The Confusions of Young Törless

I've just read so many stories of public schools and the sadism of youths in the past that it seemed like a crime to overlook Musil's novel. It does not shock or surprise me in the least, which might be the reaction if I hadn't read quite so many accounts of 19th and early-20th century boys schools. Two things did surprise me, though.

1. The gun was described and placed there but never used because fuck Chekov, right?
2. Törless is a self-centred little prick and the narrative doesn't seem to criticize/even notice this at the end

But there was something I enjoyed about the unapologetic music. Pages and pages without dialogue, without events, without moving from a spot. Törless' heightened perception of reality where objects are so much show more more than themselves. It reminded me of something I feel when I read Hesse, and it affirms for me the power of that interior exploration which I can shy away from in my own writing for fear of it being uninteresting. Musil executes it so well. Often melancholic, but not always, and if it weren't midnight it would have sent me out for a walk through a park to let myself hold onto all of that just a little longer. show less

'A thought—it may have passed through our brain long ago—comes to life only at the moment when it is joined by something that is no longer thought, no longer logical, so that we feel its truth beyond all justification, like an anchor tearing from it into blood-filled, living flesh...'

The Confusions of Young Törless is one of those rare, incendiary books that reframes remarkably diverse avenues of thought without sacrificing an inner-cohesion: here we can find winding, tortured examinations of subjects as diverse as social anxiety, epistemology, mysticism, morality, sexuality, sadism, classism; if the novel succeeds at weaving such disparate threads into a symmetrical whole, it is because the titular Törless' journey from naïveté show more to young adulthood remains isolated as a single point in both time and experience—The Confusions of Young Törless is, expressly, a life examined: but it is a life as difficult to dissect in circumstance as in totality. That it is simultaneously an eerily prophetic cautionary tale (to a point) capable of deftly illustrating the wanton cruelty and corrupting influence of power upon the youth of a pre-Fascist Europe and also a haunting profile of adolescent homosexuality is a testament to Robert Musil's unique talents for subtlety, depth, and hypnotically inward-peering honesty.

Törless, a thoughtful boy, is sent away to a prestigious boarding school, where he finds himself in the company of two other young men (proto-Fascists, both), Reiting and Beineberg; the former idolizes Napoleon and aspires to high authority while the latter possesses a noxiously parochial mystic strain (a remarkable bit of precognition on Musil's part, given the obsession with Occultism that the Nazis, decades later, would fixate upon). Törless, meanwhile, spends much of his time consumed by a kind of inner anarchy, considering at length the paradoxes and slippery formlessness of his own philosophical, near-existential, obsessions—namely, highly contentious questions surrounding the 'what' and the 'why' of the confusing dualities of the rational and irrational (particularly well-illustrated by a meditation on imaginary numbers). A relatively trivial crime—a theft—committed by a further adolescent, the lithe and attractive Basini, sets in motion a series of shockingly debauched episodes in which the three young men—Törless chiefly (though hardly exclusively) in the role of observer—brutally rape, defile, and lambaste the meek, effete, and troubled Basini. Over the course of these debasements, Törless' confusion over his mingled attractions and repulsions regarding the vicitimzed youth, as both an object of disdain and almost transcendent beauty, forces Törless to confront more openly both the anomie of his peers and his own curiously all-encompassing weltschmerz, all the while professing an ultimate indifference towards the fate of the long-suffering Basini.

It is within this last that much of the novel's complexity develops: Törless is concerned with his own development and self-understanding, without exception; and while impulse forces upon him a more magnanimous view of Basini's plight (inasmuch as it amounts to torture), when the dust clears, his repudiation of the barbarism of his peers is more a byproduct of his dismissal of petty arrogance, 'mysticism,' and incongruities of logic than a defense of the abused. He loathes the idea of Basini as much as he finds cause for ridicule in the credos of Reiting or Beineberg, which effectively neutralizes the situation, amid his exhaustive meditation; the highly-immoral persecution of Basini is only disturbing to Törless inasmuch as it distracts him from concrete direction within his own life. Törless never fully disavows or approves of the crimes central to the novel's plot: though it can be argued that by reducing the aggressors to the same feeble folly as the victim, Musil illustrates the hypocrisy and inanity of authoritarianism through the omnipresence of narration.

