Posthumous Papers of a Living Author (1936) collects together short prose and fiction, almost all written between 1920 and 1929, under the headings 'Pictures', 'Ill-tempered Observations' and 'UnStorylike Stories'. It is Musil's most accessible work, the last book he published before his death in 1942, and one conceived as a unified whole. 'Where Proust seeks to crystallize a past, Musil is always pushing through that strange undergrowth to find out, if possible, where he is, where life is tending, and what is the explanation ...' wrote V. S. Pritchett of Musil's masterpiece The Man without Qualities. The same search is evident in Posthumous Papers, whether Musil is considering monkeys, monuments, the Oedipus Complex, paintspreaders - 'he is to the painter what the pen-pusher is to the poet' - or the quests in a Roman boarding house. From the first fragment 'Flypaper' to the last story, 'The Blackbird', he writes in satires or parables of phenomenal wit and concentration, illuminating as he observes human life and 'the tiny traits by which it carelessly reveals itself'.

The Posthumous Papers of a Living Author (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)

Literature & Fiction

MUSIL, Robert

Literary

Penguin Classics

'They no longer hold themselves up with all their might, but sink a little and at that moment appear totally human' Of the very first rank of prose stylists, Robert Musil captures a scene's every telling detail and symbolic aspect with a precise and remarkable beauty. In these nine stories and essays, he considers holidaymakers and stone monuments, tales of war and blackbirds, and the great pathos of a tiny death: a fly's impossible fight against the grip of flypaper. This book includes Flypaper, Monkey Island, Fisherman on the Baltic, Sheep, As Seen in Another Light, Sarcophagus Cover, Monuments, The Paint Spreader, It's Lovely Here and The Blackbird.

Mini Modern Classics Flypaper (Penguin Mini Modern Classics)

Short Stories & Anthologies

Penguin Classic

At a bleak, isolated military school on the fringes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, four young cadets —Torless, Beineberg, Reiting and their victim Basini—rift even further away from their school- fellows into a private world of ritual, secrecy and torture. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Confusions of Young Törless (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Penguin Publishing Group

'between the life we live and the life we feel...there is the invisible border, like a narrow gate' Set in a boarding school in a remote area of the Habsburg Empire at the turn of the last century, The Confusions of Young Torless is an intense study of an adolescent's psychological development as he struggles to come to terms with his conflicting emotions. Through his relationship with two other boys Torless is led into sadistic and sexual encounters with a third pupil which both repel and fascinate him. Estranged from everyday life, Torless gradually learns to accept his experiences and describe them with analytical precision. The novel is based on the author's own experiences at an Austrian military academy. A school story with a difference, Torless extends the scope of fiction with its non-judgemental presentation of transgressive sexuality and violence. It is a profoundly disturbing exploration of a non-moral outlook on life and of dictatorial attitudes that prefigure the outbreak of the First World War and the rise of fascism. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The Confusions of Young Törless (Oxford Worlds Classics)

Robertson, Ritchie

MITCHELL, MIKE

Oxford University Press

"We do not have too much intellect and too little soul, but too little precision in matters of the soul."—Robert Musil Best known as author of the novel The Man without Qualities, Robert Musil wrote these essays in Vienna and Berlin between 1911 and 1937. Offering a perspective on modern society and intellectual life, they are concerned with the crisis of modern culture as it manifests itself in science and mathematics, capitalism and nationalism, the changing roles of women and writers, and more. Writing to find his way in a world where moral systems everywhere were seemingly in decay, Musil strives to reconcile the ongoing conflict between functional relativism and the passionate search for ethical values. Robert Musil was born in 1880 and died in 1942. His first novel, Young Törless, is available in English. A new two-volume translation by Burton Pike and Sophie Wilkins of The Man without Qualities is forthcoming from Alfred A. Knopf. "Now we have these thirty-one invaluable and entertaining pieces, from an article on 'The Obscene and Pathological in Art' to the equally provocative talk 'On Stupidity,' which, with a new translation of The Man without Qualities forthcoming . . . amount to a literary event for the reader of English comparable to Constance Garnett's massive translation of Chekhov's stories."—Joseph Coates, Chicago Tribune "Musil is one of the few great moderns, one of the handful who ventured to confront the issues that shape and define our time. . . . He has a range and a striking capacity every bit as great as that of Mann, Joyce, or Beckett."—Boston Review "These essays are crucial in understanding a writer and critic whose lifelong task was an attempt to resolve the dichotomy between the precision of scientific form and the soul—the matter of life and art."—Choice

Precision and Soul: Essays and Addresses

Essays & Correspondence

University of Chicago Press

"We do not have too much intellect and too little soul, but too little precision in matters of the soul."—Robert Musil Best known as author of the novel The Man without Qualities, Robert Musil wrote these essays in Vienna and Berlin between 1911 and 1937. Offering a perspective on modern society and intellectual life, they are concerned with the crisis of modern culture as it manifests itself in science and mathematics, capitalism and nationalism, the changing roles of women and writers, and more. Writing to find his way in a world where moral systems everywhere were seemingly in decay, Musil strives to reconcile the ongoing conflict between functional relativism and the passionate search for ethical values. Robert Musil was born in 1880 and died in 1942. His first novel, Young Törless, is available in English. A new two-volume translation by Burton Pike and Sophie Wilkins of The Man without Qualities is forthcoming from Alfred A. Knopf. "Now we have these thirty-one invaluable and entertaining pieces, from an article on 'The Obscene and Pathological in Art' to the equally provocative talk 'On Stupidity,' which, with a new translation of The Man without Qualities forthcoming . . . amount to a literary event for the reader of English comparable to Constance Garnett's massive translation of Chekhov's stories."—Joseph Coates, Chicago Tribune "Musil is one of the few great moderns, one of the handful who ventured to confront the issues that shape and define our time. . . . He has a range and a striking capacity every bit as great as that of Mann, Joyce, or Beckett."—Boston Review "These essays are crucial in understanding a writer and critic whose lifelong task was an attempt to resolve the dichotomy between the precision of scientific form and the soul—the matter of life and art."—Choice

Tonka and Other Stories

Wilkins, Eithne

Kaiser, Ernst

Irish Book Center

Young Torless (Picador Classics)

Contemporary

Picador

Four adolescent boys in an Austrian military school act out the rites of passage in brutal, disturbed rituals which foreshadow the conditions and way of thought which led to a Nazi takeover thirty years later

YOUNG TORLESS

Pantheon

Ulrich's life in pre-World War I Vienna is influenced by his social and political connections and desire to be a man of importance

The Man without Qualities

Perigee Books

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