Book Suggestions; Existential Crisis

[armenian]

any suggestions to novels where the main character would go through a existential crisis. the search for meaning is a theme i enjoy to read in books.

[Desolation]

Nausea by Jean Paul Sartre is of course THE existential novel
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine, search for meaning in the darkness of humanity
On the Road by Jack Kerouac, search for meaning in a dying America
The Theif's Journal by Jean Genet, the search for spiritual enlightenment through evil
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse, I haven't read it yet, but from what I've read about it, it fits the bill

You've probably already read all or most of those, though.

[armenian]

i havnt read the middle three, so ill check those out, thanks.

[Scheherazade]

The Outsider and The Plague are excellent... as is anything else Camus wrote.

[grotto]

Are there any specific themes you are looking for or books that you have read that you particularly like? Existentialism in any particular ideas perhaps? If you ask a general existential question, you will always get Kafka, Camus and Sartre, but there are many authors who tackle the theme in different ways and in different circumstances.

A few suggestions off the norm that may help.
Immortality – Milan Kundera
Beware of Pity – Stefan Zweig
Stoner – John Williams
To a God Unknown – John Steinbeck
Mysteries – Knut Hamsun
Death and the Dervish – Mesa Selimovic
Crime and Punishment – Dostoyevsky
Notes from The Underground – Dostoyevsky
Hunger – Knut Hamsun
Thus Spoke Zarathustra – Nietzsche
Seize the Day – Saul Below
Death of a Salesmen – Arthur Miller
Barabbas – Par Lagerkvist
Beneath the Wheel - Hermann Hesse
Niels Lyhne - Jens Peter Jacobsen
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
The Death of Ivan Ilych – Leo Tolstoy
I would even throw in Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago even has this theme if you can get past the idea that Jesus is more than a man and can see him as a human first.

[My name is red]

Great topic,Existantialism is really my thing.
Other than Camus,Sartre you've probably already known,i'd recommend Dangling Man by Saul Bellow,The Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato(this novel was translated after Albert Camus's insistence and recommendation into english).And i found The Interrogation(I think this is the english title)by Le Clezio pretty 'existentialistic' BUT boring(for me).And you may like Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor,there is definitily a crises.

[grotto]

Thanks Red, I have a few new titles to look into!

[kelby_lake]

The Outsider and The Plague are excellent... as is anything else Camus wrote.

The Outsider is also sometimes known as The Stranger (its original French title is L'Etranger).