num_pages: 217
description: Like his contemporary and rival Sigmund Freud, Robert Musil boldly explored the dark, irrational undercurrents of humanity. The Confusions of Young Törless, published in 1906 while he was a student, uncovers the bullying, snobbery, and vicious homophobic violence at an elite boys academy. Unsparingly honest in its depiction of the author's tangled feelings about his mother, other women, and male bonding, it also vividly illustrates the crisis of a whole society, where the breakdown of traditional values and the cult of pitiless masculine strength were soon to lead to the cataclysm of the First World War and the rise of fascism. A century later, Musil's first novel still retains its shocking, prophetic power.
language: English
title: Young Törless
titlecomplete: Young Törless
genres: Classics, LGBT, Novels, German Literature, 20th Century, Literature, Coming Of Age, Literary Fiction, Fiction, Queer
ratings_count: 8600
publisher: Pantheon