contemporary existentialist writers

[longgone]

I ask myself: is the great tradition of great existentialist writing more are less dead? This seems strange, since what you sometimes call existentialism (I don't care what it's called, but the content) basically deals with....how to orient yourself in life. But I don't know of any modern day Sartre.

When i look in wikipedia they say this about contemporary "existentialist" writers:

Ideas from such thinkers as Dostoevsky, Foucault, Kafka, Nietzsche, Herbert Marcuse, Gilles Deleuze, and Eduard von Hartmann permeate the works of artists such as Chuck Palahniuk, Michael Szymczyk, David Lynch, Crispin Glover, and Charles Bukowski, and one often finds in their works a delicate balance between distastefulness and beauty.

As much as I enjoy reading old Chucky, his not much in comperasion with Dostojevskij is he......I mean on that level....Yee, wolds gone crazy....

So, anyone that can suggest some real stuff (contemporary, and by contemporary I mean contemporary, so don't start talking about Kafka or Faulkner)?

l

[mal4mac]

"Whatever" by Michel Houellebecq

[blazeofglory]

Today I do not think writers are hooked to any particular stream the way they did earlier. Today to come across writers whose writings have stenches of existentialism.

Today everything is remix. Even pieces of literature too are not exempt from this as a matter of fact. That is what modern readers are interested in. Two, three or four in one.

And today it is very hard to hook people to any particular style or subject. Therefore if one is purely existential in his writing he cannot be successful

[My name is red]

I haven't read much of his works but i find Le clezio pretty existentiallist

[promtbr]

I read a lot of contemporary world literary fiction. What Blaze of Glory says is pretty spot on. There are certainly works that have characters and/or narrators that explore existential themes, but I am not sure there are any that I am aware of that would consider themselves or considered by critics as being "existential" writers. Sartre (more so) and Camus were as much or more known for their philosophy then that of their fiction (or drama). Many, many heavyweight living writers feature angst riden, solipsistic or alienated protagonists, from Murakami to Kundera, from Le Clezio to Coetzee etc.

An excellent example of this, (where a character cites Sartre many times) and is a gem of a novel by potential 2009 Nobel winner, the Dutch author Cees Nooteboom's Rituals (which I will be reviewing shortly).



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[Three Sparrows]

The Road, by Cyrus McCormack.
It seems to me that writer could easily be inserted into the existentialist class.

[laymonite]

I'm not sure what you're looking for exists. If I understand correctly, you want someone on the level of the greats like Sartre, Camus, Dostoevsky, Foucault, and so on, but who is published in the 1980s to current. Is this correct? If so, writers like Palahnuik and Bret Easton Ellis come to mind. But you already disqualified Palahnuik.

I think blazeofglory nailed it. You're not going to find this type of hardcore existentialist writing today. Although there does seem to be a big craze for stream-of-consciousness ranting.

[promtbr]

Just finished the novel I mentioned in my above post: Rituals by Cees Nooteboom. I would highly recommend this novel, as it is a "big question" book...read it now and you can say you were reading him before he received all the notoriety from winning the Nobel..(not saying its going to be this year..but he has the oeuvre and talent to win it at some point)

Reviewed on blog....

I would qualify the statement "caliber of Sartre and Camus"... they were influential thinkers first. They are neither of them widely considered "great novelists".

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[TheFifthElement]

I'd say Jose Saramago is similar in theme to Camus. I've never read his most well known work Blindness but in theme it sounds rather similar to The Plague. Of those I have read he definitely follows a philisophical theme: The Cave being based on Plato's allegory of the cave, Death at Intervals an exploration of what might happen if people stopped dying; The Double an exploration of identity. He's an interesting writer once you get used to his rambling narrative and approach to speech.
Knut Hamsun - I recently read Hunger and it's a book not easily forgotten. Brilliantly written and very disturbing and, I'd say, existential. Absurdity is a central theme.
Halldor Laxness - it's likely his books would fall within the existential category.
Haruki Murakami has already been mentioned. His book Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World owes a lot to Kafka's The Castle.

