This volume is the second of a two-volume series. The stories have been packaged as a unit entitled The Man Without Qualities. The first volume has its own book summary, and includes Books 1 and 2 of the novel. The entire volume is dedicated to The Like of it Now Happens which begins precisely where the preceding volume had left off with chapter 72. The previous volume concluded with a woman named Diotima hostessing an important meeting of the Collateral Campaign.

Many of the main characters are the same as those from the previous volume of the same novel. The Count Leinsdorf, the lady Diotima, and some of the others. Ulrich has at times hoped to be a man without qualities and has toyed with what this means now and then. Ulrich is one of the lower level characters in terms of rank and status, but he is not from the bottoms of society. He is a middle-class fellow. Ulrich is the man without qualities and the main question caused by this is whether or not the author shows this clearly. Can readers learn what this concept means through Ulrich's example or not?

Robert Musil uses the novel to showcase a number of ideas. As such, the novel is great reading for those who like this but is annoying to those who do not. The man without qualities has two affairs during the novel. He still sees his former lovers later, but he is not all that friendly about it. He has many ideas. He is introduced to some of the most prominent people in all of the Germanic nations but he does not consistently just do whatever he can to make them like him. Ulrich is not perfectly behaved nor terribly badly behaved.