Robert Musil Books

Musil's great gift as a writer was to be scientifically precise about ineffable states of mind, and the stories in Three Women (1924) display his talent for creating an atmosphere of metaphysical tension or 'float' out of unremarkable situations with little inherent drama. Not much happens on the surface in these stories, but Musil infuses the not-happening with so much significance that the meaning of humanity's life on earth seems to hang in the balance.

All three involve prosperous, powerful men attached to women they scarcely understand who, in the process of trying to account for that attachment, come to peace with the fact of death. Musil's interests are those of a philosopher or psychologist who's chosen art as his instrument for dissecting the human soul. The metaphors aren't as sharp and memorable as they are in The Man Without Qualities, and the irony's considerably turned down. This lets you see Musil's mystical side a little more clearly, but it also threw my picture of him out of balance--I missed his tart, satirical sense of humor.

The two stories that round out the collection are from Union (1911) and show a younger Musil working up his chops.

Robert Musil is not read much anymore; if he is known at all, it is usually through his monumental work, "The Man Without Qualities" - a piece comparable to both Joyce's "Ulysses" and Mann's "The Magic Mountain" in its complexity and elusiveness. Among the modernists, Musil is noted for his attempt to bring a sort of "mysticism" to the problems and philosophies of society; he was interested in the cacaphony of ideas which littered the modern world, drowning out the order of the past. This new collection of his short stories, previously published separately as "Unions" (1911) and "Three Women" (1924), provides an introduction to Musil for the uninitiated. As one reads these five stories (the "women"), one cannot help but notice the low hum of disorder welling beneath the surface - whether in "Grigia" with it's Poe-like ending, the retro-fairy tale of "The Lady From Portugal" or the seductive hopelessness inherent in "Tonka." These stories are set in a time and place not our own, but the reader is presented with the universal themes of love, death, and power - indeed, the very nature of our being. These works are challenging, they require effort, but ultimately they are rewarding and necessary. Musil once wrote of the "union of soul and economics" - the combination through literature of the ethereal and the real, the past and the present, the timeless and the mortal. This impressive collection is an entrance to Musil's world, to his ideas, and to a better understanding of our own condition.

Robert Musil is one of the greatest european (he's austrian) writers of the XXth century. He's the author of The man without qualities and this is the subject of El reino milenario. Juan García Ponce introduced Musil's work to the spanish spoken world and this book is an introduction to his great novel, done with a great sense of criticism and knowledge of Musil's time and mind. I recomend this title strongly if you like essays that inspire you to read something you don't know.

Readers who seek a comprehensive collection of Robert Musil's work - exclusive of his opus, "The Man Without Qualities" - will be well-served by this edition. It contains most of his short stories, some of his non-fiction writings, and most importantly, his first novel, "Young Torless" - an early look at Musil's craft which also introduces us to the themes contained in his later works. The bare plot of "Torless" reads deceptively like one of those bad teen dramas on the WB network: it is the tale of secrets and betrayals among schoolboys, here in the turn-of-the-century Austro-Hungarian Empire. But in Musil's hands, as always, it is a work of deep philosophical ideas; he uses the relationships among the boys to explore the nature of power - how it is gained, how it corrupts, how it destroys. We are required to confront the problem of truth and the fallacy of objective morality. The disillusionment that Young Torless feels when his teacher is unable to explain the theory of imaginary numbers - telling his pupil that he must merely "accept" that they exist - is the same skepticism which Musil and the other modernist writers felt for all ideas, whether science, history, politics or faith. It was through literature that Musil believed that he might bring order to the world, that he might re-create ideas. For any reader who wishes an introduction to the variety of Robert Musil's work, this is a good start.

I agree with Linda's comments... very clever book, but very very boring... if you wanna a book that we'll influence your way of thinking, try "The Picture of Dorian Gray"... and you'll get "more influence/page"

The Man Without Qualities is about nothing. Nothing happens; there is nor growth in any of the characters, there are no decisions made, there are no actions taken. The main characters pontificate, discourse and expostulate endlessly. They think long and deep. Everyone seems steeped in metaphysics, philosophy, literature, dialectics, etc. But nobody does a damn thing. There are at least three relationships that are not consummated. Even when there is sex, it seems disconnected from the "pseudo reality" that is the milieu everyone moves in. Everyone is planning for a grand jubilee for the Emperor Franz Joseph, but after incessant meetings, no one can decide how to proceed.
The only character who seems to do anything is the sexual psychopath, Moosbrugger, who is a serial murderer of women. This is a very challenging book to read. You have to concentrate or you'll find that you've read several paragraphs or pages without knowing what you've just read. The Man Without Qualities is the ultimate "novel of ideas" but the irony is that it seems to be contemptuous of ideas if they do not bear fruit through the actions of decisive men and women of action. For a person or a culture without qualities, ideas are a paralyzing narcotic.