[longgone]

Not considered great novelists? As far as I remember they both received the nobel price in literature. Sartre might not have been widely remembered if not for his philosophy, but for camus the cicumstances seem to be the exact opposite, that is, he's remembered for his novels. The Stranger is extremely highly rated, to the point of being overrated maybe.

[mal4mac]

Not considered great novelists? As far as I remember they both received the nobel price in literature. Sartre might not have been widely remembered if not for his philosophy, but for camus the cicumstances seem to be the exact opposite, that is, he's remembered for his novels. The Stranger is extremely highly rated, to the point of being overrated maybe.

Sartre and Camus don't have great reputation as novelists. For instance, try Bloom's "Novels and Novelists" if you want to read a *really* critical review of "The Stranger".

[DanielBenoit]

Today I do not think writers are hooked to any particular stream the way they did earlier. Today to come across writers whose writings have stenches of existentialism.

Today everything is remix. Even pieces of literature too are not exempt from this as a matter of fact. That is what modern readers are interested in. Two, three or four in one.

And today it is very hard to hook people to any particular style or subject. Therefore if one is purely existential in his writing he cannot be successful

I agree. There are still many "existential" novels written, but existentialism as a movement is dead.

As far as philosophy goes, we've moved far beyond existentialism in the past fifty years, so you are unlikely to find any contemporary existentialist philosophers.

As far as literature goes, I highly reccomend Milan Kundra's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (not completely contemporary I know, but too good to be ignored), as well as David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" (which is far more postmodern than existential, but still worth a reccomendation).

[Kafka's Crow]

Just finished the novel I mentioned in my above post: Rituals by Cees Nooteboom. I would highly recommend this novel, as it is a "big question" book...read it now and you can say you were reading him before he received all the notoriety from winning the Nobel..(not saying its going to be this year..but he has the oeuvre and talent to win it at some point)

Reviewed on blog....

I would qualify the statement "caliber of Sartre and Camus"... they were influential thinkers first. They are neither of them widely considered "great novelists".

--

I read Rituals fifteen years ago, a little gem of a book. I still remember some snippets, the Japanese Tea Cerermony, the disillusionment and the inability to fit in etc. I read The Reader recently and watched the movie last night. It asks troublesome questions about existence, freedom to choose and the horrible consequences of this choice, guilt, love, innocence etc. Excellent book, the movie, even better.

[Eryk]

I think Infinite Jest is an existential novel. Different paths in the search for meaning--hedonism, and the ultra-nationalism of the wheelchair terrorists. Addiction, of course, is a flight from freedom.

[Babbalanja]

Saramago is certainly in the tradition of the existentialists: Blindness is a merciless exploration of the misery of the human condition. But Murakami is much too tame for an existentialist, and there is a magical component to Wind-Up Bird Chronicles that I don't feel was meant ironically.

I like the notion of David Foster Wallace being an existentialist, and not just because I love his fiction. Gately's protracted agony at the end of Infinite Jest sure seems like something out of Beckett: in pain from a bullet wound, the hapless protagonist doesn't want to dull the excruciating pain with opiates and screw up his recovery. Meanwhile, other characters drift in and out of his hospital room, thinking their chatter helps his situation.

There's also George Saunders, whose short story collections like Pastoralia are full of people trapped in comically miserable situations. His recurring use of the run-down theme park as a metaphor for society (and history) is both hysterically funny and hugely tragic.

An Amy Hempel short story is like a Giacometti sculpture, pared down to its human core. I love the bleakly funny Reasons to Live, as well as her other collections.

Philosopher Richard Appignanesi has edited books on existentialism, even appearing as the Underground Man in the illustrated Introducing Existentialism. However, he's also an accomplished novelist. His trilogy Italia Perversa dug deep into the cultural and psychic debris of WWII. In this century, he wrote Yukio Mishima's Report to the Emperor, a lurid pseudo-memoir that explored art, madness, celebrity, and history.

[Onikeflava]

Look no further than Slavoj Zizek.