thoughtful amorphousness. Other men look to him as accomplice and ally, both for direction and absolution, and most of the women are interested in him sexually even if little actual consummation is achieved.

Overall, very little actually happens. Is Ulrich a non-catatonic forerunner of Jerzy Kosiński's Chance the Gardener, as immortalized by the actor Peter Sellers in the film version of “Being There”? The answer quite possibly depends on your personal view of Kosiński, who fought numerous allegations of plagiarism during his lifetime.

If Jerry Seinfeld’s eponymous creation was a television show about nothing, then so is Musil’s novel, six decades before. We all muddle through, and the absence of a real point sometimes is the entire point.

Must there even be a point?

European Journal. Well, sort of.

If I cannot be there, I can read about it. The novel I've engaged this summer, and might still be reading in 2013, is Robert Musil's "The Man Without Qualities."

In The Man Without Qualities he tries to portray a modern man who has to live in and cope with a changing world. In contrast to former generations, the modern-day-man cannot afford himself, or be described in terms of ‘qualities’, as Musil calls it, for all the known certainties have been replaced by a greater diversity; there is no longer a single point one can focus on. The German word ‘Eigenschaften’ is less ambiguous: it literally means ‘characteristics’.

To be more precise at the 250-page mark, with a thousand to go, the story takes place in Vienna in the waning pre-war days of the Habsburg Empire. To know me is to be cognizant of my enduring fascination with this historical period (in general) and Vienna (in particular), both of which are referenced at NAC from time to time.

Today's Tribune column: "History and sausages in Vienna."

Red Stars, Black Mountains: What’s Habsburg got to do with it? (Part 5).

Ironically, Otto Habsburg only recently was mentioned in the New York Times, roughly a year after his death at 98. RemCha, take note:

Where’s Charlemagne When We Need Him?, by Istvan Deak

WRITING some 50 years ago, Archduke Otto Habsburg, the last pretender to the crowns of Austria and Hungary, warned that economic cooperation alone would not satisfy the peoples of Europe and that European unification could not succeed unless it was imbued with an abstract principle. Only something as mystical, he wrote, as the Holy Roman Empire could give people hope, a sense of religious renewal and combat the pernicious effects of local interest, chauvinism, xenophobia and racism.

Today’s European crisis indeed shows that great political institutions cannot be constituted solely on a rational basis or through the bureaucracy and incrementalism of Brussels. The true purpose of the European Union is to bring about peace, prosperity and equality among the diverse regions and groups. Peace has indeed prevailed on most of the Continent, but in the last few years, with prosperity endangered, continued regional inequality has become even more blatant, while radical nationalism has raised its ugly head.

Historic empires provided ideals — whether universal Christian unity or the Marxist-Leninist dogmas of the Soviet Union — in which people were able to believe, no matter how flawed the ruler and how corrupt the imperial institutions. So long as people believe in the principles, the system is likely to endure.

Deak, namesake of a square in Budapest, suggests that European identity enhancement might just help repopulate the continent with Europeans (italics mine).

Europeans must decide whether they are satisfied with a common market and currency, or whether they want to have common political, legal and cultural institutions. They need a great European Museum and Exhibit, many more pan-European music and film festivals, and the propagation of Europeanism in popular culture to shake off cynicism regarding the European project.

Then, perhaps, Europeans will also understand that despite all their hardships, they are still among the richest and most privileged people in the world. They might even decide that they can afford to have a few children.

Appropriately, I conclude with The Economist's take on Europe's fertility crisis, which bears the usual dispassionate tone.

Europe’s other crisis: Recession is bringing Europe’s brief fertility rally to a shuddering halt

... Three broad lessons emerge. First, population trends are more sensitive to the economic cycle than might be expected. Population trends are thought to set the stage for everything else (“demography is destiny” said a 19th-century French scientist). Second, the rise in fertility in the 2000s suggests that not all of Europe is caught in a low-fertility trap. Scandinavia, Britain and France all have relatively high fertility. Third, governments may have scope for policy measures to moderate the fall. Old-fashioned demographic policies were usually “natalist”: they rewarded women who had many children. (Russia still has these.) They almost never work.

But if demographic tempo is what matters, Europe’s fertility might be more susceptible to government policy. Couples might respond to incentives like cheaper kindergartens or more parental leave by changing the spacing of children they want anyway. If Europe is to avoid yet another downward twist in its demographic spiral, “tempo-adjusted fertility” may hold the secret.