the place is an exclusive all-boys boarding school in Austria. the time is the turn of the 19th century. three boys: Törless, Beineberg, and Reiting. Reiting is an amiable, energetic sort; his aggressive nature is balanced by his charm and ease in the world. Beineberg is an anti-intellectual intellectual; much his father, he yearns to be a mystic. in Törless, still waters run deep and much of the material world holds little interest for him; contemplation and melancholy are his hallmarks. what are three such precocious lads to do with themselves? there is the village whore to spend time with, but these boys' interests go further. what to do, what to do? how about find a fellow schoolchum, learn about his weaknesses, and then grind him into nothing; torment and humiliate, beat, sexually abuse. and so there is a fourth boy: Basini. the three boys play with him.



The Confusions of Young Törless was published in 1906 by Robert Musil. apparently it is autobiographical in nature. it is a philosophical treatise and a classic coming of age novel.



although the novel's narrative is centered around the endless debasement of the passive Basini, that degradation is not at all the novel's primary concern. it is there in the title: the book is about confused young Törless: his quest for logic in an illogical world and his need to quantify the ineffable and his barely-understood desire for transcendence, for an escape from small minds and fixed roles and dualistic morality.



a boy will fight against his surroundings, he will struggle with authority figures, he will be cynical without experiencing enough of the outside world to earn that cynicism. a boy will rationalize or a boy will simply choose not to think about things that disturb him. a boy will strive, a boy will yearn, a boy will barely understand himself. but a boy will try. and he may force others to do the same.



there are worms. a worm is a symbol of decay. or rebirth? a cord dangling from drapes looks a writhing worm in the moonlight. there is a red worm of blood that trickles down Basini's face.

there is an eye; Törless sees it in the boys' secret hideaway. it is an eye made of dust motes and shadows and dim shafts of light. he sees it in the midst of one of Basini's beatings. he contemplates it. what does this eye behold? what is the story of this eye?

there are windows. windows are a window to the unknown; Törless stares through many windows. windows are a window to memory; Törless recalls sounds he once heard through windows. the sky is a window; Törless stares at the sky and is filled with awe, wonder, and fear. Törless is a thinker, Törless is a dreamer. Törless has disturbing feelings: some about his mother, some about the local whore, some about Basini. Törless has hallucinatory dreams with meanings he can only slightly grasp. he tries to share these feelings, these dreams, but no one ever understands.

Törless, Törless, Törless. oh, Törless! you and your yearning, your dreams.



fuck you, Törless. of the three boys, I think you are the worst. Reiting s Basini to read him stories about conquering heroes; then he fucks and beats him. Beineberg s to use Basini as a footrest, make him bark a dog, beat him; sometimes he fucks him. Törless asks Basini searching questions about how he feels, what is going on inside of him while all of this is happening; he makes Basini speak when Basini would rather cry; sometimes he fucks him. guess who Basini falls in love with? Reiting and Beineberg's motivations are banal (despite Beineberg's laughably pretentious attempt to intellectualize his predations): they are cruel boys who enjoy brutalizing someone under their thumb. Törless is not them, he's a sensitive lad. he wants to understand many things, imaginary numbers and order vs. chaos and the logic of dreams. un his friends, he is not a malevolent sort and his sexual arousal at Basini's tortures confuse him. poor, confused Törless! Basini means nothing to him, he considers him to be "meaningless" - except as one of many puzzles he is desperate to figure out. fuck you, Törless. your confusions are nothing compared to what you and your buddies dole out.



the problem with this thoughtful, absorbing, boring, poetic, mechanistic, frustrating, compelling, often brilliant novel is that it is exactly its title character. it is not about the debasement and Törless' key role there. it is all about our protagonist's struggle, his inner life. well, it was a bit hard for this reader to focus on such things when throughout all of the philosophical musings are brief descriptions of the boys' predations. the intellectualization of such acts, their use as metaphor, all the world's a play and we are merely actors on a stage, what goes on behind the curtain and within a mind... honestly I don't give a flying fuckeroo about all that when some weak kid is getting destroyed by stronger kids. you used the wrong metaphor, Musil. all the philosophical musings - I would say 90% of the novel - were rendered obnoxious and uninteresting after it became clear that Musil himself is disinterested in what is happening to Basini. the novel's protagonist, the author also views Basini as meaningless. Musil, you are Törless. you make that crystal clear. and that is not a good look.all-fucked-up masterpiece-theatre time-to-grow-up ...more115 s Orsodimondo [part time reader at the moment]2,287 2,159

SENZA PORTA


Egon Schiele: Autoritratto (1910).

Ogni grande scoperta si compie solo per metà nel cerchio illuminato della mente cosciente, per l’altra metà nell’oscuro recesso del nostro essere più interiore, ed è innanzi tutto uno stato d’animo alla cui estremità sboccia il pensiero come un fiore.

Per me questo è un autentico libro cult, l’esordio (1906) di uno scrittore di cui ho amato sommamente il capolavoro, indimenticabile sin dal titolo, L’uomo senza qualità.
Romanzo di formazione per eccellenza, questo Törless.
E anche di de-formazione se si abbraccia la teoria di alcuni che Beineberg e Reiting, i due studenti più grandi che Törless frequenta, sono dei proto-nazisti: per parafrasare il titolo di un film di Werner Herzog, anche i nazi hanno cominciato da piccoli. Personalmente mi pare interpretazione un po’ forzata.
Romanzo sui turbamenti di quell’età infernale chiamata adolescenza, quegli anni in cui è necessario esser qualcuno di fronte a se stessi e tuttavia si è ancora troppo incompiuti per essere veramente qualcuno.


Mathieu Carrière (a sinistra) è “Il giovane Törless” nel film del 1966 diretto da Volker Schlondorff.

La magia comincia dalle primissime pagine nelle quali Musil descrive la “nostalgia” per i genitori che il giovane Törless - chiamato sempre per cognome come tutti gli altri personaggi – sviluppa al suo arrivo nel prestigioso e severissimo collegio militare: un sentimento sconosciuto, perché quando li aveva accanto, e davanti agli occhi, non avrebbe mai potuto immaginare che presto li avrebbe pensati con tale forza nostalgica, senza però riuscire a ricomporre la loro immagine davanti agli occhi della sua mente.
L’incapacità a ricreare la figura fisica dei genitori dipende dalla complessità e imprecisione del sentimento della nostalgia: e la sparizione dell’immagine finisce con l’essere la prova che proprio lì il desiderio s’appunta.
E poi, man mano che la permanenza nel collegio assorbe Törless e lo trascina in una nuova esistenza, con lo smorzarsi della nostalgia e lo svilupparsi delle relazioni sociali tra coetanei, il “senso di vuoto”: il sentimento si astrattizza, si sublima, ed eventualmente degenera. Inaridendosi dà luogo a un tormentoso senso di vuoto e di nulla. Esempio di narcisismo, e del masochismo che gli è complementare (riflesso?).


Aleksander Deineka: I ragazzi escono dallÂ’acqua (1935).