Musil's book is one of the twentieth century's two masterworks-- the other being Proust's "A La Recherche." Musil and Proust are the Modernist embodiment of Adorno's dictum that the conceptually challenging artwork must also necessarily be aesthetically radical.

Musil's novel, written from at once the center (Europe) and the margins (post-World War One Austria) of the early Twentieth century, is the story of Ulrich, a brilliant young mathematician who observes Austrian high society on the eve of the First World War. Under the pretext of planning a huge anniversary party for the King, society gathers in one Diotima's salon. Musil's narrator here has good fun looking at the ideologies and social pretensions of the upper classes. Austra becomes "Kakania," and the idealistic Diotima a parody of Socrates' interlocutor in The Symposium.

Parallel to this social story is Ulrich's "inner transformation." As Ulrich becomes more and more cynical about, and detached from, the increasingly bizarre social world, he begins to undergo a transformation of mind, and to this end, moves at the end of Volume I into retreat from the world to pursue a "mystical union" of mind with his twin sister.

Musil's book-- like Proust's, and like Richardson's "Clarissa"-- takes on all themes. From social decay, inner transformation, the meaning of science and art, political satire, the dangers of technology, love, spiritual questions (here refreshingly and presciently free from being couched in Big Religions' terms) and plain old human longing, Musil deals with them all. And, like Proust and Richardson, Musil's story is ultimately a dialectic: the twin poles of social and individual transformation would, ideally, wind closer together until they fuse into one. In Proust's book this fusion is implied (it is the blending of author and narrator after the story's end) while in Richardson the synthesis is functional, but dead (Clarissa's coffin). Musil never finished his novel, perhaps fittingly-- WWI would destroy all remaining dreams of fusing European political idealism and the humanist spiritualism of the early 20th century, similar to how, seventy years later, Krzysztof Kieslowski's pan-Eurpoean vision of his "La Double Vie de Veronique" would look surreal and syrupy, destroyed by images from the Bosnian war in the mid-'90s.

Musil's writing is strangely effective even in translation. The narrator's sly sense of humour comes across pretty decently here, and the translator manages to make the book at times out-loud laughing funny.

This is essential reading. The reader who wants Big Ideas-- in the line of Proust, Richardson, Pynchon, Melville and Murakami-- will enjoy this work.

The first volume of Robert Musil's magnificent opus `The Man Without Qualities,' is brilliant and intricate Prussian `a la recherche du temps perdu,' though without Proust's keen appreciation of the arts. This is an epic from the mind of a mathematician and a strict analytic philosopher who becomes ensconced in the aristocracy of Austro-Hungarian Empire in the years of its final disintegration leading up to the first World War. Ulrich is the man without qualities, the sharp minded observer and provocateur around whom the plot and characters revolve. We are given numerous outstanding characters, the graceful yet tormented Diotima, her lovers Arnheim and General Tuzzi, a mysterious maid named Rachel, her lover Solomon, and an intriguing serial killer on death row named Moosbrugger. Musil has brilliantly delineated the social layers of imperial Austria, and he throws us into a culture marked by petty megalomania and pseudo-profundities. Much of the novel is a funny satire of a culture on the decline; it is also a philosophical dialogue between diverging antitheses. Ulrich is a man looking for an age of spiritual purity free from the burden of `rationalism.' Like the novels of Thomas Mann, `The Man Without Qualities' is as much a book about ideas as it is a narrative in itself. This may leave many readers a bit cold. However, Musil's command over a canvas of such an immense scale has insured his place as one of the 20th centuries finest writers.

Set in 1913 in a country near Austria-Hungary in the period just prior to World War I, this massive, two volume novel, features Ulrich, the supposed "man without qualities," who take 1 year off just to observe people who help make up his environment. Forming the backdrop of the novel are preparations for the Parallel Campaign, which will celebrate the 75th Anniversary of Franz Joseph's assention to the Austrian throne. The sponsors of this event, who hope to spotlight the achievements of Austria and reach some form of peace and understanding with the disperate groups that make up the Austria-Hungary Empire, never seem to agree how best to get the festivities off square one. The Germans feel shunted aside and make their extreme dissatisfactions known to everyone. One of the major characters of the novel is a wealthy German businessman who inspires love and admiration from some of the female characters and jealousy, mistrust and contempt from Ulrich and some of the other male characters.

