Novels with characters that are Existential Nihilists?

[Quaere verum]

Any recommendations on novels with characters that are existential nihilists? Maybe throw in some ostracism and depression too?

Any and all suggestions will be appreciated.

[Lykren]

Notes from Underground, obviously.

I haven't read it, but I know Sartre himself wrote a novel.

Maurice Bendrix in The End of the Affair could be construed as having a nihilist bent, I suppose.

[cacian]

Just a question how does existance and nihilism cohabit?
Is it a bit like saying it exists but thne it inhilist. It is and isn't.

[cafolini]

Sartre was extremely nihilistic.
So was Ortega & Gasset, the last Spanish philosopher outside of the museum. Check his thesis.

[chrisvia]

Instead of getting caught up in terminological pedantry, I'm going to answer based on what I think you mean by "existential nihilist" (that, in the end the human species has no significance):

Céline's Journey to the End of the Night
Camus's The Stranger
Palahnuik's Fight Club
Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra

[cafolini]

Nietsche predicted the effects of nihilism and described the history of the next century offering the solution and overcoming of it. Camus was a stoic, not an existentialist.

[qimissung]

Maybe Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles.

[cafolini]

Nietsche's solution to nihilism was a nihilism toward false values. The instituted false values were nihilistic. It was then necessary to become a complete nihilist of false values. Only when false values were finished, life could make sense again and earn original significance. The nihilism that led to things like the Holocaust (the nihilism that was a consequence of false values) manifested itself as he predicted it when he said "I write the history of the next century." The nihilism toward false values was his solution and it happened in the second half of the 20th century.

[Eiseabhal]

Existential, depressed, ostracised nihilist? Don't you think you are being a bit prescriptive. You aren't looking for a light and happy read anyway!

[FenwickS]

Dostoevsky's The Possessed sounds like it might fit what you're looking for

[llall]

Just a question how does existance and nihilism cohabit?
I'm going to assume that Quaere Verum is referring to the sense of futility and despair that are often associated with existentialism.


I haven't read it, but I know Sartre himself wrote a novel.
Nausea?

You could try 'They Shoot Horses, Don't They?' by Horace McCoy.