Book Review

BOOK REVIEW

THE CONFUSIONS OF YOUNG TORLESS  

Author: Robert Musil

Translated by Shaun Whiteside and published by Penguin books, London 1978

Review by Stephen Wilson

 

 

Robert Musil's most accessible book must be 'The Confusions of Young Torless'. You are more likely to find an English translation in any decent English bookshop including Moscow than his long unfinished work 'The Man without Qualities' which in English, is often out of print. The advantage of the former novel, published in 1906, is it is shorter, concise and thin enough to fit into your coat pocket when travelling. It is a perfectly portable book. It is certainly not too bulky and heavy as the elusive masterpiece 'The Man without Qualities' which runs on for over 1000 pages! [to the read the latter you can find an English version of it on the Internet}

 

Who on earth is Robert Musil you may ask? And why read this novel? Well, don't be surprised if you have never heard of him! Most readers haven't. His works must be one of the biggest kept secrets of Modernist literature. Posterity has not been kind to him. Robert Musil was an Austrian writer who hailed from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was the master of incisive satire who wrote deep psychological and philosophical novels which explored the dark psyche of people in works such as 'The Confusions of Young Torless' ,'Three Women', and 'The Man without Qualities ' which he wrote for twenty years. Being Jewish, he was forced to flee from the Nazis and settle in Switzerland.

 

Since the novel 'The Confusions of Young Torless ' has often been misconstrued it is worth refuting some prevailing interpretations. Firstly, Musil's novel is not a parable about the rise of Fascism or a prophetic novel which predicted their rise! This novel was published in 1906 and Musil himself only made this claim after the rise of Fascism. You don't hear any suggestions from the characters on how to form a secret underground nationalist movement based on racial superiority or endorsing an explicit aggressive nationalism. Yes, it is not impossible to envisage the two sadistic bullies Beineberg and Reiter joining the ranks of the Nazis, but in this novel they don't seem to have worked out any clear ideology or world view. Another absurd claim is that this novel is like an autobiography of Robert Musil himself and that he himself is largely Torless. Not surprisingly, Musil rejected such allegations. Who would want to be identified as being like the sadistic bully Torless? This is especially true if you are a refugee who fled from the Nazis. Such a view underestimates the lively imagination of the author who largely invented his own characters.

 

When you read on the back page of the Penguin edition statements like 'the book 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 then the rise of Fascism. 'A century later, Musil's first novel still retains its shocking prophetic power.' This is misleading commercial hype designed to appeal to more readers. Never judge a book by its cover. Without wishing to sound glib, this is a novel about the alienation, adolescence and psychological crisis of a young person who is groping in the dark for unanswered questions and easily susceptible to bullying at a military boarding school. It is a novel about the dark roots of bullying and how people break down.

 

The plot of the story centers around the entrance and experiences of young Torless at a military boarding school and how he is struggling to adapt to this new situation. The novel offers a great description of the alienation and loneliness experienced by Torless in an entirely new environment away from his parents. He is attempting to find a foothold as well as answers to complex life questions which nobody can answer. Like many children, he feels utterly misunderstood. Neither religion, teachers or fellow pupils can offer him any direction or answers to his problems. He sees no logic behind the school system. The knowledge they are learning seems not only tedious but pointless. There is a beautiful but eerie passage about Torless looking through a window and what is really out there in the darkness. We read:

'From the deserted garden a leaf danced every now and again to the illuminated window, cutting a bright strip into the darkness, which seemed to shrink back to avoid it, then to step forward again a moment later and stand motionless like a wall outside the windows. It was a world all to itself, the darkness. Like a black enemy horde it had fallen across the earth and killed the people or driven them out or done whatever it had done to make sure that it erased every last trace of them.'{pages 23-24} Torless can 't find peace of mind. In one passage you read 'His life was geared towards each new day. Every night was for him a void, a grave, an extinction ... He had not yet learned the ability to lie down to die each day without thought'. Page 36} I recall from childhood my grandmother advising me, "Try not to think too much before you go to sleep or you'll never manage it. Try to free your mind from thinking". It was an art she had mastered, but like Torless I really struggled.

