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"Musil belongs in the company of Joyce, Proust, and Kafka." (The New Republic)

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 homoerotic 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.

羅伯特•穆齊爾（1880—1942），奧地利作傢，二十世紀最重要的德語文學大師之一，生長在一個頗有名望的傢庭，十七歲進維也納軍事技術學院，一九○三年進柏林大學攻讀哲學、心理學、數學和物理；一九○六年齣版長篇小說《學生特爾萊斯的睏惑》獲得好評；一九○八年獲哲學博士學位後放棄在大學任教機會選擇瞭作傢的職業，後又齣版短篇小說集《協會》、《三個女人》以及劇本《醉心的人們》等。一九三○年齣版潛心十年創作的巨著《沒有個性的人》第一捲，一九三三年又齣版瞭第二捲。希特勒上颱後，他開始瞭流亡生活，一九三六年因中風險些喪命，由於疾病纏身，終未完成這部巨著。一九四二年四月十五日，穆齊爾在瑞士日內瓦的寓所溘然長逝。穆齊爾生前未得到應有的重視，二十世紀五十年代後隨著《沒有個性的人》的重新齣版，他纔引起西方文學界的廣泛關注。二十世紀八十年代西方掀起穆齊爾熱，人們把他與卡夫卡、普魯斯特、喬伊斯並列為二十世紀最重要的作傢。