Loneliness and alienation.

Naoko in Murakami's Norwegian Wood

Un homme qui dort

>>9915010
>Can you please suggest some literature that deals with themes of isolation, loneliness, alienation and existential angst? Perhaps with a protagonist who craves intimacy but also feels out of place among most people (and sometimes even feels contempt for them) and fails due to his own inadequacies with others.
Pan or Hunger by Hamsun should be right up your alley.
I would warn you about becoming too centric in your reading. I get that it's a theme you want more of, but don't limit yourself to it,

More Hesse: Steppenwolf
Book of Disquiet is also fitting, but don’t expect to be reading it all at once

If you’re from Germany by any chance, go read Kracht’s Faserland; it fits what you want but is hilarious as well.

Read Kafka closely and you'll see that he wasn't the critic of alienation that various interpreters and highschool lit teachers paint him as.

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>>9915014
>>9915019
>>9915047

thanks for the suggestions anons.

>>9915027
i've read hunger and liked it. And thanks for the advice. I do read other things too and won't limit myself to this.

>>9915048
gotcha. my schooling never covered kafka so i'm going in with a blank slate into the trial. will read closely.

If you're cool with female perspective and race being a part of the problem, I highly recommend Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys or In the Heart of the Country by Coetzee.

If you've already read NfU I'd read some more Dostoevsky, C&P touches on a lot of similar concepts from NfU but further delves into them.

If you can manage to find a copy of it too, Nikos Kazantzakis' novel The Fratricides covers most of what you're looking at but is set during the Greek Civil War.

I've also been looking for similar themes and got recommended "Whatever" by Michel Houellebecq. Haven't read it yet.

of the books you listed, which one do you recommended to read first? All new for me.

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OP here

>>9915125
ty anon.

>>9915146

Each book deals with each of the themes I listen in its own way (And tends to focus a bit more on one or two of them)

For horribly depressing alienation:
>No longer human - Osamu Dazai

For being a contemptuous outcast filled with self loathing and disdain for people
>Notes from underground - dostoevsky


For stoic composure in the face of constant defeat, loss and grief
>Stoner - John Edward williams

For finding peace and rising above and beyond the petty struggles of people, money and life in general
>Siddhartha - hesse

>>9915010
It's couched primarily in the lens of alcoholism, but The Lost Weekend deals with a lot of those themes.

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One of my favorites.

>>9915348
holy. fuck.

I just found this book 2 days back in a random shelf at the office where I'm interning. I picked it up not knowing anything about it.

Isn't that like most novels anyway

You should read the novels of Emmanuel Bove, he would be right up your alley OP. Also look at Pierre Drieu la Rochelle.There are a lot of underrated French writers that write about these things.

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>>9915010
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Skylark by Dezso Kosztolanyi
The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald
Ariel by Sylvia Plath

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>>9915938

Interesting. I've never delved in french lit before but i guess this is a good time to start.

>>9915961
Thanks a bunch for the reccomendations.
I've been told to read plath and woolf by others too.
PS: That image hit a bit too close home. There were times when I found myself yelling at myself out loud "what is wrong with me?". Sometimes in depressed resignation or sometimes in angry frustration. I ask myself this question all the time.

>>9916323
Trust me. There's nothing wrong with you. You're just very alone. And whether you're aware of it or not, it's your unchecked emotions running rampant in your mind that are what make you believe you're ill. "Voices". But they aren't really voices, it's your inner monologue battling with itself throughout different--often self induced--states of mind. With nobody around to express them to, they act like molecules bouncing around in an inflated balloon nearing its breaking point. And believe it or not, this metaphor is not only exact, but simple in practice: Just let the air out. Talk to people. Admit you want to go out in confidence and talk to people, but the only thing holding you back are your own self-imagined doubts. Or else -pop-

>>9915047
>Book of Disquiet is also fitting, but don’t expect to be reading it all at once
This, my biggest mistake

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>>9916323
>That image hit a bit too close home. There were times when I found myself yelling at myself out loud "what is wrong with me?". Sometimes in depressed resignation or sometimes in angry frustration. I ask myself this question all the time.