Robert Musil is chiefly noted for his unfinished The Man Without Qualities, an influential text of Modernism; but it is in The Confusions of Young Törless, his first novel—penned at a mere twenty-six-years-old and highly influenced by his own years in boarding school—that Musil bridges the gap between the Symbolist and Decadent modes contemporaneous with his youth and the Postmodernism that was to evolve in the aftermath of the political and social movements (only in their infancies at the time of publication) that the novel, arguably, presages. Reiting and Beineberg have their analogues in various political figures of the coming decades and it takes little imagination to see these remarkably human characters—here described in their youth with all its folly, naïveté, arrogance, and pretension—as the seeds of later Hitlers, Francos, and Mussolinis. Given the themes, accents, and dubious moralities of The Confusions of Young Törless, then, it is hardly surprising that the Nazi government that came to power in the latter years of Musil's life saw fit to burn it: a circumstance as decidedly bereft of justice as the conclusion of the novel itself.

Very seldom are novels written from places of personal experience without collapsing, even if only briefly, into the motions of maudlin nostalgia or self-defense. This is not one of those novels—from first page to last, this affecting and disturbing account of anxiety, decadence, and the liberation of the intellect is almost clinically concerned with the candor of its narrative. Lacking heavy-handed leitmotif or obvious allegory, indifferent to the attractive glimmer of intellectual or emotional trifles, The Confusions of Young Törless—a century onwards—remains both a classic of Expressionist literature and a strikingly effective indictment of subjugation and violence, even if only through the lens of its protagonist's detached and highly-abstract inquisitions. show less

Robert Musil is one of my favorite authors and his story of Young Torless, published in 1906, is one reason. The novel reflects an obsession in this period with educational institutions and the oppressive impact they exert on personal development. While it is in the tradition of the German Bildungsroman, the novel of education, it is critical of educational system and the institutionalized coercion portrayed in the novel. In my reading experience I compared it with the experience of Philip Carey in Maugham's Of Human Bondage or other traditional British school novels (see Tom Brown). In the American tradition, one thinks of J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye as representing a protest against a social disciplining that is also a show more disciplining of sexuality. Sexual disciplining can often become the standard for other forms of discipline.

The novel tells the story of three students at an Austrian boarding school, Reiting, Beineberg and the titular young Törless. The three catch their classmate Basini stealing money from one of them and decide to punish him themselves instead of turning him in to the school authorities. They start an abusive process, first physically and then psychologically and sexually, while also blackmailing him by threatening to denounce him. While the treatment of Basini becomes openly sexual and increasingly sadistic, he nevertheless masochistically endures it all.

It is the moral and sexual confusion of young Torless that leads him to join Beineberg's and Reiting's degradation of Basini; he is both sexually attracted to Basini and Beineberg and repelled by them. Even though he is a willing participant he tells himself that he is merely trying to understand the gap between his rational self and his obscure irrational self. In a modern way he is both a disturbed and despairing observer of his own states of consciousness. Basini professes love for Törless and Törless begins to reciprocate, but he is ultimately repelled by Basini's unwillingness to stand up for himself. His disgust with Basini's passivity ultimately leads him in a curious way to stand up to Beineberg and Reiting. When the torment becomes unbearable, Törless secretly advises Basini alleviate his situation by confessing to the headmaster.

While an investigation is made, the only party to be found guilty is Basini. Törless makes a strange existential speech to the school authorities about the gap between the rational and irrational: "I said it seemed to me that at these points we couldn't get across merely by the aid of thought, and we needed another and more inward sort of certainty to get us to the other side, as you might say. We can't manage solely by means of thinking, I felt that in the case of Basini too." (p 208)
After he had finished, "When he had left the room, the masters looked at each other with baffled expressions." (p 212)
They decide he is of too refined an intellect for the institute, and suggest to his parents that he be privately educated, a conclusion that he comes to on his own.

Other subplots include Törless's experience with the local prostitute Božena, his encounter with his mathematics teacher, and his analysis of his parents' attitudes toward the world. The severity of the conditions makes one wonder about Musil's own experience. One important theme Musil also takes up is the Nietzschean idea of the dichotomy between Apollo and Dionysus. This can be seen in the "two worlds" (p 45) in which light is contrasted with dark, the controlled and disciplined intellect with more spontaneous sensuality.

