Genese Grill
@genesegrill.bsky.social
Essayist, Translator, Bibliophile, Working on the First English-Language Biography of Robert Musil for Yale University Press.
https://genesegrill.wixsite.com/website
https://www.thisissplice.co.uk/essays/portals/
https://genesegrill.wixsite.com/website
https://www.thisissplice.co.uk/essays/portals/
Full reading and meeting schedule for our year-long exploration of Musil's The Man Without Qualities.
September 18, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Full reading and meeting schedule for our year-long exploration of Musil's The Man Without Qualities.
Hannah Arendt and Martha Musil. Could be cousins.
Happy , Healhthy, Inspired New Year to you all. Thanks for being in this crazy world with me. Trying to understand, trying to love, trying to communicate.
Happy , Healhthy, Inspired New Year to you all. Thanks for being in this crazy world with me. Trying to understand, trying to love, trying to communicate.
December 31, 2024 at 3:06 PM
Hannah Arendt and Martha Musil. Could be cousins.
Happy , Healhthy, Inspired New Year to you all. Thanks for being in this crazy world with me. Trying to understand, trying to love, trying to communicate.
Happy , Healhthy, Inspired New Year to you all. Thanks for being in this crazy world with me. Trying to understand, trying to love, trying to communicate.
The last four months of 2024 have been difficult (illnesses, dread about the world, --violence and floods), but high times too: Sicily, Musil talk at Society Library, restoring Walking Book, Arendt poems, Musil biography work, with your encouragement.
December 31, 2024 at 3:06 PM
The last four months of 2024 have been difficult (illnesses, dread about the world, --violence and floods), but high times too: Sicily, Musil talk at Society Library, restoring Walking Book, Arendt poems, Musil biography work, with your encouragement.
From What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt, out yesterday. Edited by @samantharhill.bsky.social and translated by Samantha and me. Book launch tonight at The Strand in New York City (I won't be there, but Sam will be brilliant as usual!).
December 11, 2024 at 1:19 PM
From What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt, out yesterday. Edited by @samantharhill.bsky.social and translated by Samantha and me. Book launch tonight at The Strand in New York City (I won't be there, but Sam will be brilliant as usual!).
Many people tried to help Musil survive exile in Switzerland or to emigrate. He had always felt alien & in exile, his anxiety & need for peace to work may have made him difficult to help: "I have a debilitating disgust for the Fatherland, but also for the merry outcasts."
December 7, 2024 at 2:35 PM
Many people tried to help Musil survive exile in Switzerland or to emigrate. He had always felt alien & in exile, his anxiety & need for peace to work may have made him difficult to help: "I have a debilitating disgust for the Fatherland, but also for the merry outcasts."
A tower of co-author copies of What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt to brighten the dusk of this cold evening here in Vermont. Official publication date is December 10th.
November 20, 2024 at 9:50 PM
A tower of co-author copies of What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt to brighten the dusk of this cold evening here in Vermont. Official publication date is December 10th.
"Often when I turn a corner, I feel now that I must see you, surrounded by fur and cold. Then am I as mild and still as if I had dipped by hand in snow-water." Musil on his love, Martha, shortly after they had met.
March 2, 2024 at 2:30 PM
"Often when I turn a corner, I feel now that I must see you, surrounded by fur and cold. Then am I as mild and still as if I had dipped by hand in snow-water." Musil on his love, Martha, shortly after they had met.
15% Discount on ALL my @contramundumpress.bsky.social
Press Musil translations: Thought Flights, Unions, Theater Symptoms, & Literature and Politics Get two of each! contramundumpress.com/thought-flig...
Use the coupon code: "Grill" when checking out!
Press Musil translations: Thought Flights, Unions, Theater Symptoms, & Literature and Politics Get two of each! contramundumpress.com/thought-flig...
Use the coupon code: "Grill" when checking out!
March 2, 2024 at 2:01 PM
15% Discount on ALL my @contramundumpress.bsky.social
Press Musil translations: Thought Flights, Unions, Theater Symptoms, & Literature and Politics Get two of each! contramundumpress.com/thought-flig...
Use the coupon code: "Grill" when checking out!
Press Musil translations: Thought Flights, Unions, Theater Symptoms, & Literature and Politics Get two of each! contramundumpress.com/thought-flig...
Use the coupon code: "Grill" when checking out!
Ea von Allesch, a model for femme fatale Alpha in Musil's Vinzenz & the Mistress of Important Men, for Klimt's Water Snakes, wife (for a while) of Musil's friend Johannes von Allesch, later Broch's mistress, was a fashion journalist. Blei kisses her hand as Martha sneers.
February 26, 2024 at 3:33 PM
Ea von Allesch, a model for femme fatale Alpha in Musil's Vinzenz & the Mistress of Important Men, for Klimt's Water Snakes, wife (for a while) of Musil's friend Johannes von Allesch, later Broch's mistress, was a fashion journalist. Blei kisses her hand as Martha sneers.
Gustav Donath (Musil's friend & Model for Walter)....He divorced Alice after her breakdown and remarried. I read somewhere they had a child together, but can't find the reference right now.
February 26, 2024 at 3:03 PM
Gustav Donath (Musil's friend & Model for Walter)....He divorced Alice after her breakdown and remarried. I read somewhere they had a child together, but can't find the reference right now.
Alice Charlemont (Musil's Clarisse model), painted by her father, Hugo Charlemont, 1909, a few years after marrying Gustl (model for Walter). Imagine her a while later escaping from a mental institution with a Greek homosexual & painting on the walls of her hotel.
