The confusions of young Törless

Description

The Confusions of Young Törless (German: Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß), or Young Törless, is the literary debut of the Austrian philosophical novelist and essayist Robert Musil, first published in 1906. Musil's novel is ostensibly a Bildungsroman, a story of a young disoriented man searching for moral values in society and their meaning for him. The expressionistic novel, based on Musil's personal experiences at a boarding school in Hranice (in Austria-Hungary, now in the Czech Republic) was written according to Musil "because of boredom". In later life, however, Musil denied that the novel was about youthful experiences of his own. Due to its explicit sexual content, the novel at first caused a scandal among the reading public and the authorities of Austria-Hungary. Later, various prefigurings of Fascism were identified in the text, including the characters of Beineberg and Reiting, who seem to be orderly pupils by day but shamelessly abuse their classmate psychologically, physically and sexually by night.

Subjects

Series Statement

• Penguin twentieth-century classics

Other Editions

• The confusions of young TörlessPenguin Books2001-01-01
• Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings TörlesshardcoverWien1906-01-01
• Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings TörlessGeorg Müller1911-01-01
• Young TorlessSignet / The New American Library1964-09-01
• Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß (German Edition)Rowohlt1966-01-01
• Young TörlessPocket books1978-01-01