Young Torless is an impressive short novel with a depth of meaning and character that often is not achieved in much longer works. It is a show less

Als ich als Jugendliche nach grenzüberschreitenden Büchern gesucht habe, hab ich Sachen wie Edward Lee entdeckt, aber eigentlich hätte ich gerne etwas gefunden wie das hier (oder meine geliebte Sarah Kane).
Tatsächlich hab ich nicht mit etwas derartigem gerechnet, eher mit einem relativ harmlosen Entwicklungsroman in Richtung von Hermann Hesses "Unterm Rad".
"Entwicklungsroman" möglicherweise, "harmlos" sicherlich nicht. Die Hauptthematik ist schließlich, wie drei Jungen einen Mitschüler emotional und körperlich missbrauchen und wie die Hauptfigur, Törleß, innerlich mit sich kämpft. Törleß ist eine sehr sonderbare Figur, mein erster Eindruck war, dass er zwar innerlich sehr schwankt (zwischen Ekel und Erregung gegenüber show more dem sadistischen Hadeln ), aber nach außen hin immer seltsam passiv ist, ein totaler Mitläufer. Er entwickelt sich davon weg, aber so richtig klar wird nicht, warum: Liebe? Kant? Insgesamt Philosophie?
Vielleicht hängt es an diesem Detail, dass es für mich ein Vier-Sterne und kein Fünf-Sterne-Buch ist. Es hat aber auf jeden Fall eine Menge interessantere Aspekte und Gedanken (und eine weitere Figur, die Nietzsche falsch verstanden hat). Ich glaube nicht, dass ich mich beim Lesen eines Buches schon einmal so geekelt habe. show less

Livro perturbador e em vários momentos me senti compelido a interromper a leitura. Com poucos personagens e todo passado dentro de um internato de meninos o livro desenvolve a história do jovem Törless e seu descobrimento do mundo abstrato, filosófico e da sua sexualidade. No colégio ele se envolve com dois colegas que resolvem humilhar um terceiro por conta deste estar sempre se endividando e devendo a todos. Isso vai ganhando dimensões maiores envolvendo favores sexuais, atos de sadismo e humilhação. A narrativa só se desenvolve sob a perspectiva de Törless apesar de não ser na primeira pessoa. Parece uma narrativa simbólica no estilo de Thomas Mann entremeando pensamentos e questões filosóficas enquanto cria situações show more bastante inusitadas e com uma descrição vívida que nos permite estar junto nas cenas. O livro é pequeno mas preferi ler com calma refletindo sobre cada parte, apesar de ser possível lê-lo em um dia. O livro me fez ter certeza que não lerei os outros livros de Musil apesar de achar esse bom. show less

If they were to ask him, why did you abuse Basini?, he could hardly answer them: because I was constantly interested in something happening in my mind, a something, which so far I know very little about and which makes everything I think about seem pointless.

Three boys at yer stereotypical turn-of-the-century boarding school get caught up in yer stereotypical turn-of-the-century philosophical quandaries, and take it out on a fourth boy by beating, harrassing and raping him. Yes, this was written in 1906. And besides, there's nothing gay about raping a boy; it's only when you start feeling something that you need to do something about it, when the disconnect between body and mind becomes too hard to handle, that you need to really show more victimize him to make sure you can tell yourself he deserves it.

If that sounds flippant, it's not meant to be. Much of what Musil would perfect (in an imperfect, meandering way) in The Man Without Qualities is already here, and even if Törless has his moments of whiny Holden Caulfieldity, those stereotypical proto-Nietzsche/Dostoevsky/etc ponderings are certainly worth reading again and Musil has a healthy distance to his protagonist. show less

This was a book I randomly pulled off the shelf to bring on my little Christmas jaunt to visit family, simply because it looked like the right size that would allow me to finish it on the trip. It was an unexpected puzzling little piece. Part way through, I found that I didn't want to stop reading, in spite of the fact that it was a wee bit heavy in the thinking department. Basically, this is Torless` adolescent coming of age story in an eastern European military boarding school that chronicles his deep quest to try to understand the connection between his routine daily real world & all of the mental, psychological and sensual new revelations that continue to creep into his psyche. He is truly bothered by his inability to fill in the show more gaps between those 2 realms. While school mates of his are eagerly testing their own limits in learning to exert power over others, he is frantically trying to understand the mysterious forces that lead them to want to exert power in the first place. As I said earlier, this is a lot of deep thinking for a guy like me that merely reads to be entertained. But the places this book went were so unexpected, that I got hooked into it beyond my expectation. Musil's melding together of adolescent mob mentality, the metaphysical aspects of mathematics, morality, ethics, sexual exploration with a prostitute and with each other, and the study of one's soul is rather remarkable...& I never got completely lost in the psychological gymnastics! (Of course that was likely due to the fact that it was from the perspective of an adolescent teen, so there was hope for me.) Overall, a surprising little novella. Glad I chose it.... show less