IKTFB

>>9916364
I'm gonna have to second this guy. Alongside all this sad-lit, you should read some Epictetus as well.

Andrey Platonov - Foundation pit
Most of small prose by Leonid Andreev and Mikhail Arzebashev

Listen buddy.

The pain from loneliness comes and it goes. It's not a perpetual pain that prongs your brain with feelbadfeels. No, it's triggered by thoughts and memories.

So what you have to do is learn how to first avoid those memories and triggers, then you have to learn how to cope with the pain once those feels inevitably show up again.

Reading in itself is a great way to escape the badfeels, but if you decide to use books as an escape ladder, please, for your mental sake, don't read depressing books about depressing people. You're already depressed. Read something happy or inspiring. Or, don't read at all. You don't need to constantly feed these badfeels with more badfeels.

Instead

I suggest consistent journaling. Start small, maybe a page every morning. Then once that becomes a habit bump it to two pages, then three, four, ect. You need to get in tune with your thoughts and analyze why you feel the way you do. No one is going to read this but you, so be truthful with yourself. If you think your mentally stunted because your mother is a dumb cunt who never bought you the sugary cereal you wanted as a kid - write that down - that is how you feel and that is your perceived reality of your current situation. Nothing is off limits, no one is going to read this but you, so let your inner insane man run wild all over the page. You will feel better I promise you.

Once you've built up a couple months worth of thoughts in this notebook spend a couple days reading the entries. Take notes on common things you blame for your failures and setbacks. This is crucial because we need to understand what exactly is bothering us. Where are we putting the blame for our problems. Often times it's not ourselves and we are the root of most of our problems and the times we aren't the root of those problems - we still are - I say this because we are not reacting to the problems of our reality in a rational manner that is conducive to our mental health.

Also start working out. When you feel bad thoughts, give your body something to really feel bad about. Do push ups, go for a bike ride, pull ups, just anything physical that you can do till exhaustion. You're still an animal. The body and mind are built not for logic or reasoning, despite what you may think. We are savages. So move your body like a savage. Your brain can't focus on the bad shit when you're using it for what it was built for... physical activity.

Just my two cents.

Reading is good for the mind. But exercise and self-reflection are even better. Most of the "mind-blowing" ideas you read can be found on your own once you start you own personal inquiry about yourself and the world you live in.

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>>9915010
Listen to the chapter on Solitude by Thoreau

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LOBQKUBxnM

You're welcome.

Journey to the end of the night by Céline

>>9915014
If that was the girl that touches the guys cock and says "it's warm", then I don't thin that's exactly loneliness and alienation. Same if that was the guy.

>>9915010
I think Nausea, although I haven't read it because I can't find it. The Bell Jar also. Mrs Dalloway.

infinite jest unironically

tl;dr read Jung

OP, loosen the white-knuckle grip you have on the resentment you feel towards whoever/whatever you think has sinned against you. Understand that ordinary people are nowhere near as perfect nor as evil as you think, and that you loathe yourself and the rest of humanity for faults/flaws that only you notice or care about. Realize that even if youre morally justified in holding contempt for people who have wronged you, youre still drowning in the ocean of depression, anxiety, and STRESS that comes from social isolation. If you were abused/neglected, understand that you have a MORAL OBLIGATION to not let your abuser continue to abuse others vicariously through your actions; if you go on an autistic meltdown at somebody because the stress caused from your abusive mother reached a critical point, then wasn't it really your mother who went on the autistic meltdown?

Read Jung. Integrate your shadow to equip power, eloquence, and grace that you cannot even imagine now.

>>9915010
>(Optional: If he rises beyond this and achieves some semblance of peace)
This is a nice criterion. Could anyone point out which books in this thread abides by it?

I'll start by naming Hesse's Siddhartha and Steppenwolf. Probably his other books as well.