"The Man Without Qualities" works best as a work showing Europe in a transitional period prior to the fall of the various kingdoms and empires of Europe and just before the rise of Naziism. Musil's characters go into great detail discussing the many political, economic and social philosphies swirling around Europe at that time and these often reflect the relationships of the various and motley individuals that make up the novel. These include Ulrich's cousin, Diotima, who loves to give parties for the prominent in society, her husband who is a petty government official who is severely lacking in imagination, Ulrich's musically gifted married friends, Clarisse, a nervous and somewhat hysterical woman, and Walter, a weakling who is very jealous of Ulrich. While oftentimes the clash of ideas and philosophies can make an incredibly engrossing read, the novel can often bogs down in them and become awfully tiresome.

The second volume introduces Ulrich's sister, and from what I have read, she helps to bring a completely different and unforgettable dimension to his life.

Blimey, am I going to be dogged by this crazy Irishman all the way into the western canon? Surely there's room for the three of us? Have you met my friend Marcel? He's the one over there with the inhaler.

This book says: by Robert Musil's, but it is not. Review carefuly before to be sure it is the one you are looking for

I would give this excellent set of critiques, edited by the estimable Harold Bloom, four stars except for its misleading label. Despite the byline, this is NOT Robert Musil's work or even a condensed version. These are very helpful commentaries, but if you want the original, you must go elsewhere.

Of all the great European novelists of the first third of the century -- Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Knut Hamsun, Herman Hesse -- Robert Musil is far and away the least read; and yet he's as shapely as Gibbon, as mordant as Voltaire, as witty as Oscar Wilde and as indecent as Arthur Schnitzler, a fellow Viennese writer who gets more attention. "The Man Without Qualities" is an extraordinary amalgam of the formidable, the delicious and the unfinished; and no doubt each of these attributes is in some measure dissuasive.

If we take it that the characteristics of 20th-century life are fatuity, doubt and confusion; the "barbaric fragmentation" of the self, where "impersonal matters . . . go into the making of personal happenings in a way that for the present eludes description"; a crisis of individual identity and collective purpose -- then it is Musil's astonishing achievement to make a comedy of all this.

The book begins with a baroque meteorological description; its first action is a car accident; the hero is first seen looking out of a window, stopwatch in hand, conducting a statistical survey of passing traffic. Can there be any doubt that it is a prophetic book about our world? Musil is us. The world of "global Austria" in 1913 and "the Parallel Action" -- the plan, in the novel, to claim 1918 for the jubilee celebrating the 70th year of the reign of the Emperor Francis Joseph before the Germans get it for Kaiser Wilhelm's 30th, made nonsense of by the intervention of World War I -- is our world of the United Nations International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction and other fatuous schemes. While Musil's contemporaries Proust and Joyce chose interiority and the private world of memory, Musil is uncannily prescient about modern life, where sportsmen and criminals are indifferently idolized, where quantity sits in judgment on quality, so that an author, as Musil puts it, "must have an awful lot of like-minded readers before he can pass for an impressive thinker," where we sit and stew among "bobsled championships, tennis cups and luxury hotels along great highways, with golf course scenery and music on tap in every room." So "The Man Without Qualities" is satire; as one character says, "The man of genius is duty bound to attack." However, it is not harsh satire, nor is it sour. There is something loving about it. Musil's tone is unlike anyone else's. Partly it is the Austrian melancholy that underlies the book, the melancholy of a defunct empire, of a closed conditional: what was to happen did not. WHAT if, the novel implies, instead of expressing itself in the carnage of World War I, human folly had chosen another form? Partly it is the equable irony that plays over every character, institution and group in the book that makes reading Musil such an exquisitely flattering experience. No characters in the book escape mockery -- especially for taking themselves so seriously. All of them are skewed and partial, but none are caricatures; perhaps the book's almost complete lack of physical description plays a part here -- and yet, in spite of that, you feel you could pick them out in a lineup. They are Musil's puppets.

In his early career he wrote stories, plays and novels that had a certain popularity. But none of those prepare a reader for the expanse of "The Man Without Qualities". It took up the last two decades of his life, before he died in self-imposed exile in Switzerland in 1942, at the age of 61. It is a quite overwhelming novel, quite indeed...

"The Man without Qualities" is a strange work indeed. It was left unfinished at the author's death, but nevertheless runs to well over 1,000 pages. There is very little in the way of coherent plot. The action is set in the latter part of 1913 and the early part of 1914, the last months of peace before the outbreak of World War I, and what plot there is centres upon the activities of a committee set up to explore ways of celebrating the seventieth anniversary of the accession of the Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary, an event which was due to occur in December 1918. In the event, of course, no celebrations for this anniversary ever took place, for two reasons. Firstly, Franz Josef was to die in 1916. Secondly, the Austro-Hungarian empire was to be swept away at the end of the war in November 1918.

