Austrian writer, author of the unfinished trilogy [The Man Without Qualities]? (in German, Der Mann Ohne Eigenschaften) one of the earliest modernist novels. The novel is both deep and complex and deals with the moral and intellectual decline of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The novel is set in Vienna on the eve of World War I. Musil served as an officer in the Austrian army at the front between 1914 - 1918.