The Confusions of Young Torless - Robert Musil

Robert Musil is the other major Modernist writer of the 20th Century. The Confusions of Young Torless was his first novel and written while he was a student. The novel is wonderful in parts, but still feels like a first time effort. Musil creates vivid accounts of schooling and its hang up and worries, but he is so matter of fact with the protoganists worries that it feels like he is skimming too many surfaces of what he can do to bridge narrative with character. The plotting of the story is wonderful as it keeps a tight narrative but mixes it up with accounts of memory that take the story different ways and give the sense the novel is an organic being, but the characterization could have probed deeper. My criticism may be too harsh as this is a first novel and a very unique one for being so assured and well written in many ways.