>>9915048
Do you have a source on this? I'm not contending it, just want an academic articulation of this view.

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OP here.

>>9916364
>>9916544
Aah I know exactly what you're talking about. Over time I've realized that staying in isolation for too long causes me to become hyper self aware and the internal thoughts and monologue become out of control and overwhelming.

When I get some interaction with people, things diffuse and I lose that self awareness which brings some respite in short term but disappointment and a mellower kind of sadness in the longer run when I feel I'm becoming less thoughtful. I picked up the stoics (epictetus and aurelius) some time back and they've been very helpful.

>>9916709
Thanks a bunch anon. Listening to it right now.
>>9917318
putting these on my bucket list. I've often been told to read bell jar by a couple of people. ty for the suggestion.

Le Feu Follet by Drieu la Rochelle

Read Miguel Delibes and Pio Baroja (The tree of knowledge, or La sombra del ciprés es alargada, for example)

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I can't believe someone took the time and effort to craft such meaningful and helpful advice for me. And give so many great recommendations. I really appreciate this anons

>>9916705
Reading helps me feel less alone because without it, I have nothing and no one to identify with and relate to. Not to mention that I want to understand these things better.
I have begun to write, mostly because my memory has deteriorated significantly but also for the reasons you mentioned above. Jotting things down helps understand and identify problems much more clearly and easily. Else they keep festering in my head and lead to a negative spiral. I started working out too. It does help with the depression and distracts enough from constantly overanalyzing things. But the sense of alienation never ceases to emerge when I'm around others and feel that there has to be something broken or abnormal with me to feel this out of place.

>The pain from loneliness comes and it goes. It's not a perpetual pain that prongs your brain with feelbadfeels. No, it's triggered by thoughts and memories.
Yeah you're sort of right. I'm learning how to be better at identifying these thoughts and memories. However, the feeling of bleakness and alienation feels constant. I guess because growing up I never was very close to anyone despite being quite an emotional person who craved intimacy. Over past few years I've changed and now it feels like something in my head has been broken irreparably.

Have you struggled with these things too? Because a lot of what you wrote was spot on (and even a professional gave me similar advice).

>>9917347

>OP, loosen the white-knuckle grip you have on the resentment you feel towards whoever/whatever you think has sinned against you.
I'm glad you said this anon. Over time I've let go most of the ressentiment I felt for people and don't blame them at all for being happy and well adjusted. However, in my efforts to integrate with peers and colleagues, I've often found myself thinking about how much I dislike being around most people. They can be so petty, shallow and thoughtless. And worst of all I know that even I'm guilty of being shallow and thoughtless and even lazy and just deplorable. The few people who I admire and respect seem to be too good for me anyway. All this drives me away from people (so that I don't become hateful and contemptuous) and furthers my alienation.

I often wonder. What's better: to deal with the cacaphony of a crowd in which I don't fit or the depressing silence of my locked room with no one to bother or care.
Anyway, I will certainly read jung.
> Integrate your shadow to equip power, eloquence, and grace that you cannot even imagine now
sounds very appealing

>>9917707
>I often wonder. What's better: to deal with the cacaphony of a crowd in which I don't fit or the depressing silence of my locked room with no one to bother or care.

I know this feel

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tfw

>>9916705
>Also start working out. When you feel bad thoughts, give your body something to really feel bad about. Do push ups, go for a bike ride, pull ups, just anything physical that you can do till exhaustion. You're still an animal. The body and mind are built not for logic or reasoning, despite what you may think. We are savages. So move your body like a savage. Your brain can't focus on the bad shit when you're using it for what it was built for... physical activity.

I'd add to this play anon. Play and all types of free expression are good at opening yourself up to your passions. You can begin to recognise how you make sense of your self by engaging in and then reviewing play. Just as others want you to write, I'd say you should do the same, except live as fully as possible beyond the self that others oppose upon you, or that you oppose upon yourself. Make yourself free enough that can enjoy the world as you did as a child, make your free enough to do sublimate your anger into a health medium, and then attack the patterns of your enjoyment and anger with scrutiny.