Il grigio e la rigidità che si aspetta da un collegio militare dell’inizio del Novecento nella provincia dell’Impero Austro-Ungarico, Musil riesce a trasmetterli descrivendo il paesaggio stinto e malato e l’umanità del paese che circonda l’istituto.
Musil sembra cresciuto a pane e psicoanalisi, proprio come il suo collega e compatriota Arthur Schnitzler, entrambi austriaci come Sigmund Freud. La sottigliezza psicologica del suo narrare traspare in ogni pagina, e dopo le riflessioni su nostalgia, solitudine e vuoto, ci si imbatte nell’analogia tra il groviglio di sensazioni e pulsioni erotiche che Božena, la prostituta del borgo, suscita nel giovane Törless con le suggestioni edipiche che il pensiero della madre risveglia sin dalla sua infanzia.
Riflessioni che quasi immediatamente, senza neppure uscire dalla stanza della donna che vende il suo corpo, ma regala anche due risate e un po’ di calore umano, conducono a quelle sull’amore: sentimento che non può essere provato dagli adulti, perché non è tranquillo e composto, ma necessita di gioventù e solitudine per poter palpitare.
E da qui si scivola nel cuore dell’adolescenza contrapposta all’età della maturità …per cui una giornata che volge alla fine non è più un problema. La sua vita invece era puntata su ogni singolo giorno. Per lui ogni notte era un nulla, una tomba, un’estinzione. Non aveva ancora acquistato la capacità di mettersi giù a morire ogni sera senza darsene pensiero.


Le sevizie di Reiting e Beineberg a Basini.

La prostituta Božena riverbera il compagno di collegio Basini che suscita in Törless sia attrazione che repulsione, s’identifica con quello che il giovane turbato del titolo teme potrebbe diventare, al punto da spingerlo a chiedere l’immediato allontanamento dall’istituto di Basini, perniciosa malia da sventare. La degradazione che le fantasie di Törless percepiscono si attualizza nell’esemplificazione reale di Basini: la colpa incestuosa consumata attraverso Božena (incestuosa perché la prostituta risveglia sentimenti edipici nel giovane turbato) determina un desiderio morboso di punirsi attraverso la stessa mercificazione del corpo, o il masochismo, morale e fisico, la cui forma estrema è la passività di Törless di fronte all’aggressione di Reiting e Beineberg ai danni di Basini.


Edvatd Munch: Malinconia (1892).

Era la sensualità segreta, malinconica, senza oggetto dell’adolescenza, che è come la terra umida nera germinante della primavera, o come le oscure acque sotterranee che aspettano solo una spinta casuale per rompere gli argini.
La sensualità, il risveglio erotico giocano un ruolo determinante nei turbamenti dell’alunno Törless: l’attrazione-repulsione per il compagno Basini, come già le pulsioni per Božena, e la nostalgia per i genitori provata durante il primo periodo nell’istituto, sprofondano nei recessi dell’anima, senza lasciare, in apparenza alcuna traccia. Questa latenza dell’affetto erotico induce con la sua presenza/assenza una misteriosa doppiezza della realtà, che diventa in Törless il sentimento dominante, che cerca, inutilmente, di spiegare nel finale al collegio dei docenti. E contemporaneamente si fa strada la convinzione che la formula rivelatrice sia sepolta in lui stesso, anche se continua a restargli inesplicabile.
Musil ci conduce in territori di sensualità scarsamente esplorati all’epoca, qui al confine tra etero e omo sessualità, nel capolavoro della maturità ritorna grandiosamente e il confine là è rappresentato dal rapporto fratello-sorella, dall’aleggiante incesto.


Un altro momento del film.

Sotto tutti i pensieri, io ho in mente qualcosa di oscuro che non posso misurare razionalmente, una vita che non può essere espressa con le parole e che tuttavia è la mia vita…
Alla conclusione del romanzo Törless non ha risolto il suo problema, il nodo della sua esistenza, ma lo ha almeno individuato istintivamente, isolato e “fissato”. Il che gli consentirà da adulto, nel futuro che Musil ci lascia intuire, di darsi una regola di vita i cui connotati saranno la lieve meditabonda stanchezza di chi fa del fallimento una virtù e la sottile ironia di vita.
E io non posso non sentire echeggiare il mistero dell’Uomo senza qualità.

Come non posso non tentare un paragone tra l’adolescente Törless e l’adolescente per eccellenza, Holden Caulfield. Qui, prima dei due conflitti mondiali, un futuro è ancora immaginabile: nel romanzo di Salinger (1951), con le due guerre mondiali alle spalle, la seconda ancora recente, mi pare che il futuro sia molto più incerto.


Un altro autoritratto di Egon Schiele.

PS
“Senza Porta” è il significato più spesso accostato al nome Törless: quindi, chiuso, riservato. Blindato?austria111 s Guille841 2,183


No sé qué pensar de esta novela. No me ha disgustado ni aburrido, pero tampoco me ha parecido nada del otro mundo ni en su forma ni en su fondo.

Lo mejor, todo lo relacionado con el asunto del acoso escolar, la indiferencia de la autoridad escolar, la voluptuosidad que encuentran los participantes en la ejecución del poder físico y psicológico sobre alguien, la cobardía y hasta el gusto por la sumisión del acosado. No sería capaz de apostar sobre cuál es la posición que el autor asume al respecto, lo que es un punto a su favor.

Por el contrario, todo lo relacionado con eso que se denomina novela de crecimiento o de aprendizaje me ha dejado frío, cuando no irritado con esa posibilidad de camino hacia la sabiduría a través de la crueldad. Me ha parecido muy artificioso y sobreactuado todo lo relacionado con las lucubraciones existenciales, la religiosidad trascendentalista, los calores propios de la adolescencia.

Eso sí, la imagen que da fin a la novela me ha parecido fabulosa.100 s Steven Godin2,570 2,761


Readers who associate boarding school fiction with sneaky midnight feasts, harmless pranks or wizardry may come to find the introspection of young Törless’s education not only shocking but also too dense. Musil is not so much interested in investigating the exterior world of the protagonist, and chooses instead to look deeply into the psychological and moral awakening of youth. Young Törless drifts through interior monologue, to dream sequences, to the horrors of life away from home, where punishment is dished out by some nasty little brats that were deplorable. I wanted to drop them down a deep well. But If I'm honest, I didn't really anybody, and it didn't come as a surprise to me either.

Törless was clearly, sexually speaking, in a muddle, and afraid to confront his own feelings and desires. He seems to suggest that for one to live a normal life, one must regulate the depth to which one wants to explore one's desires or the extent to which one wants to obey them. Yet, the more he refuses to interrogate those feelings that draw him closer to his friend, the deeper the internal torments. In a way, it's interesting that parts of the novel can be seen as an early indication to the rise of fascism, and it's written well enough, which I expected anyway, but I found there really wasn't much to , especially the second-half. If I had to write down a list of things I wouldn't want to read about again, then sadistic bullying would definitely be somewhere near the top.austria classic-literature92 s °°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· ????? ??????? ???????? ·._.·°¯°·.·° .·°°° ?·.·´¯`·.·? ?????? ???????? ??????? ????????? ??736 854



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??????? ?????????. humming-closer-no-hesitation-give-m53 s Luís2,092 880

This story of teenagers who allow themselves to persecute one of their own because they consider him inferior saw by others as a premonition of Nazism. But this book also tells us about the victim's behavior, ideas, and calculations that lead the torturers and victims to humiliate and allow themselves to have done, respectively. The inner life and how it is shaken or stimulated by adolescence were well described independently of the history of persecution or perhaps in connection with it. The Confessions (plural) of the pupil Törless do not speak to us only of persecution of school harassment. They are also present throughout the novel, the concern linked to our place in the world at the dawn of the 20th century, the theme of adolescence, pederasty and the search for one's sexuality, belief and doubt in the school institution, the quest for meaning, etc. It was a vibrant, well-written novel with images whose central theme is brand and education.2022-readings coming-of-age e-5 ...more52 s Nikos Tsentemeidis416 264

? Musil ????????? ??? ??????? ??? Mann, Hesse, ????? ????? ?????????? ??? ?????????? ???????????.