The "man without qualities" of the title is Ulrich, one of the members of the committee. Ulrich is a handsome, wealthy and intelligent young man of good family, yet is described as being "without qualities" because he is bored, cynical and indifferent, dependent on the outer world to form his character. He has tried three different careers, as a soldier, engineer and mathematician, only to abandon them all, and accepts a place on the committee largely to alleviate the boredom of his existence as a wealthy layabout. In the course of the book we are introduced to the other members of the committee, such as the Prussian industrialist-intellectual Paul von Arnheim, Ulrich's idealistic, spiritually-minded cousin Diotima who becomes Arnheim's lover, and General Stumm von Bordwehr, forever trying to use the jubilee celebrations to further the interests of the Army. We also get to know a number of Ulrich's other acquaintances, including his friend Walter, his mistress Bonadea and (towards the end of the novel) his sister Agathe. Another important character is the insane murderer Moosbrugger.

Much of the early part of the book is satirical in nature, the principal targets of Musil's satire being the nature of bureaucracy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire itself. The committee is a prime example of bureaucratic inertia, forever holding endless meetings without ever achieving anything or even agreeing on the form which the celebrations are to take. (The only character who ever seems to take any positive action is Moosbrugger, and his actions are purely evil). The Empire is renamed "Kakania", a pun on the German pronunciation of the initials K.K. (for Kaiserlich-Koeniglich, or Imperial and Royal) and the word "Kaka" meaning "excrement". "By its constitution it was liberal, but the system of government was clerical. The system of government was clerical, but the general attitude to life was liberal. Before the law all citizens were equal, but not everyone, of course, was a citizen." In one memorable passage Musil compares the Empire to a red, white and green jacket (Hungary) matched with a pair of black and yellow trousers (Austria). Like many people looking back with the benefit of hindsight, Musil saw the collapse of Austria-Hungary as something inevitable. In fact, that collapse was the product of two chance factors, the murder of Franz Ferdinand in 1914 and Haig's defeat of the German armies in the autumn of 1918. Had the First World war been avoided, or had it had a different result, the Empire might have lasted much longer. We might even be celebrating this year the eighty-fifth anniversary of the accession of Emperor Otto von Habsburg.

In the latter part of the book, the tone becomes less satirical and more that of a novel of ideas. Musil introduces lengthy discourses, either in the form of conversations between his characters or passages in which he addresses the reader directly, on social, political, religious and, above all, philosophical topics. Ulrich suggests the formation of a "General Secretariat for Precision and Soul". This may seem like a joke, the yoking together of two incongruous ideas to produce an absurd effect, but in fact it reflects one of Musil's main preoccupations, the need to reconcile the rational and scientific approach to life ("precision") with the spiritual and imaginative one ("soul").

I note that most of the reviews the book has received on this page have been positive ones (fourteen out of seventeen awarded it five stars), so I find myself very much in the minority when I say that this was not a book that I enjoyed. My initial thought was to call my review "The Book without Qualities", but that would have been unfair to Musil, who was clearly a writer with many excellent qualities. Many of his philosophical discourses are fascinating ones, and my attention was frequently caught, even in the midst of passages that I otherwise found tedious, by a flash of humour, an original aphorism or brilliantly expressed thought. "Philosophers are despots who have no armies to command, so they subject the world to their tyranny by locking it up in a system of thought". "To believe with not quite complete disbelief that something-cannot-be-ruled-out has today become the basic attitude in matters of faith".

It struck me, however, that Musil's ideas, often of great interest in themselves, could have been better expressed as a series of essays rather than in the rather clumsy framework of a novel. The problem with "The Man without Qualities" is that, even allowing for the fact that it is unfinished, never seems to be going anywhere and lacks the form or structure evident in most well-written novels. Even in other unfinished novels, such as Dickens's "Edwin Drood", one can see evidence of the author's structural plan at work, just as one can see evidence of the architect's handiwork even in an unfinished building. "The Man without Qualities" resembles less a building than a vast, baroque folly, incorporating many beautiful carvings but with no discernible shape or structure.

As other commentators have said, Musil's diaries reveal this fascinating writer's process of thought, and are not filled with the usual "then he said something and we laughed and ordered another round" entries. In the regrettable absence of an autobiography or good biography, the _Diaries_ are a good substitute.