 

The sad narrative of how Torless falls out with one of his friends who is a prince seems convincing. The other pupils mock the prince for not only his manners, religion and background, but how he looks. Torless initially gets on with him only to fall out over a religious argument. We hear that 'They had been arguing about religious matters. And that moment had been the end of everything. Because as though it was quite independent of him, Torless's intellect had lashed out at the gentle prince. He heaped upon him the ridicule of the rationalist, like a barbarian he smashed the filigree structure in which the boy's soul was housed ,and they parted in anger. Since that time then they had not spoken a word to one another. Torless was dimly aware that he had done something idiotic, and a vague, emotional insight told him that the wooden ruler of rationalism had shattered something fine and delightful at an untimely moment.'{pages 8-9} The prince later leaves the school.

 

Instead of retaining the good friendship of the prince, Torless gravitates to the company of two bullies; Reiting and Beineberg. Those characters can on the surface appear charming, eloquent and persuasive, but turn out to be cruel bullies intent in exercising a brutal will to power over the other pupils. When they discover that one of the pupils, Basini has been stealing money from the the lockers of other pupils to pay off his debts, Reiting, Beineberg and Torless try to punish him. They blackmail him by asking him to be their slave and perform all kinds of humiliating tasks. They perform their own punishments, in a secluded attic in the dead of night. At night, the bullies waken Basini and force him to accompany him to the attic. They flog and sexually abuse him. But their aim is to psychologically and physically strip his of every remnant of his dignity. So the trio act as a self righteous judge, jury and executioner. Although Torless does not physically harm Basini, he mentally tortures him by asking painful questions. In one passage you read:

Basini was crying. 'You are tormenting me'.

'Yes, I'm tormenting you. But that's not the important thing for me. I just want to know one thing: if I push all that into you like knives, what is inside you? What is happening inside you? Does something explode in you? Tell me! Suddenly, like a piece of glass that suddenly explodes into a thousand splinters before it's shown so much as a crack? The image you've made of yourself, isn't it extinguished by a breath? Doesn't another one leap to appear in its place, as a magic lantern pictures leap out of the darkness?' Pages 117-118} 

Anyone who has been subjected to a long interrogation by a sadistic police officer will find those words echo their own experiences. What is more, the scenario where cadets bully other cadets reminded me of my own experience when I was in the Army Cadet Force for two years in the early 1970's. I recall that at one Army Camp in Scotland one unpopular cadet found himself being tormented by a crowd of cadets who swayed his bed back and forth to make him sick. This happened during midnight. When the corporal asked his officer for advice he was told, "If you make an example of one of them by beating him up the rest will fall into line". Cadets who ventured into the local town were advised not to wear their uniform or they risked being beaten up by the locals who hated soldiers.

 

The novel reminded me a little of Kafka's 'The Trial.' Just as surreal trials are held in secret attics about the city, so in Musil's novel self styled judges are punishing Basini for alleged crimes in a secluded attic. The thoughts about Torless, as he stares through a window into the darkness reminded me of the German Philosopher Nietzsche who declared, 'If you look long enough into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you'. Torless even detects an abyss at the roots of mathematics. The idea of imaginary numbers behind math torments him with the thought that mathematics might be an irrational science built on fragile foundations. For instance, negative one times negative one turns out to be one! When an odd character in 'The Man without Qualities', the murderer Moosbrugger, is asked 'What is 14 plus 14? 'he answers 'About 28 to 40' suggesting that the answer need not necessarily finish at 28 depending on the context.

 

Torless begins to have second thoughts about Basini and thinks about how to help him because he understands that the bullies might easily flog him to death. What happens next? Does Torless protect Basini or does he flee? Will he break down or keep his composure? Will Basini be murdered by the bullies? I think it is worth finding it out for yourself by buying the novel! The beautiful prose, dramatic dialogue and convincing understanding of life through the eyes of a confused boy make this book a must! It is certainly not always a pleasant read but worth taking the trouble. So go out and get it!