?? ???????????? ?????? ????? ????????????? !!!favorite german-literature44 s E. G.1,112 777

Introduction
Note on the Text
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Robert Musil

--The Confusions of Young Törless

Explanatory Notes4-star austria-hungary-slovakia-czech fiction ...more40 s Semjon668 411

Musils Bücher bekommen immer drei Sterne von mir, auch hier. Ein Zeichen völliger Ratlosigkeit, wie ich das Gelesene für mich werten soll. Im Vergleich zum Mann ohne Eigenschaften empfand ich beim Törleß den Erzähler wesentlich prägnanter und vor allem wertender. Das hat mich im ersten Drittel doch sehr überrascht und hielt mich auf Distanz zum Roman. Später ähnelt die Erzählweise dann aber immer mehr dem MoE, d.h. viel direkte Rede mit längeren essayhaften Einschüben über die verschiedensten Themen von Philosophie, Psychologie bis zur Mathematik. Auch ähnelte der Törleß als meist stiller Beobachter der sadistischen Grausamkeiten in seinem Internat charakterlich dem Ulrich aus MoE. Insofern empfand ich es interessant, diesen Roman quasi als Vorgeschichte zum sperrigen Meisterwerk des Autors zu lesen.

Ich hatte vermutet, dass der Törleß eine Art Schülerroman wie Hesses Unterm Rad sei. Doch diese Bücher unterscheiden sich grundlegend. Musils Buch ist weit mehr als eine Gesellschaftskritik einer geschundenen Jugend. Es ist die selbstbewusste Stimme der Jugend, die eine neue Zeit proklamiert und die alten bürgerlichen Normen und Werte zerschlagen will. Und das tut sie nicht nur mit Worten und Gedankenspielen, sondern physisch anhand eines Sündenbocks, den sie auserkoren, zu quälen und zu erniedrigen. Der Mitschüler Basini wird gerade zu entmenschlicht, wenn er auf dem Dachboden geschlagen, gedemütigt und vergewaltigt wird. Das war mir teilweise zu explizit in der Gewaltdarstellung und las sich dadurch unangenehm. Aber Musil ergötzt sich nicht daran, sondern lenkt den Fokus mehr auf den Beobachter Törleß und seine Gedanken und Gefühle beim Betrachten der beklemmenden Geschehnisse. Das wirkt dann schon visionär, wie er Themen anspricht, die für ein Buch zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts sicherlich ungewöhnlich und skandalös waren. Insbesondere wenn sich Törleß Gedanken um seine geschlechtliche Identität macht und homosexuelle Erfahrungen erlebt. Das hat mich beeindruckt. Zudem sind die beiden Sadisten Reiting und Beineberg in ihrer menschenverachtend Haltung ein Typus, den man mit den Nationalsozialisten gleich setzen möchte. Beschreibt Musil da schon eine sich erst 30 Jahre später auftretende Katastrophe? Der Gedanke drängt sich auf, aber der militärisch geprägten Reiting als Napoleon als Vorbild und der hat die Menschen auch verheizt in seinen barbarischen Kriegen. Das Dunkle im Menschen war schon immer da und Musil kann es gut beschreiben.

Gestört hat mich allerdings der allwissende Erzähler, der aus der zeitlichen Distanz von mehreren Jahren immer wieder erklärend eingreift, wenn man selbst versucht, Schlüsse aus den Aussagen und dem Handeln der Personen zu schließen. Ich fühlte mich bevormundet und auch teilweise verwirrend zugequatscht, wenn mal so etwas wie eine Handlung entstand, die dann aber wieder durch eine längere Abhandlung abgewürgt wurde. Man muss schon Spaß am Fabulieren Musils haben, um an seinen Büchern Gefallen zu finden. Daher ist der Törleß ein guter Einstieg, wenn man sich dem Mann ohne Eigenschaften stellen will. Es war auf jeden Fall eine interessante Lektüre, aber ich bleibe weiterhin eher Anhänger der klassischen Erzählweise bei Romanen aus dieser Zeit und würde Mann, Hesse oder Fontane dem Musil vorziehen. 39 s6 comments Jimmy512 821

The Confusions of Young Torless is an incredible book, reminiscent at times of Rilke in its ability to wrestle with complex spiritual and psychological themes. Reading this book was constantly trying to grasp something slightly abstract, slightly out of reach, though very human and real and rooted in language. This is an ambitious (though short) book, an extremely thoughtful and difficult read.

Maybe it is fitting that the book is so hard to describe, since one of its main themes is the ineffable-ness of certain human experience. One thing the book is NOT about, however, is the "devastating" effects of the "abuse of power" as it states in the back of the book. Sure, that's what happens, but the author's focus seems determinedly "off", always in the head of young Torless, who approaches the events that unfold with a much deeper and complex inquisitiveness than the simple moral lesson/parable suggested in that blurb.

At the center is the metaphor of imaginary numbers. Torless learns of them in math class, and spends some pages thinking about how we can start with something completely real, apply an element that does not exist to it (but we pretend it does, temporarily, just for the sake of conjecture) and that the logical result of that (because the imaginary numbers eventually cancel each other out on both sides of the equation) is a real result. But that the bridge between the two real worlds is one that's completely made up.

This metaphor, though not always explicitly stated, can be applied to many of the themes in this book: the way our conceptions of "self" are propped up by a set of lies we tell ourselves, the way we conduct our lives in the daytime differently from at night (though we need the night as a bridge to get to the next day), the way we can be completely rational with our thoughts even though we are essentially emotional (and irrational) beings.

The confusion of young Torless becomes our confusion as he thinks obscurely about these themes among many others: guilt, shame, pride, sexuality, the contradictions of the self, coherence between mind, body, and soulÂ… and how we smooth over these contradictions of ourselves. The writing itself is sometimes very confusing, I often found myself lost in what the book was trying to say (especially in the first 50 pages, which seemed at times aimless), but it is that effort that slowly begins to make sense as the book reveals itself; as the book gets less and less abstract, the writing itself becomes more tangible.austria male my-canon ...more36 s Christopher316 102

--That moment when you realize that having your head in the clouds is not always a good thing. In short, the "confusions" of Young Torless are the confusions of all who wonder how the seemingly rational person can become embroiled in the heinous. But also--

"And suddenly--and it seemed to him as if it had happened for the very first time--Torless became aware of how incredibly high the sky was.
It was almost a shock. Straight above him, shining between the clouds, was a small, blue hole, fathomlessly deep.
He felt it must be possible, if only one had a long, long ladder, to climb up and into it. But the further he penetrated, raising himself on his gaze, the further the blue, shining depth receded. And still it was as though some time it must be reached, as though by sheer gazing one must be able to stop it and hold it. The desire to do this became agonizingly intense." (87)

--Young Torless is a thoughtful youth, and by that I mean that his head is full of the thoughts typical of youth- of conventional, nascent navel-gazers. Not thoughts for others, but the poetry of self-indulgence. The things that occur to people when they have a surfeit of time and a dearth of responsibility. Yet none are sustained for long enough to be useful and are abandoned at the first vertiginous point.

