From Wikipedia:

The Confusions of Young Törless (German original title: Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß), the title of the novel is sometimes translated as Young Törless or Young Torless, is the literary debut of the Austrian novelist and essayist Robert Musil, first published in 1906.

Plot introduction

Musil's novel is ostensibly a Bildungsroman, a story of a young disoriented man searching for moral values in society and their meaning for him.

The expressionistic novel, based on Musil's personal experiences at a military boarding school in Hranice (in Austria-Hungary, now in the Czech Republic)--and written according to Musil "because of boredom"--started his literary career. Due to its explicit sexual content, the novel at first caused a scandal among the reading public and the authorities of Austria-Hungary.

Later, various indications of fascism were found in its text, including the characters of Beineberg and Reiting, who seem to be orderly pupils by day but shamelessly abuse their classmate psychologically, physically and sexually by night.

In 1966 German director Volker Schlöndorff made the film Der junge Törless based on the novel.