Spiritual Novel Recommendations

I'm starting to discover that in different stages of my life I read for different reasons. At the moment, I'm most drawn to novels that provide an almost spiritual or epiphanic experience. This is often due to overtly religious content, such as that in Brothers Karamazov or Siddhartha, but not always. Sometimes a strong identification with certain characters or narrators, such as those in War & Peace or Infinite Jest, is enough to feel that a book is speaking directly to your predicament, and pointing towards new avenues for growth, self-improvement, or self-understanding. These are the kind of books that have the power to make you see your life from a new perspective, and which you can return to in times of doubt or struggle.

I know that this is all incredibly subjective, but does anyone have any recommendations for books that have inspired you in this way?

I've read a few books that have had a similar effect. Siddhartha is one of them, as you've already mentioned and I recently read Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet which is also quite overtly religious and it is a beautiful, wise and affecting book.

Others which are perhaps less directly religious would be Lost Paradise and Rituals both by Cees Nooteboom. After I read Lost Paradise I existed in some kind of ecstatic bubble for about three days and I read it over and over again until the feeling wore off. Perhaps it was just a matter of timing, but even since the intense emotion has worn off I still find it a powerful book.

Nausea by Jean Paul Sartre was another book that affected me quite powerfully, and The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir. Actually I'm quite drawn to books which are feminist although I generally prefer it if the feminist element is consequential and natural rather than explicitly the subject matter. There's a growing body of strong female writers producing excellent fiction covering the thorny subject of female 'power' (for want of a better way to put it). Recent examples would be Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner, Rape: A Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates and Theodora by Stella Duffy. Oh, and Like by Ali Smith, which is kind of strange and compelling and beautifully written. So perhaps that feeds in to your feeling that there are books which 'speak directly to your predicament'. Maybe I feel that being female is my 'predicament'. There are days... :D

I was going to say Siddhartha, which did have a profound influence upon me when I read it, but than I realized you have already mentioned that one.

Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis.

I recommend The Razor's Edge by Sommerset Maughm. It is a masterful third person account of a young man named Larry who, after having been confronted with death in the form of an young Irish airman dying right before him after a dogfight in WW1, embarks on a quest to make sense of life-- a quest that becomes more and more spiritual until he eventually attains samadhi in the Himalayas. Another of Maughm's novels called The Moon And Sixpence is about the spiritual quest of a painter which is also very inspiring.

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Originally Posted by Des Essientes

I recommend The Razor's Edge by Sommerset Maughm. It is a masterful third person account of a young man named Larry who, after having been confronted with death in the form of an young Irish airman dying right before him after a dogfight in WW1, embarks on a quest to make sense of life-- a quest that becomes more and more spiritual until he eventually attains samadhi in the Himalayas. Another of Maughm's novels called The Moon And Sixpence is about the spiritual quest of a painter which is also very inspiring.

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I'd like to add Maugham's Of Human Bondage which is in a similar vein although much longer than those already mentioned. The search for the meaning of life must have concerned him throughout his own life when we consider that Of Human Bondage was published in 1915, The Moon and Sixpence in 1919 and The Razor's Edge in 1944.

Similar to Siddhartha, Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund is a good spiritual, coming of age tale. Death of a Salesman has always given me a new perspective with each reading as well.

Thanks, all, for the generous recommendations and the now-overflowing library queue. I look forward to reading these and then, you know, having all the answers.

Thomas mann the magic mountain

For my little money, it's hard to top Thoreau's Walden as a spiritual book. The book is often inaccurately titled a nature book, but while nature is a prominent idea, the focus of the book is spiritual. In fact, I so enjoy this book that I read it every year, calling it my "spiritual refresh". Check it out!

C

I agree with The Comedian and his recommendation of Thoreau's Walden. Let's throw in Civil Disobedience while we're at it.

Here are my recommendations:

The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis
Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
Death Comes For the Archbishop - Willa Cather
The Mysterious Stranger - Mark Twain

I also agree with Walden and would add Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.

Thanks, all-- I actually wrote my undergrad thesis on Walden, and read it every year for precisely the same reasons. I find that the re-reads of Thoreau also provide a good gauge of how I am growing and changing; parts of the book I once admired I now question, and parts that were once too obscure I now understand and relate to. Perhaps the reason I was looking for spiritual novel recommendations was to re-create that experience of grappling with the lessons and challenges of Walden-- but, at the same time, there just may be no book better suited to my temperament.

Still, these recommendations look great, so we'll see...

it's not called the profoundest book there is for no reason

Thus spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche (firts time i type his name correctly...)

Id also like to recommend Etty Hillesum's diaries called "An interrupted life". Although its not a novel, but an autobiographical book - still, the spritual process through which Etty goes, inspite of the horror that surrounds her during the Holocaust is amazing.