"Now Torless began to think about this, making an effort to be as calm and rational as he could. 'Of course there is no end,' he said to himself, 'it just keeps going on and on forever, into infinity.' He kept his eyes fixed on the sky, saying this aloud to himself as though he were testing the power of a magic formula." (87-88)

--One might be tempted to glimpse one's own early musings in this military boarding school boy. Who hasn't been startled by the concept of imaginary numbers? Who hasn't experienced the shock of starting with concrete operations, lapsing into impossibilities of i, suspending disbelief long enough to find a couple of canceling squares for your nasty roots, and coming out on the other side with something both intelligible and meaningful? Who hasn't thought that reading philosophy was pointless because Kant already nailed it all down in a couple of dusty tomes?

"But it was no use; the words meant nothing, or rather, they meant something quite different, as if, while dealing with the same subject, they were taking it from another side, one that was strange, unfamiliar and irrelevant.
'Infinity!'...
But now it flashed through him, with startling clarity, that there was something terribly disturbing about this word. It seemed to him a concept that had been tamed and with which he himself had been daily going through his little circus tricks; and now all of a sudden it had broken loose. Something surpassing all comprehension, something wild and annihilating, that once had been put to sleep by some ingenious operation, had suddenly leapt awake and was there again in all its terrifying strength. There in the sky, it was standing over him, alive and threatening and sneering." (88)

--It is the re-reading of precisely these lines that points up what I find utterly terrifying about this book. Torless' descent is more than one of complaisance or complicity, it must be recognized as commissive (simplified: Torless, and two other classmates, Reiting and Beineberg torture a younger, weaker coeval, by physical beatings, sexual assaults, mental abuse) though I can see Torless' defense attorneys reading for a plea down. What makes matters even more repugnant is the ease with which the perpetrators distance themselves from the victim and the detachment of the adult rectors who seem eager to latch onto some muddy metaphysical rationalizations during the proceeding, farcical inquest. The sum is the disconcerting feeling of staring into an evil abyss, which is rendered all the more stomach churning by its banality. Or maybe it's just the passivity of the individual infected by the sickness of herd?

--Here Reiting discusses changing the tactics for abusing the victim, shifting from individualized brutality to mob blindness (lines which I believe are responsible for the book's blurb claiming that this work prefigured the rise of Nazism, at least from a group-psychological standpoint):

"We can turn it over in our minds, polish it up and keep on adding new refinements. Without the appropriate details it's still a bit of a bore, for the present. Perhaps we'll hand him right over to the class to deal with. That would be the most sensible thing to do. If each one of so many contributes even a little, it'll be enough to tear him to pieces. And anyway, I have a liking for these mass movements. Nobody means to contribute anything spectacular, and yet the waves keep rising higher and higher, until they break over everyone's head. You chaps just wait and see, nobody will lift a finger, but all the same there'll be a terrific upheaval. Instigating a thing that gives me really quite particular pleasure." (174-175)

--Awful stuff. Gah. So, how can I rate this four stars? I guess it is simply this: Musil's prose (which the book's blurb so accurately describes as "claustrophobic" and "poetic") is immersive and engaging. The reader is bound and horrified. Further, I've never been able to understand the phrase "the banality of evil." Now, I might.

Note: I read the Wilkins and Kaiser Englishing, which was so good I forgot I was reading a translation.32 s Anna Carina S.523 143

Wer ist Törleß und was beschäftigt ihn?

„Ihre Ränder verloren sich in dem ringsum zertretenen Boden und waren nur an zwei Reihen Akazienbäumen kenntlich, die traurig mit verdursteten, von Staub und Ruß erdrosselten Blättern zu beiden Seiten standen.
Machten es diese traurigen Farben, machte es das bleiche, kraftlose, durch den Dunst ermüdete Licht der Nachmittagssonne: Gegenstände und Menschen hatten etwas Gleichgültiges, Lebloses Mechanisches an sich, als seien sie aus der Szene eines Puppentheaters genommen.“

Ein junges Männlein, das gleichgültig und leblos durch seine Welt wabert. Das Gefühl, nur ausgetreten Fußspuren zu folgen und entdeckt: da ist so unfassbar viel Unverstandenes in mir, ein unausgefülltes Nichts, eine Sehnsucht, die verstörenden Genuss findet, an Dingen, die nicht sein sollen. Hilflosigkeit, Orientierungslosigkeit, Angst vor subtilen Empfindeleien, das Gefühl etwas verloren zu haben, von dem er nicht weiß was es ist.

„Er fühlte sich mehr denn je verlassen und auf verlornem Posten, aber in dieser Wehmut lag ein feines Vergnügen, ein Stolz, etwas Fremdes zu tun, einer unverstandenen Gottheit zu dienen. Und dann konnte wohl auch vorübergehend in seinen Augen etwas aufleuchten, das an den Aberwitz religiöser Ekstase gemahnte.

Zu Beginn des Buches versucht Törleß in Relexionen diese Empfindungen und Gedanken zu fassen und fühlt sie zurückweichen. Das Reale entzieht sich dem Symbolischen.
Er ermüdet schnell in diesen Reflexionen und zieht eine Mauer hoch.

Grundsätzlich verhandelt Musil die Grenzen formaler Systeme, anhand von Kant und den Übergang vom Konkreten, Verstandesmäßigem zum Unbekannten, Unsagbaren, Metaphysischen. Törleß ist Positivismuskritik und ein Mahnmal, wie jemand auf dem Weg zur Subjektivierung krepiert – sich im Erwachsenenalter an eine formale, abstrakte Moral hängt, ohne konkreten Inhalt des moralischen Lebens.

Er zählte dann zu jenen ästhetisch-intellektuellen Naturen, welchen die Beachtung der Gesetze und wohl auch teilweise der öffentlichen Moral eine Beruhigung gewährt, weil sie dadurch enthoben sind, über etwas Grobes, von dem feineren seelischen Geschehen Weitabliegendes nachdenken zu müssen, die aber eine gelangweilte Unempfindlichkeit mit dieser großen äußeren, ein wenig ironischen Korrektheit verbinden, sobald man ein persönlicheres Interesse für deren Gegenstände von ihnen verlangt.