February 26, 2024 at 2:18 PM
Alice Charlemont (Musil's Clarisse model), painted by her father, Hugo Charlemont, 1909, a few years after marrying Gustl (model for Walter). Imagine her a while later escaping from a mental institution with a Greek homosexual & painting on the walls of her hotel.
I've been reading Marie Bashkirtseff's marvelous journal, important for Musil and so many others. Adorno called her "the patron saint of the fin de siècle." Musil must have been in love with her mind, passion, lust for life. She died at 26 of consumption.
February 12, 2024 at 3:44 PM
I've been reading Marie Bashkirtseff's marvelous journal, important for Musil and so many others. Adorno called her "the patron saint of the fin de siècle." Musil must have been in love with her mind, passion, lust for life. She died at 26 of consumption.
Ken Schoen of the amazing Schoen Books in S. Deerfield, Massachusetts, sent me a pile of curious Musil books, including these vintage covers. He is a real Mensch.
schoenbooks.com
schoenbooks.com
January 4, 2024 at 3:11 PM
Ken Schoen of the amazing Schoen Books in S. Deerfield, Massachusetts, sent me a pile of curious Musil books, including these vintage covers. He is a real Mensch.
schoenbooks.com
schoenbooks.com
My omnibus review of 9 (!) Robert Musil biographies (mostly in German, one in French) is "up" on The Georgia Review, with some juicy tidbits from each: thegeorgiareview.com/posts/nine-l...
December 16, 2023 at 10:41 PM
My omnibus review of 9 (!) Robert Musil biographies (mostly in German, one in French) is "up" on The Georgia Review, with some juicy tidbits from each: thegeorgiareview.com/posts/nine-l...
Lost in Thought by Zena Hitz is a profound reflection on the life of the mind set free from external goals, the bravery required to see "eye to eye" with realities--a struggle in exchange for infinite riches of time, space, humanity.
November 26, 2023 at 4:09 PM
Lost in Thought by Zena Hitz is a profound reflection on the life of the mind set free from external goals, the bravery required to see "eye to eye" with realities--a struggle in exchange for infinite riches of time, space, humanity.
Happy Birthday to Robert Musil, born at five a.m. on November 6, 1880. The midwife was Katherine Schweiger. At about 5 weeks, he was “languishing,” presumably because his mother was not producing enough milk—but revived, when bottle fed. He might have died as his little sister had before his birth.
November 6, 2023 at 2:24 PM
Happy Birthday to Robert Musil, born at five a.m. on November 6, 1880. The midwife was Katherine Schweiger. At about 5 weeks, he was “languishing,” presumably because his mother was not producing enough milk—but revived, when bottle fed. He might have died as his little sister had before his birth.
Not only did Musil keep track of his smoking, but he kept an alphabetical Register-Heft for major themes, characters, and projects, cross-referenced to his many notebooks. It helps us poor scholars try to figure out what/who is related to what and whom in notebooks and drafts!
October 4, 2023 at 1:14 PM
Not only did Musil keep track of his smoking, but he kept an alphabetical Register-Heft for major themes, characters, and projects, cross-referenced to his many notebooks. It helps us poor scholars try to figure out what/who is related to what and whom in notebooks and drafts!
The cigarette salesman has Batschari, Manoli, Waldorf Astoria.
Oh, I forgot, the guy who is looking for the Novelta isn't just some schmo. Its der liebe Gott himself.
Oh, I forgot, the guy who is looking for the Novelta isn't just some schmo. Its der liebe Gott himself.
October 3, 2023 at 9:19 PM
The cigarette salesman has Batschari, Manoli, Waldorf Astoria.
Oh, I forgot, the guy who is looking for the Novelta isn't just some schmo. Its der liebe Gott himself.
Oh, I forgot, the guy who is looking for the Novelta isn't just some schmo. Its der liebe Gott himself.
This is the kind the character in the draft play was looking for, Novelta. He says he tried them by chance in Munich, and heard they come from Berlin, but no one in Vienna has heard of them.
October 3, 2023 at 9:12 PM
This is the kind the character in the draft play was looking for, Novelta. He says he tried them by chance in Munich, and heard they come from Berlin, but no one in Vienna has heard of them.
Some pages from Musil's Cigarette Notebook, keeping track of how many he smoked a day.
October 3, 2023 at 2:40 PM
Some pages from Musil's Cigarette Notebook, keeping track of how many he smoked a day.
Musil's notebooks have @20 pages of notes from Ellen Key's The Development of the Soul through Conduct of Life (Lebenskunst). He was enraptured by the call to do/think everyday something fine & beautiful, the marriage of ethics & aesthetics, individualism & creative aliveness.
September 28, 2023 at 12:41 PM
Musil's notebooks have @20 pages of notes from Ellen Key's The Development of the Soul through Conduct of Life (Lebenskunst). He was enraptured by the call to do/think everyday something fine & beautiful, the marriage of ethics & aesthetics, individualism & creative aliveness.
"like a dark rope, binding him to his chair, protecting him from the dizziness crashing down into limitless emptiness all around him.... like running along a tightrope with burning cheeks and he could only save himself with the speed at which he piled up his thoughts." Musil on childhood writing
September 27, 2023 at 1:32 PM
"like a dark rope, binding him to his chair, protecting him from the dizziness crashing down into limitless emptiness all around him.... like running along a tightrope with burning cheeks and he could only save himself with the speed at which he piled up his thoughts." Musil on childhood writing
They are indeed available, in German. I would love to translate them, but for now I will only be translating pieces of them for my biography.
September 5, 2023 at 2:17 PM
They are indeed available, in German. I would love to translate them, but for now I will only be translating pieces of them for my biography.