Musil's eye is at once poetic and objective. I could only be astounded by the maturity of the young artist. His description of a horse laughing, of sunset on windows, of a waterfall looking like a silver comb, of his emotions when he and his wife Martha argue, show a sensitivity sharpened by training. Musil captures things as they appear to him with a minimum of fussiness. Also, there is often a sharp humour which comes flashing out.

Some people don't like _The Man Without Qualities_ and prefer some of Musil's other writings. Whichever works one prefers, these diaries illuminate Musil and his writings from within.

I'll add two minor complaints about the layout of the book to those already voiced. I object to endnotes, believing footnotes easier to read. Why flip forward and back so often? Some of the endnotes are repetitive, and greater care should have been taken over them. But those are small things, and have more to do with editorial decisions than with Musil, who here steps forth from a kind of shadow (for english readers).

This book can't be recommended highly enough.

Robert Musil is one of the most complex and little known authors of the 20th Century. I am sure that anyone who has read "The Man without Qualities" will want to know more about Musil after getting to know his writing. Sadly, there is no adequate Biography available, even in German, so one of the best ways to get to know the Author is through his fascinating Diary. These were actually more Notebooks than Diaries, and they contain an encylopedic array of information on Musil himself, his intests, his ideas, and most interestingly his plans for the "Man without Qualities". So it is must reading for those interested in Musil. The English Translation Compilation, has two major flaws. First, it lacks an Index and other Critical Apparatus, and secondly, we do not which criteria were used to re-edit the Notebooks, which were originally edited by Adolf Frise. The German Edition has one Volume of Diaries = 1,000 pages and one Volume of Notes and Indices = 1,500, pages, making it useful for scholarly research, to look up subjects, names and places, and most fascinating Musil's sources. Still the English edition is of great interest to those unaquainted with Musil.

The fascinating man becomes clearer through the pages of his notebooks, which are uneven in their quality but ultimately rewarding. A must for Musil fans seeking to understand the mind of the genius.

this 1800 page book has been placed in the same league as "the remembrance of things past" and joyce's "ulysses". if one is not put off by musil's antisemitism, and unnecessarily longwinded, only somewhat interesting, conversations, one is more than rewarded by musil's keen obervational skills and ability to portray highly ideosyncratic, pathological, psychological states. musil is a genius at capturing the subtleties of sexual relations and their consequences. in my opinion, musil lacks the basic humanity of both proust and joyce; the book would be vastly improved if a good editor eliminated a good deal of the tiresome discussions.

This extraordinary novel, told in non-linear time and with many eddies and currents, captures the last of the "golden years" of the 19th century--technically the early 20th--when people in Vienna still clung to their traditions, their emperor, their rigid social order. A microscopic look at the middle European world before the abyss told through the viewpoint of a highly attractive and intellectual man, too individual for his time, a man, perhaps, of the future.

The last reviewer obviously does NOT appreciate Musil in any true sense. There are no "unnecessarily longwinded, only somewhat interesting, conversations" --the reader who thinks this way has definitely ignored Musil's central concept of "Essayismus," which is essential to any understanding of the book. With this "essayism" Musil strove to find the perfect balance between the antipodes of life--art and science (clearly evident in the book's style), precision and soul, intuition and logic. It is the path to Utopia.

Musil's "anti-Semitism": The last reviewer points this out as a factor which might put off some readers. This is comparable to putting an emphasis on Dostoevsky's alleged anti-Semitism--you end up missing the whole point. By the way, Musil's wife Martha was Jewish. After Hitler's rise to power, the Musils, like many other intellectuals, fled to Switzerland. I don't know where one finds any anti-Semitism in Musil.

This book is highly rewarding when given the time. Don't be turned off by the length. It is much easier to read than Joyce and Proust and can actually be a real page-turner. Anyone who gives it less than five stars is just not getting it.

I first read this book over 10 years ago, when I came across it by chance (bookshop browsing). Since then I have read it every few years and am impressed every time. This book is about as high-brow as it gets, but it is not pretentious or gratuitously intellectual. Rather, it is an authentic analysis of a sadomasochistic mind-set, mysticism, and the sense of not-belongingness/social alienation. The latter aspects of this book are compellingly dealt with but what sets this book apart is that the psychology of sadomasochistic desire is so impressively explored - I do not know of any other writer who has demonstrated such intuition. Note, this is a rather dark and ultra-intellectual book, so although the homoerotic and latently sadomasochistic erotic content is there, if that is all you're looking for you will very disappointed. Musil is a subtle writer, and it is the mind he examines, not the flesh.