Hauptsache nicht Denken! Bitte keine Reflexivität! Keine Versöhnung mit dem Anderen! Schöngeistige Fassade aufgelegt und auf zum Überwinden und Verdrängen! Gesetzgebende Moral auf Post it gepinnt, angeklebt und die Finsternis umschifft.
Huch, was machen die ganzen autoritären Gestalten hier?
__________________________________
Mein überfordertes Geblubber nach dem ersten Read (2021-02):

Ein sprachliches Fest- Musil versteht es die Pupertären Gefühlswirrungen in poetische, psychologisch ausdrucksstarke Worte und Beobachten zu packen, wie ich es noch nie gelesen habe. Jede Seite ist ein Fest mit Hunderten Möglichkeiten nachzusinnen. Ein Buch das ich nur sehr langsam lesen konnte, weil es eine solche Wucht hat.001-highlight 070-europa-mittel-sued-west 071-österreich27 s3 comments Tara490 27

“At that moment he didn’t mankind, the grown-ups, the adults. He never d them when it was dark. At such times it was his habit to think mankind away. Then the world would seem a dark, empty house, and he felt a shudder inside himself, as if now he had to search through room after room—dark rooms where you didn’t know what was hidden in the corners—feeling his way across the thresholds where no foot would tread any more apart from his, until in one room the doors in front of and behind him would suddenly close and he would be facing the mistress of the black hordes herself. And at that moment all the locks of all the other doors he had come through would shut, and far beyond the walls the shadows of the darkness would stand watch, black eunuchs, keeping out all human contact.”
The Confusions of Young Törless was one of those haunting, harrowing works that gouged its way into my bones. It rent and dissevered my mind, and I fucking loved it for that. It altered my inner landscape; I will carry it with me always. Within the first 10 pages I was already asking myself, “How the shit have I not heard of this before?!” Musil’s voice was that astonishing.

The book was an instant favorite. The species of searing, devastating sensation it evoked in me has become far rarer the older I get. And aren’t these chance encounters precisely why we continue to pursue literature? We are hooked on this elusive, indescribable feeling, this inimitable spark, this jolt. There’s nothing else it. Törless provided me with one of these unforgettable reading experiences, and for that I’m tremendously grateful. You all know the kind of experience I’m talking about:



Due to the profound influence it had on me, this is one of those books I canÂ’t ever hope to properly explain, or do any justice to in a review. I usually refrain from even attempting in cases these. And yet I canÂ’t stop myself from spewing out all of these wretched, useless syllables anyway, though my words are already pissing me off with their contemptible insufficiency.

Interestingly enough, the notion of the inadequacy of words is actually examined rather extensively in this book. Ironically, Musil describes the (at times unbearable) limitations of language in a staggeringly eloquent fashion. His formidable word-wielding really blew me away. He included a related quote from Maurice Maeterlinck at the beginning of the book, which set the tone for this theme admirably:
“As soon as we put something into words, in a strange way we devalue it. We think we have plunged into the depths of the abyss, and when we return to the surface the drop of water glistening on our pale fingertips no longer resembles the sea from which it comes. We imagine we have discovered a cave full of wonderful treasures, and when we return to the light of day, we find that all we have brought back is false jewels and shards of glass; and yet the treasure continues to gleam in the dark, unaltered.”
Below is one of MusilÂ’s descriptions of what it feels when youÂ’re searching for the right word or phrase, and it continually eludes you. You despair, and yet you canÂ’t seem to stop trying, though you know that itÂ’s hopeless, and that youÂ’re only torturing yourself. (See also: my experience writing this excruciating review. Sometimes youÂ’ve just gotta love banging your head against the wall. Such delectable masochism.):
“It was as if he had to carry out a never-ending division which always had an obstinate remainder left over, or as if he were feverishly trying to undo an endless knot until his fingers bled.”
IÂ’ll now share some examples of MusilÂ’s particular way of describing things. It was un anything IÂ’ve ever read before. He had a genuinely unique angle, this fucking coolass slant that was utterly astonishing in its beauty and strangeness. I canÂ’t help but include a few quotes here which demonstrate some of this quality, as it was a large part of why the book had such an impact on me:
“Here and there a leaf from the deserted garden would skip up to the lighted window and drag a strip of brightness on its back into the dark that would appear to evade it, to draw back, only to return the next moment and stand once more, unmoving, outside the windows a wall.” “A shiver ran up and down his spine, spider’s feet; then it stopped between his shoulderblades and with slender claws pulled his scalp down.” “In all the corridors the dark waves of silence seemed to be asleep, unmoving. He was trying to find his way back to himself, but they were blocking all the doors black guards.” “He was surrounded by a frenzy of emotions, as if by lascivious women in high-necked gowns and masks over their faces.” ”He remembered old paintings he had seen in museums without really understanding them. He was waiting for something, just as when, looking at the pictures, he had always been waiting for something that never happened. For what…? For something surprising, something never before seen; for an overwhelming sight that he could not imagine at all; for something of awful, animal sensuousness that would grasp him, as if with claws, and tear him apart, starting with his eyes…” ”There were moments when life at the school was a matter of complete indifference to him. Then the cement that his daily cares provided would dissolve and, with no inner connection, the hours of his life would fall apart.” “Their cheerfulness was only superficial; the sound of their merry laughter seemed to fade only a few steps behind them, as if, encountering strong, invisible resistance, it had sunk to the ground.” “He let his eye drift over the useless gilded ornamentation that was piled up inside this person’s inner being until he had formed a vague image of it, as if, without being able to formulate the thought precisely, his fingers were tracing the line of an arabesque that was beautiful but entwined according to strange laws.” “Everything that was stirring inside him was still in darkness, but he could already feel a desire to stare at the forms of that darkness that the others didn’t see. This desire was accompanied by a slight shiver. As if from now on his life would be spent under a grey, overcast sky—with heavy clouds, monstrous, changing figures, and the ever-repeated question: Are they monsters? Are they just clouds?” “When he walked it was with smooth, lissom movements, with that rather timid way of drawing oneself in, making oneself slender, that is characteristic of those who are in the habit of striding erect through a suite of empty rooms, where someone else seems to bump into invisible corners of the empty space.”

And, just as I thought, IÂ’ve entirely failed to convey the essence of this book. Shit.


To conclude, though I certainly reacted intensely to it, I canÂ’t say that IÂ’d recommend this book to everyone. It was dark and disturbing; cruelty and sadism can be difficult to stomach. That said, the book had such a plenitude of magnificent language and imagery, and so many potent psychological insights, itÂ’d be a shame if you let the subject matter keep you away. Also, the inner torment that accompanies the struggle to find oneÂ’s identity during adolescence is detailed particularly exquisitely.

And for those inclined to actively seek out and peer into the darker chasms of the human psyche (aka my kind of people!), I daresay you won’t soon forget your journey with Törless through that bleak, murky terrain.


“Feeling defiled is one more solitude and one more dark wall.” 26 s Daisy238 85

a less interesting Lord of the Flies. Set in an exclusive boys boarding school it explores the idea that humans (although the body of literature would suggest it's more expensively educated boys) are naturally cruel and without scrutiny will act on these baser instincts, especially when in a group. It is prescient to the Stanford prison experiment as we have a group of early teenaged boys deciding to exert their own punishment upon a boy they have caught stealing. The victimisers couch their behaviour in various ways to make it more palatable – one has an Eastern mystic philosophical explanation, Torless to view as an objective observer – as they become increasingly sadistic.
A short book but one that had me looking forward to the end.40 s Alexander Carmele270 113

Ein Anti-Entwicklungsroman: Das Chthonische schlägt zurück.