Most people can't do this because you end up destabilising a part of yourself and the flexibility becomes dangerous if you have no unconditional support, or capital. But it is the best pathway to seeking to cultivate and satisfy the passions.

>I often wonder. What's better: to deal with the cacaphony of a crowd in which I don't fit or the depressing silence of my locked room with no one to bother or care.

Such an either/or isn't helpful. This sounds like an irrational will that hasn't yet found a niche in which it can alienate and have power over others, and is instead stagnate from years of grandiosity. What you need to deal with is channelling your reproach of the crowd by taking up a meagre middle management position or something in a bureaucracy. Then you can take every opportunity imaginable to insult and condemn those both below and above you while maintaining that particular type of superiority that someone who needs death or to continuously to scorn and resent others has.

A dog might be a good mimetic device for coping as well, or a partner and child.

You all are extremely bad at guessing or trying to influence my condition. Until you figure out how to read minds, I'll keep you in the dark. That means forever, by the way.

>>9915010
The Lonely City by Olivia Laing is a good non-fiction. She even talks about Edward Hopper and his way of dealing with and showing loneliness in his work as well as other artists.

>>9915254
Thanks anon. I just might read that

>>9918341
Great one. Like disquiet this one too.

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>>9915385

Yeah. Is anyone else sick to death of this shit? It's lonely people glorifying themselves. Yeah, I'm lonely too, but the solution to that isn't to look inward. The solution is to turn outward- and if you haven't, you're not lonely at all. You're a lightweight. You're a vain, self-absorbed asshole.

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This book but mainly because you should learn to be comfortable being self determinant and about needing other people less. When you are out of place but ambitious you will find your place and with a strong personality and life philosophy you will attract people to you and lose those feelings of angst.

You should probably read some nietzche, but hes one of the most commonly misunderstood philosophers and you should be weary of misinterpreting the emotional langauge he sometimes uses.

>>9915010
Watch the film Le rayon vert.

>>9915010
I know these feels anon. You're not alone just remember that. One book that unironically helped me find solace in solitude was Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum. Non fiction but a great read

>>9918406
The problem with that is that there are plenty of cases of vain, self-absorbed assholes turning outwards only to show others "the way". All is vanity. Don't be resentful, Barney.

>>9915125
>female perspective and race
top kek

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Try no literature instead.

In a cheery mood are we fella?

>>9917326
This. I know it's a meme, but I think DFW addresses loneliness really well. It also might be refreshing to read something more contemporary on the subject.

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When i felt very lonely and insecure The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims by Arthur Schopenhauer helped me a lot

>>9917707
ive never related to someone on this terrible website as i have at this moment, not be weird or anything

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>>9915010 Is there any painter other than Edward Hopper that captures loneliness and alienation ?

>>9919430
Andrew Wyeth

>>9918570
Holy fuck that pic is so creepy for no apparent reason

>>9915010
Knausgård!

How has no one mentioned him already?

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>>9918570
ernst fuchs is who i wanted to be when i was in college

>>9917707
>But the sense of alienation never ceases to emerge when I'm around others and feel that there has to be something broken or abnormal with me to feel this out of place.

Fuark, man. I do even live a socially active life. You really hit the nail on the head with that one. As with everything else you've said.

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>>9917707

>>9918406
>turn outward
And do what?

>>9921060
Same here, especially in the relationship department. Yesterday I had pretty much my first date with a much younger girl while my younger brother had already 2/3 gfs

>>9921340
someone else's asshole

people like him have no integrity

>>9918471
amazing film

>>9915010
You could also read Hesses steppen wolf. Also, nausea by sartre.

>>9922222
There we are, good work lad.

The Assistant, by Robert Walser

>>9922222
those digits pretty much compels me to watch it

Phenomenology of Spirit