Robert Musil is best-known for a very long novel (A Man Without Qualities) that few people have read. Young Törless is his first novel, as concise as it is memorable. Rather than a sprawling overview of the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire, this chilling little novel focuses on the insecurities and corruptions of young man in a boarding school. Whether you take an interest in it for the metaphors of international power struggles (no coincidence that the "feminine," exploited boy is Italian), the sadistically expressed homosexuality of these upper class kids, or the psychological study of adolescent angst at the turn of the 20th century, it's a compelling read. It was made into a film in 1966 by Volker Schlöndorff, with music by Hans Werner Henze.

There is a cult of Musil, just as there is a cult of his truly wonderful, incomplete work of a lifetime, "The Man without Qualities", a monument which casts a strong shadow on everything else he wrote, including "Törless", and also one to which everything else he wrote made its contribution. I will try to avoid the worshipful attitude which is a feature of such cults. "The Man without Qualities" is an immense and complex novel, the first two volumes of which start out as a panoptic survey of Austrian society in 1912-13, as seen through the lens of a planned celebration of Franz Josef's anticipated 70th anniversary of rule, with both personalities and events considered ironically and sometimes presented farcically. The final (never completed) volume, "Into The Millennium (The Criminals)", narrows its focus considerably onto the brother-sister relationship of its central character, Ulrich, a relationship that is extremely cerebral, while at the same time very sensual and possibly even heading toward an incestuous coupling (the novel was never completed to the extent where one can say such a coupling is "inevitable"). While the social framing of the mind of the protagonist (i.e., in the early parts of "The Man without Qualities") barely exists in "Törless", the latter type of uneasy personal relationship makes its first appearance in Musil's debut novel.

Both the style and the scope of Musil's "big book" and his first, compact novel, "The Confusions of Young Törless" are very different. However, there are some commonalities, which retrospectively appear to be what are, for lack of a better term, "thematic obsessions" that characterize all of his books. To see these connections and the recurrence of certain ideas and stylistic approaches to handling them, it helps to have read his Notebooks (also called "Diaries"), which exist in toto in a German compilation, and in an abridged and selected version in English. These Notebooks contain the seeds of characters that appear in his published works, sketches of the relationships among them, and the combination of psychological and philosophical examination to which Musil subjects all aspects of the human mind and the specific personalities which embody it. This goes for "Törless" (published in 1906) as well as for "The Man without Qualities" (first two volumes published in 1930), although the latter is a far more polished work which naturally incorporates Musil's own responses to developments in his own life and the social life of Austria and Germany throughout the eventful quarter-century which separates the publication dates of his first and last novels.

Lest any professor or critic of a certain stripe jump into this discussion with the usually sensible proviso, "Let's not confuse the man with his work, let's not confuse Robert with Törless or Ulrich", he should be prepared to be gainsaid in a rather incontrovertible manner by the substance of Musil's Notebooks, in which he clearly models characters after himself, whether their actions and thoughts were his or merely those which he contemplated as possibilities for himself, or "someone like him" (the notion of human possibilities converted into actual choices and deeds is in fact at the core of his idea of what he calls "ethics", another of his preoccupations). As the Notebook and its supplementary materials indicate, Musil's education at the University of Berlin in both "phenomenological" psychology and philosophy convinced him of the necessity of authorial introspection for the development of fictional characters (and almost all of his characters are modeled on family members, friends and acquaintances). The path to the "scientific" distancing and objectivity which he considered ideal for a writer had to commence with detailed self-examination, although this might be dismissed as something like squaring the circle (arriving at a higher objectivity by proceeding through intense subjectivity). The earliest Notebook entries (1899-1902) contain musings and jottings which are clearly related to the development of the character of Törless, especially his mixed feelings toward his parents and his obsessive examination and re-examination of this own thoughts and actions, which appear to have a cloudy relationship to another "darker reality" which he believes underlies the everyday "normal reality". (Incidentally, one will run across the destabilizing universal modernist influence of Nietzsche early on in these Notebooks.)