Inhalt: 5/5 Sterne (einzelpsychologische Vivisektion)
Form: 5/5 Sterne (Lücken erlaubendes, assoziatives, schwebendes Schreiben)
Komposition: 4/5 Sterne (konsistent, am Ende zu kurz abgehandelt)
Leseerlebnis: 5/5 Sterne (ein chthonisches gruselig Nachhallen)

Ausführlicher, vielleicht begründeter auf kommunikativeslesen.com

Neben den vielen aktuellen Coming-Of-Age-Romanen lohnt sich hier und da ein Blick zurück. Als gegenwärtige wären da u.a. zu nennen: Ariane Kochs „Die Aufdrängung“, Benedict Wells „Hard Land“, Claudia Schumachers „Liebe ist gewaltig“, Eckhart Nickels „Spitzweg“ oder Stephen Kings „Später“. All diese konzentrieren sich sehr auf die emotionale Berg- und Talfahrt im Erwachsenenleben, weniger aber auf das sogenannte Intellektuelle oder Geistige. Anders hier, in Robert Musils „Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleߓ:

„Diesen dunklen, geheimnisvollen Weg, den [Törleß] gegangen. Wenn sie ihn fragen würden: warum hast du Basini misshandelt? – so könnte er ihnen doch nicht antworten: weil mich dabei ein Vorgang in meinem Gehirn interessierte, ein Etwas, von dem ich heute trotz allem noch wenig weiß und vor dem alles, was ich darüber denke, mir belanglos erscheint. Dieser kleine Schritt, der ihn noch von dem Endpunkte des geistigen Prozesses trennte, den er durchzumachen hatte, schreckte ihn wie ein ungeheurer Abgrund.“

Der Plot lässt sich schnell umreißen. Zwei Jugendliche quälen, missbrauchen einen vierten, und Törleß als Vierter, springt mal dem Opfer, mal den Tätern unentschieden und mal aus geistiger, begehrlicher, moralischer oder zufälliger Hinsicht zur Seite. Die Struktur speist sich aus dem Ungenauen, das sich in Törleß abspielt, der kein Held gewöhnlicher Gestalt ist. In ihm verkörpert sich vielmehr ein gewisses zivilisatorisches Erlahmen, eine vorweggenommene Gestalt dessen, was als gescheiterte Aufklärung knapp zwanzig Jahres später Oswald Spengler in „Der Untergang des Abendlandes“ umreißen sollte. Auf den Text bezogen, Törleß vermag nicht mit intellektuellen Mitteln sein Begehren, seine Leidenschaft, seine Lust zu durchschreiten und verfällt er deshalb umso barbarischer und verantwortungsloser:

„Und nun begann Törleß doch noch zu schreiben, – aber hastig und ohne mehr auf die Form zu achten. »Ich fühle«, notierte er, »etwas in mir und weiß nicht recht, was es ist.« Rasch strich er aber die Zeile wieder durch und schrieb an ihrer Stelle: »Ich muss krank sein, – wahnsinnig!« Hier überlief ihn ein Schauer, denn dieses Wort empfindet sich angenehm pathetisch. »Wahnsinnig, – oder was ist es sonst, dass mich Dinge befremden, die den anderen alltäglich erscheinen? Dass mich dieses Befremden quält? Dass mir dieses Befremden unzüchtige Gefühle« – er wählte absichtlich dieses Wort voll biblischer Salbung, weil es ihn dunkler und voller dünkte – »erregt? «“

Dieser Coming-of-Age-Roman beschreibt, wie kein anderer, das Nicht-Coming-of-Age, denn Törleß verbleibt unentschieden, pendelnd, unsicher inmitten der Dinge, ohne Verantwortung und Selbstbewusstsein zu erlangen. Das Kalte und Leere, das sich in den Versuchen von Törleß widerspiegeln, steigern im Text sich zum Gespenstigen, zu einer Art unheimlichem Nachvollzugs eines Scheitern, eines Selbst, das vor sich zurückschreckt und letztlich in sich zusammenfällt. Das Grauen erinnert an Edgar Allan Poes Der Fall des Hauses Usher oder Das verräterische Herz. In Musils Debütroman vereist sich das Denken zu einer psychopathologischen Pattsituation, aus dem Törleß nicht mehr herausfindet:

„So wie ich [Törleß] fühle, dass ein Gedanke in mir Leben bekommt, so fühle ich auch, dass etwas in mir beim Anblicke der Dinge lebt, wenn die Gedanken schweigen. Es ist etwas Dunkles in mir, unter allen Gedanken, das ich mit den Gedanken nicht ausmessen kann, ein Leben, das sich nicht in Worten ausdrückt und das doch mein Leben ist ….“

Musil beschreibt das Heranwachsen eines unempfindlichen Individuums, das sich nur für die eigenen Sensationen, für den eigenen Thrill interessiert, und bereitet den Weg für die Darstellung von Figuren wie Patrick Bateman aus Bret Easton Ellis‘ Roman „American Psycho“ oder wie in Truman Capotes „Kaltblütig“. Auf seine Weise steht Musils Entwicklungsroman sehr eigenständig dar, eine vorweggenommene Ausdeutung dessen, was später die Dialektik der Aufklärung genannt wird und begrifflich das Scheitern der Aufklärung selbst zementiert. Das Chthonische hallt nach und schlägt in der Persona Törleß, ohne ein Wässerchen zu trüben, ungemindert zurück.favorites owned-books25 s2 comments Tony961 1,687

Törless is confused. Indeed, the title of this book, in some editions (not mine), is The Confusions of Young Törless. Skimming the plot surface of this book, Törless is a student in an Austrian military school. Two student-friends of Törless find out that yet another student, Basini, has been stealing small amounts of money. They proceed to sadistically, homosexually torture him. Törless finds himself aroused, and, thus, confused.

Törless finds himself in ...a frequent sudden lassitude ... with a queer uneasiness ... a tingling in his brain ... a fine-toothed doubt ... a vague feeling ... a foreboding that he was wasting his time ... a dense, gluey boredom ... a queer state that kept him awake ... utterly mangled ... with his suffocating heart ... he lay there, all wrapped up in his memories ... to say nothing of the light flittering feet of innumerable iridescent lizards.

I would have appreciated a sign that said: HERE BE LASSITUDE!

There are works of literature that are about one thing, but are really about the author's struggle with sexual identity. (I had a professor that was certain Kafka was crying out.) Young Törless is inside out of that. The plot is all about four boys engaged in homosexual acts, but that's not the point. Smarter folks than me have called this "a chilling foreshadowing of the coming of Nazism."(New York Times Book Review) But that's about 30 years of foreshadowing, so I don't know.

