Subject Without Nation

“Jonsson has done an outstanding job of providing interpretations that point to the future while also explaining the novel’s importance in its time.” - E. Wickersham, Choice

"[A] revelatory study. . . . [T]his is an important work and necessary reading for scholars and students of twentieth-century scholarship and Musil specialists alike. It is relatively free of jargon, the argument unfolds logically and is generated by a close reading of Musil’s texts, and the volume itself is handsomely bound and presented with a bibliographic apparatus that makes for reading almost as interesting as the text itself."
- Felix W. Tweraser , Monatshefte

"[A] thoroughly researched study. . . . [A]n extremely useful contribution to the field of German studies and even cultural studies as a whole. His cogent writing is accessible to any reader. . . . Jonsson’s combined effort of familiarizing readers with the works of Musil as well as with the social, cultural, and political circumstances of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire makes this book recommendable to advanced undergraduates and Musil scholars alike." - Arne Koch , South Atlantic Review

"[E]xciting. . . . Jonsson powerfully opens many layers of meaning in [Robert Musil's] The Man Without Qualities and also contextualizes his interpretations both in theoretical, literary-historical, and historical terms." - Albrecht Classen , Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

"Jonsson has written an important book that makes Musil’s thought more accessible to contemporary readers and demonstrates his fundamental importance for ways of thinking that have often been indifferent to his work."

- David S. Luft , Central European History

“An ambitious, authoritative new reading of The Man Without Qualities, which establishes forcefully the relevance of the fascination of the incomparable Austrian writer. A Robert Musil for the twenty-first century? Yes. And Jonsson’s book is as suggestive about the summative powers of Musil the novelist as about that still incompletely charted cultural labyrinth called ‘modernity’ in which we continue to wander.” - Susan Sontag