A brief word on the story itself. In the main it can be described as the depiction of a triangular relationship, with a composite physical/spiritual bully represented by the pair Reiting/Beineberg at one apex, their unattractive victim Basini at the other, and Törless at the third, vacillating in his relationships with the other two apices and constantly shifting his judgment of the character of the others and of what these relationships mean for him, above all, for him. In a sense, he has little interest in what it all means to the others or to the larger society to which they belong - the others are like a "force field" which elicits responses from him that teach him about himself. He veers between being a tormenter, rescuer, and icy observer, and he finally "opts out" of the local crisis (the setting is in a typical military preparatory school of the late Austro-Hungarian Empire, in which there has been a theft by a student followed by systematic tormenting of that student) by expressing a self-evaluation of his role in the affair in terms that are so existential and hypothetical that they baffle the authorities and lead to his withdrawal from the school. In the frequent moments of solitude and self-examination that occur in the book, thoughts and emotions move like vast cloudy weather fronts within Törless's mind, unsettling him and comforting him at the same time (he takes comfort in the fact that this kind of introspection is his own peculiar distinction). To reinforce the autobiographical interpretation given in the previous paragraph, there was an erotic triangle within his own parents' home, and there were probable fumbling erotic antics between Musil and his childhood friend Gustl Donath (the model for "Walter" of "The Man without Qualities"); these are alluded to in the Notebooks. Such biographical facts get transformed in "Törless" into a rather brutal homoerotic set of relationships. (I.e., again, personal relationships from Musil's life serve as models for fictional ones, undergoing suitable transformations to make them consistent with the facts of the stories and the psychological make-up of the characters.) In the same fashion the admission that Musil makes of a life-long "psychologically incestuous" relationship with his own mother appears in one or another guise in "Törless", "Tonka" (from "Five Women"), and "The Man without Qualities" and is constantly worked over in the Notebooks.

The book is, I think, as incomplete as its famous successor, but this is the incompletion of youth. With regard to "The Man without Qualities" Musil may have come to believe that it could not be brought to a satisfactory conclusion (although he was still determined to do this at the time of his death in 1942) because he himself did not know how to put a lid on the "possibilities" of Ulrich's relationship with Agathe; or because he came to believe that "incompletion" was a correct and desirable ending for a novel which would also be a guide to the creation of a new sort of human personality. The incompletion of "Törless" stems from the typical problem of first novels of this sort (i.e., novels in the German tradition of the Bildungsroman) - the lack of distance and the inability to achieve a useful ironic detachment toward one's recent adolescent past, which has an intensity and turbulence that have not yet receded when the work is undertaken.

The translation by Shaun Whiteside is good, and there is an excellent brief introduction by the novelist J. M. Coetzee. Admirers of "The man Without Qualities" (I am one such, but no longer an "unqualified admirer" as I was in my own youth) should read "Törless" and Musil's other novellas (published in English as "Five Women") and his play "The Enthusiasts", all in the light of the Notebooks as a sort of Talmudic companion-piece, to arrive at a fuller understanding and appreciation of the "big book". A final note -- the three-stars rating I give this work is to be understood as a "within Musil category", that is, a rating that is relative to better (more ambitious, psychologically and stylistically) works such as "Five Women" and to the very best work, "The Man without Qualities". (I don't think Musil would quibble with this kind of evaluation himself; the Notebooks indicate his dissatisfaction with and desire to revise certain passages from "Törless" immediately after it was published, especially in the language he used for Törless's cloudy musings about his own recent past and about the "other reality".)

The Confusions of Young Torless is a novel about a young and thoughtful boy who is thrown into the world of a private military school where violence and sexual aggression are the norm. He becomes acquainted with a local prostitute through his school friends and engages in intercourse with her despite his apparent homosexuality. The novel is filled with sexual confusion (hence the title), and sadism. Musil has constructed an awkwardly Nietzschean exploration of human morality, gender roles, and power through the eyes of a young genius. However, the novel's conclusion is an entirely unconvincing lecture about the arbitrariness of human/social morality delivered by Torless towards his mentors. It rings of cheap peachiness and the inability to construct a literary narrative. Musil was quite young when he wrote this novel, and it does not compare to his great `Man Without Qualities.' However, there are moments of beautiful prose here, particularly the interior narration of Torless, which is filled with thoughtful subtlety and the foundation of a truly remarkable artist.

Young Torless was one of the orange Penguins I picked up on holiday. I must confess that I had not heard of the author, Robert Musil, but have since discovered that he was nominated for the Nobel Prize, Thomas Mann exclusively recommended his novel sequence The Man Without Qualities and this latter work is considered by some to be on a par with Joyce and Proust. The gaps in my knowledge are legion.

Written in 1909, this semi-autobiographical debut novel takes place at a military academy for young men, presumably somewhere in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When one student is discovered to be stealing from his fellow pupils he undergoes a series of tortures at the hands of two bullies, all of which is witnessed by our titular character Torless.

Torless himself never quite commits to joining the attacks, neither does he try to stop them. He finds himself both repulsed by the victim, Basini, but also strangely attracted to this pitiful character. This attraction, and the nature of the bullying, constantly teeters on the brink of homosexual love/rape and it is this element which adds real grit to the story.