In order to fully understand what Musil is talking about in this novel, Nazis or otherwise, you'd need to have a working understanding of mathematical imaginary numbers and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. I don't and you can't make me.austrian25 s Banu Gür34 66

Bu nas?l bir psikolojik tahlil, ifade yetene?i, belagat? ?a?t?m kald?m Musil'e ^^ Mihail Bahtin dostum a?z?m? doldura doldura diyorum ki halt etmi?sin, üzgünüm :)dünya-edebiyat? favorites23 s Lea980 265

I'm floored that this is a novel from 1906. I got uncomfortable reading this on public transport because of how violent and intense it was. I was sucked in from early on, knowing nothing about this book whatsoever beside it being a classic. "A Bildungsroman, a story of a young disoriented man searching for moral values in society and their meaning for him" wikipedia says, and true enough, it is, but on a more basic level it's about depravity at a boarding school, about peer pressure and sexual awakenings and trying to make sense of an ultimately absurd world. It also read, at times, slightly unhinged, which just sucked me in more. That weird dream about Kant and his math teaching is going to haunt me. I breezed through this novel and will definitely read it again. The language is fantastic, the prose practical and yet unusual, and the content, well, actually shocked me - of course with the knowledge how long ago it was written, and how modern it feels in its core. I also found myself thinking "I wish this is what they meant with dark academia, then I'd read more of it!".2024 austria classics ...more23 s2 comments Dream.M676 90

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????????? ?? ??????? ??? “???????? ????? ?????????”21 s Carlo MascellaniAuthor 11 books283

Con quella fine analisi introspettiva e psicologica che caratterizza molti dei suoi scritti, in questo splendido romanzo di formazione Musil traccia la crescita personale, intellettuale e, soprattutto spirituale del giovane Törless, la scoperta del sé che passa tra luci e ombre, tra sessualità e sofferenza e non esita certo a sprofondare anche nel disgusto o nella disillusione quando si ritrova a fare i conti con la bassa crudeltà umana. Un percorso complesso e spesso incerto, compreso in un costante stato riflessivo che, in ultima analisi, porta alla scoperta di una diversità quasi inconciliabile con un contesto esterno gretto e ottuso. Ermocolle412 34

Terminata la lettura del libro ho riletto la recensione di Orsodimondo e l'ho trovata perfetta: ha centrato i temi essenziali ed è esaustiva al punto che non resta altro da aggiungere sui contenuti e sugli intenti.

Quello che posso riportare invece sono le mie impressioni: la lettura è stata per me di immersione totale, il sentire di Torless è narrato in maniera compiuta e, a tratti, la tematica universale, permette di riconoscere i conflitti tipici dell'adolescenza, l'anelito di appartenenza al gruppo, la richiesta ostentata di accettazione per trovare una confortevole zona di azione nella collettività.

E, a questo conformismo, il sacrificio della propria individualità è un tributo che appare irrilevante; almeno fintanto che la coscienza di sé non diventa invece condizione imprescindibile per crescere e affermarsi.

Un romanzo di formazione permeato di psicologia ma, come esplicitato da Musil stesso mediante lettere ai quotidiani, non da intendersi come dottrina scientifica da spiegare per far comprendere, ma come un vissuto riflessivo, per far "sentire" sulla pelle e nei sensi del lettore un coinvolgimento che vada oltre le singole vicende così come narrate, che quindi rivestono carattere accessorio e non pregiudizievole del congenito messaggio cosmico.

Per quanto mi riguarda ha centrato l'obiettivo.

?"Egli paventava tali fantasie, conscio della perversità ch'era nel loro fondo, e temeva che prendessero sempre più potere su di lui. Ma quelle lo sopraffacevano nei momenti in cui credeva di essere più serio e più puro. Forse questo avveniva per reazione ad altri momenti, in cui intuiva esperienze sentimentali diverse, che maturavano in lui troppo precocemente. Una forza etica di grande finezza, nella fase iniziale del suo sviluppo, indebolisce l'anima, anche se di essa, un giorno, costituirà forse l'esperienza più audace; come se, nell' affondare le radici, dovesse sconvolgere il terreno, che le radici stesse, in futuro sosterranno. Per questo gli adolescenti di grande avvenire hanno, il più delle volte, un passato ricco d' umiliazioni."21 s Miloš Kosti?40 52

Dobro, to je taj problem sa ocenjivanjem. Knjigama koje nemaju ve ciljeve olako dajemo silne zvezdice dok prema knjigama velikih majstora koje ne uspeju sve što žele ?esto budemo previše strogi. Nije ovo loša knjiga, možda sam preterao s trojkom ali, nažalost, nije ni za pet. Ovo je Muzilova prva knjiga koju je napisao i to u vreme dok još nije pomišljao da se u potpunosti posveti pisanju. Tako, uopšte ne može da se poredi s ?ovekom bez osobina. O?igledno je da se ovde još uvek tražio. Tražio se i stilski. Vidi se da je Muzil od po?etka bio ?ovek koji nije pristajao na kompromise. Vidi se i njegov stav da umetnost pre svega treba da tera na razmišljanje. Ovo je roman koji ima mnogo nivoa. Ali ovde još nije uspeo da do?e do one raskošne filozofije iz svog glavnog dela. Doduše, to mu ovde nije ni glavni cilj. Ovde je više u prvom planu psihologija, razvoj i problemati?an položaj slabih i slobodnomisle?ih de?aka u vojnoj školi i uopšte u autoritarnom svetu. Tako?e, otvara i škakljiva pitanja eksperimentisanja sa homoseksualnoš?u i surovoš?u mladi?a u takvim sredinama. Da, ima filozofiranja i stalno se smenjuju delovi dijaloga i radnje sa razradom filozofskih muka mladog ?oveka ali ništa od toga meni nije od nekog zna?aja. I to mi je osnovni problem, nedore?enost i nedovoljna relevantnost (barem za mene) razmišljanja u ovoj knjizi. U smislu, mogao sam i bez ove knjige i sumnjam da ?u joj se vra?ati. Malo mi je i sve konfuzno. Ali sve to ne zna?i, da se kajem što sam potrošio par sati teško se probijaju?i kroz ovaj roman. I još uvek imam želju da pro?itam i ostala njegova dela.22 s Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly755 368

The New York Times Book Review was supposed to have said that this novel, published in 1906, was a chilling foreshadowing of the coming of Nazism. That, I feel, was a bit of a stretch.

Four young men in an all-boys military school in Austria, maybe sometime the start of 20th century. Torless, with his heavy philosophical musings, and around whom the story is built; Basini, weak and victimized; Beineberg, the mad (silly, to me) mystic; and Reiting, the manipulator who revels on torture. At the side (of the story, and of the school too) is a house where an aging prostitute lives. As expected, what with these good-looking boys with raging libido and no girls on sight (except a prostitute who mocks them), there were some boy-and-boy loving. Then, the bullying and abuse by the strong against the weak.

Admittedly, Beineberg's crazy ideas, though not racist, may be ned to Hitler's own, to some degree. He and Reiting, with their adolescent cruelty, could conceivably have grown into full-blown Nazis by the 1930's. Still, however, they were not that unusual. There are bullies and lunatics in all schools, even up to now.

Trying to understand what Torless was saying, in the midst of all these, was the torture for me. One can say they were too deep for me to understand. Another might say, however, that they're just plain baloney. Whatever.19 s Jacob Overmark207 9

The Confusions of Young Robert Musil

Semi-autobiographically little Robert slowly develops into an adolescent. Sensitive and insecure in the company of equally insecure boys without qualities, except being of respectable aristocratic families.

Coming-of-age in a boarding school environment where everyone is eager to prove his manhood (!) either by showing traces of intellect, by being the master bully or bragging of imaginary amorous adventures.

The long and winding road leading to climax is very foreseeable – for a man who studied both psychology and philosophy and even graduated the latter cum laude, the descriptions of the mechanisms at work in groups is quite weak.
Controversial for it´s time? Maybe, but even in Austria it was an open secret what boys did together after dark.

