The Confusions of Young Törless (1916) (edit title/settings)

• Rated 2 stars

“I wasn't in the mood for this type of writing. Was not about context or theme, but the way it was written.”

• Rated 5 stars

“Pedro M said: 5 stars

Infinitely deep study on the relations of power among closed groups and its connection to sexuality. It also serves as a metaphor for what was about to come in Germany. I read this book in one seating and still remember that delicious afternoon.”

• Rated 5 stars

“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 disciplining of sexuality. Sexual disciplining can often become the standard for other forms of discipline. 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. 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 worthy introduction to this modernist of the twentieth century for those readers who are daunted by the size of The Man Without Qualities, his unfinished masterpiece.”

• Rated 5 stars

“Infinitely deep study on the relations of power among closed groups and its connection to sexuality. It also serves as a metaphor for what was about to come in Germany. I read this book in one seating and still remember that delicious afternoon.”

• Rated 5 stars

“A must read for whomever enjoys adolescent fiction”

• Rated 2 stars

“I found this story of violence and abuse in a boys' school disturbing. I didn't enjoy reading it - the story is so sad and depressing and unfortunately not even exciting.”

• Rated 5 stars

“brilliant depiction of growing pains”

• Rated 3 stars

“a very strange look at an all boys boarding school. you have to know a lot about eastern/central european culture, freud, etc. Lots of psychology stuff. Interesting and disturbing. Not for younger readers though.”