The plot itself is fairly simple but the homosexual subtext is remarkably frank for a book written at the turn of the century. When the story is cracking along this is a most engaging and enlightening novel, however, Musil, through Torless, is prone to long bouts of philosophy within the prose and these, whilst integral to the narrative, do slow it down somewhat. Whether it be the writings of Kant or the mathematical problems presented by imaginary numbers, Torless does like to stare into space and ponder such matters for several pages at at a time.

My mind wandered during these sections and I found myself skim reading to the next chunk of actual plot but I suspect there are many who would appreciate both aspects of the novel. Plot-wise I was reminded more than once of Susan Hill's I'm the King of the Castle and certainly I would recommend this earlier work to fans of that book. I can't say that I am bubbling with enthusiasm to read The Man Without Qualities just yet but I will certainly be adding it to the list.

My copy was published in 1955 and translated by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser. The currently available Penguin Classic, called The Confusions Of Young Torless, is a more recent translation by Shaun Whiteside and should be fairly easy to get hold of.

(Originally reviewed on the Me And My Big Mouth blog).

Young Torless and his classmates study at a private boys' school in Austria. He feels somewhat apart from the rest of his classmates, wondering what his place in the scheme of things is. Then, two of his "friends" accuse another classmate of scheming and thievery, but instead of reporting it, they decide to take matters into their own hands. Torless witnesses the sexual degradations through which the accused is placed, which only heightens Torless' need to understand things. Unwittingly, he finds himself physically drawn to the accused boy, something which he is unable to comprehend but against which he is powerless.

A dark and disturbing look at how adolescents learn about their place in the world through power, brutality and sexuality. I was confused by parts of it, as the author threw in much psychoanalysis and delving into Kant which made it difficult to follow the story, reading more along the lines of an essay at times. The ending is dissatisfying and doesn't give any clear solution.

wow.

this book gave me the creepers. i read this short novel in a class on existential philosophy, and it's the only piece except for sartre's nausea that has stuck with me all these years.

without revealing too much, the plot revolves around several young boys at a boarding school who torture a fellow student-- to see what will happen in a philosophical sort of way. disturbing, haunting, suspenseful, beautiful, profound.

not for the faint of heart.

I can't agree with the five-star review. This is a minor book. It's a miscellany of very short pieces, together with some ideas for stories.

The opening piece about flies caught on flypaper is briliant, yes, but it's also one of a kind, and it's short. "Prose poems" of that sort were practiced from Goethe, Baudelaire, and Heine onward.

A piece on kitsch later in the book is trivial -- it makes fun of itself -- and its insights are not anywhere near as interesting as those of Hermann Broch or Walter Benjamin on the same subject.

The translator tells us that Musil considered the longest piece in the collection, "Blackbird," an example of "daylight mysticism" (taghelle Mystik), but it isn't that far from von Hofmannsthal or some of Poe, reined in by a twentieth-century sense of the real.

From a philosophic standpoint, the most interesting piece in the book is "Art Anniversary," a meditation on the way that art, when it is re-encountered after a period of absence, can fail to move us. But even there, "great art" is excepted -- in a brief aside, apparently cleverly by actually carelessly tacked onto the end of the essay.

For me the only interesting piece is "A Man Without Character," which the translator says, complicatedly, is "from the seed out of which the novel erupted like a magic beanstalk." (I don't see why it isn't the seed itself -- is there another text that is the actual beginning of the novel?) At any rate, there's an interesting equivocation in "A Man Without Character," between the use of "character" to denote moral strength and manliness, and "character" to denote "qualities." The former echoes the story before this one in the collection, which is a satire on manly qualities. The latter is the more interesting usage, because it prefigures (or echoes?) the novel "A Man Without Qualities." The narrator in "A Man Without Character" says "When you become a man you take on... a sexual, a national, a state, a class, a geographical character... you have a writing character, a character of the lines in your hand, of the shape of your skull..." There's a lot of potential parallels with the novel, but for some reason that escapes me, the translator says nothing more about "A Man Without Character."

These are minor, not worth the time. Read the masterpiece instead.

This miscellany(Musillany)--of prose poems, personal and analytical essays, and one story-- actually contains some of the author's best writing. I suspect this is because he's having more fun here than in other works, particulary MWQ. His imagination, invention, intellect and wit are all bristling. His brilliance is obvious. The prose poem "Fly Paper" is a microscopic epic, and the final piece, "The Blackbird", an amazingly rigorous examination of the ineffable. I think if you like Calvino or Nabokov, you'll like this.