There is nothing of real interest to be obtained from this work, no new insight into human soul or behavior and nothing of historical significance. In short, it was a waste of time.
german-language-authors read-owned reviewed17 s Fede213

Decadent Austro-Hungarian kids torture and sodomize a classmate as a rehearsal of the upper-class adulthood awaiting them out of the military academy.

Physical and psychological harassment!
A crumbling empire!
Pre-nazi post-sadism galore!
Depravity!
Pseudo-Freudian expressionism!
The chance to hear the bookshop assistant's ooohs and aaahs as you put a book by Robert Musil on the counter!
No need to say I licked my lips as soon as I read the blurb. Boy, I must have looked Wile E. Coyote drooling after the Road Runner.

Ahem.

Mährisch Weisskirschen, Moravia, around 1900.
Three teen cadets of a military school spend their time hiding in attics and cellars turned into impromptu boudoirs, eating pastries and paying weekly visits to a Slavic pockmarked whore in the nearby village. Spoiled brats get easily bored though, especially when they also happen to be mad as they come, as the author tells us from the very beginning.
We know little more about them: no first names, no information about their origins and age, the fewest possible descriptions of their looks. All the author really wants us to keep in mind is that these kids are utterly insane, each of them in his own way.
Törless, the protagonist, is obsessed with sex and quite keen on introspection and self-abasement. His mind is haunted by fantasies of blasphemy and incest (more precisely, he gets off imagining her mother's sexual life). Hence his morbid attraction to the scum, seen as a means to fill an existential void made of the feeling of not belonging in either his own social class nor in the dirty populace, both of which fascinate and disgust him at the same time.
Beineberg is even more disquieting in his potentially murderous ennui: a Mitteleuropean dandy, between Des Esseintes and De Sade's beastly aristocrats, fond of cheap esotericism and weird Hindu philosophy, a hodgepodge of exotic bullshit that allows him to escape his frightening lack of any morals whatsoever.
Last but not least, Reiting - whose violent nature is cunningly sublimated in a destructive, asocial behaviour. This sadistic sociopath, born in a controversial (half ruined?) family and brimming with frustrated dreams of juvenile grandeur, is the basic asshole whose only aim is the objectification of his victim, devoid of any sort of intellectual subtlety.
Quite different natures indeed; unfortunately enough, they all share a penchant for (homo)sexually charged violence that finds the perfect victim - perhaps a scapegoat - in a fourth boy, Basini (clearly Italian origins), a creepy weakling bound to be mercilessly exploited by the depraved trio.
To be honest, nobody would ever shed a tear for him: Basini is so disgustingly opportunist that he hardly stirs up any feeling of sympathy in the reader. What follows is quite predictable: in the eyes of the perpetrators, Basini is the nameless, faceless, voiceless and soulless Untermensch: the less-than-human creature made to be enslaved, thus enduring all its masters' whimsical fantasies. When a farcical series of petty thefts puts the kid in their hands, the boys lose control once and for all.
Although Musil's clever writing never indulges in detailed descriptions of sex and brutality, he basically tells us about a homosexual gang-rape that takes place in a dusty backroom, with plenty of sadistic acts as foreplay - including the use of whips and needles. From this moment on, each of the three buddies gets increasingly involved in experimenting his peculiar version of abusive lust, desires that go beyond mere sex and manifest themselves in the forms of psychological torments (Törless), parodies of tantric spirituality (Beineberg) and sheer old-school sadism (Reiting).

According to Musil, a former student of Weisskirchen college himself, this short novel is full of autobiographical hints and true memories. Although slightly altered for the author's fictional purposes, both the events and the setting are thus supposed to be painfully real; after all, R. M. Rilke gave a similar description of Weisskirchen, which he had also attended a few years before Musil.
Even if the writing style is far from being perfect (in my opinion, that is) this debut novel is amazingly interesting and complex. I dare say it provides the reader with an unexpected insight in the years that shaped last century's collective and individual psyche. No doubt the passages of Törless' musings and ramblings are way too long and often repetitive; they're nonetheless a great example of how deeply the newborn science of psychoanalysis was influencing European literature and arts.
Bildungsroman? Yes, but also a surprisingly good depiction of an era we hardly know and fathom in all its momentous importance.
Forget about the stereotypical idea of a repressive, heavy-handed education in which the students' vulnerable minds are violated with huge doses of ossified culture, religiosity and militarism. On the contrary, what truly scares here is the educational void of the institutions, the total lack of direction and meaning of a whole culture.
Teachers are hardly ever mentioned, let aside a few passages in which they are actually caricatures of themselves. Families are equally non-existent or toxic: mothers seen as ghosts awakening ÂŒdipal pulsions, fathers dismissed as entities floating in a limbo of oblivion. Religion is nothing more than a school lesson nobody cares about. All in all, in such a desert of boredom and hopelessness the claustrophobic atmosphere of the college, so drenched in lust and violence, is the only conceivable way out.
No wonder some of these brats joined the highest ranks of the Nazi party when the real fun began, a couple of decades later, overjoyed to take part in the orgy of blood and lust they probably had been craving since their teens.

Hard to believe this book was written in 1906, huh? But then one must bear in mind these were the years of Freud, Viennese Secession, Die Brücke, Fauvism... Musil's little psychos were indeed the first product of a world that was ridding itself of the burden of the past without daring to take a closer look to the present: a present of moral exhaustion and irrationality in which all the pillars of the old world - State, Family, Church, Army - were walking dead, eaten from within by the worms of their terrifying emptiness.
Musil's characters are certainly the embodiment of his times. However, the reader of nowadays is able to look at them from an even darker perspective: that of the future. We know what was going to happen a few years later to most of these youngsters, a whole generation who would be butchered in the blood-soaked, shitty ratholes of WW1; well-groomed pretty junkers merrily sent to be machine-gunned, eviscerated by hand grenades, killed by typhus in the name of their sacred Country and respectable Families.
Because,
"La bourgeoisie n'a jamais hésité même à tuer ses fils."


Suggested soundtrack: Dum Dum Girls, "Lost Boys And Girls Club".fiction mitteleuropean18 s foteini_dl481 141

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15 s Fede La Lettrice674 62

Törless si autopsicanalizza e psicanalizza gli altri e il mondo (è pure un pochetto parac¥£o alla fine, lasciatemelo scherzosamente affermare).
Törless contiene moltitudini di emozioni, pensieri, idee, anime e qualità (vuoi vedere che è una versione di Ulrich de L'uomo senza qualità? Lo appurerò a breve); le contiene tutte come embrioni di possibilità o non possibilità.
Törless sa cogliere la piccolezza, la solitudine, la pochezza, l'inadeguatezza dell'uomo di fronte all'universo tutto e sa dire perfettamente, come mai ho letto prima, quanto metamorfica, mostruosa, esaltante, devastante, triste e gioiosa sia l'età che non è più fanciulla ma neppure è adulta.

"[...]sentiva di essere tutto solo sotto quella volta immota e silente, gli sembrava di essere un piccolo punto vivo sotto quell'immane cadavere trasparente."

Musil esordisce con questo gioiello, con questo saggio filosofico sull'adolescenza, con questa prosa lucida e cristallina. Aveva solo 26 anni.15 s2 comments Tom40 29

3.5/5read-2021 translated15 s amin akbari307 136

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