Pasting some notes here that I took while reading, will maybe expand more (at least with more likelihood than the other places where I say I might write more).
This book forced me to use my brain while reading it to a maybe unmatched extent, very different experience of reading than normal.
A book that is ripe for rereading, lots of different ideas to turn around in your head that may change with fresh eyes.
the novel is unbelievably good at depicting movements of thought; specifically how contingent each idea, surreptitious or not, is on the charge of the surroundings, or the relationships invoked by another's presence. I wouldn't go as far to say that "good" philosophy is happening in this book, but it is a near-perfect depiction of the process of musing itself, even if the ideas, when left stranded on their own, are often contradictory and inscrutable. the book and its ideas do not rely on a strong thread of plot to hold them together, instead they are supported by the form of the novel itself. the common novelistic movements of interiority being exteriorized and vice versa are seamless and brandished with sensual language; weaving the contextual backbone through which these ideas can be, if not fully understood, at least interpreted and made meaningful. the ideas themselves are the tip of the iceberg, guiding the reader downwards into the modern, novelistic infrastructure of patterns and meanings that Musil pries apart. Musil makes contingency and universality dance (or maybe bloodsport would be more apt) in a hall of mirrors, their entanglement reflected on every surface with no clear start or finish.
many of the conversations and discussions in this book are remarkably similar to the conversations I've seen in rat/post-rat/woo tech circles (albeit in far more emaciated forms). the simultaneous derision and elevation of intuition, the asymptotic curve of rational thought towards knowing, etc. the digital world is not Musil's unreality (it might even be the opposite), but to a modern individual, it can occupy a similar symbolic space. this is not the primary lens in through which I read the book (ie trying to fit it's contents to our time), but there probably are some interesting ideas/parallels to be drawn here.
chapter 39!!! just like me frfr
chapter 51... unbelievable
chapter 62 (and maybe preceding 61). real shit
chapter 70...
chapter 72 he's spitting
88-90 some interesting movements here, feels a bit muddled for me still just having read it. i understand what is being said, but there's just certain sentences or phrases that seem to just elude me in interesting ways (although this is a feeling that I get from different small bits of the novel that might just be me CTE)
chapter 97 Clarisse is so interesting
chapter 101 wow...
chapter 109 he's him
chapter 113 this is just what it's like
chapter 114 if from patterns you can't recover meaning, start from meaning and recover patterns!? is this what it would mean to destroy reality and recover unreality? can't claim to grasp everything in this chapter, but closest I've been to understanding what Peli meant. Musil manages to sneak the sort of irrational consciousness the characters in the book are trying to find behind the unfolding of each conversation; everyone purports rationality, while their logic is driven firstly by emotion and circumstance.
chapter 115 it's just banger after banger
chapter 116 four chapters in a row but really love the elucidation of the central trees of this chapter
chapter 119 brilliant and disturbing
chapter 120 really good passages at the end
chapter 121 I shouldn't just be noting all the ending chapters, but these chapters where Ulrich engages someone unmediated by the usual third interlocutor are soooo good
chapter 123 wow