Problems of a blogger with a post to write

I predicted that The Man Without Qualities would have something to say to readers of crime fiction (as this greatest of twentieth-century novels does to anyone), but, somewhat to my surprise, the passage I think likeliest to interest readers of the kind of crime fiction I write about here has nothing to do with the sex killer Moosbrugger and nothing to do with murder.

Rather, the pertinent reflections come in a chapter titled "Problems of a moralist with a letter to write," as the protagonist Ulrich and his sister contemplate a financial crime:

"It occurred  to him right at the start, for instance, that whenever he had taken a `moral' stance so far, he had always been psychologically worse off than when he was doing or thinking something that might usually be considered `immoral.' This is a common occurrence, for in situations that are in conflict with their surroundings these ideas and action develop all their energies, while in the mere doing of what is right and proper they understandably behave as if they were paying taxes."

 The same chapter disposes humorously of good/good and bad/bad people, proposing that only those in between, the good/bad and the bad/good, make "purposeful moral efforts." The disposition of the bad/bads might bring a blush to readers of crime novels whose villains dispose of their victims in especially graphic or artistic ways:

"For bad/bad people, who can so easily be blamed for everything, were even than as rare as they are today."

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The Man Without Qualities is often cited as one of the greatest European novels of the twentieth century, and I've never read a better. As for one of its rivals, I once read that a humorous slogan once declared that "Marcel Proust is a Yenta." And, to tell the truth, the man could go on.

© Peter Rozovsky 2013