The Life of a Stupid Man was published posthumously in 1927, the same year Ryūnosuke Akutagawa took his own life. That makes this work seem like a literary suicide note - one final, unfiltered outpouring of his disillusionment and despair. It wasn’t crafted for an audience so much as exhaled, a last gasp of a man … Continue reading Shards of a Broken Mind: A Critique of The Life of a Stupid Man
Tag: existentialism
Pebbles, Prose, and Pointlessness: Beckett’s Molloy and the Art of Going Nowhere
Question: have you ever sucked a pebble? Samuel Beckett’s Molloy is often heralded as a towering monument of modernist literature, though whether it’s a lighthouse of enlightenment or an impassable granite slab is a matter of perspective. This novel, the first in Beckett’s famous trilogy, plunges us into a world where sucking stones takes on existential significance … Continue reading Pebbles, Prose, and Pointlessness: Beckett’s Molloy and the Art of Going Nowhere
Sex, Solitude, and a Side of Nietzsche: Making Sense of The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a novel that deals with such weighty topics that it almost feels ironic to handle them with a title so buoyant as 'lightness.' This text floats through philosophy, politics, love, and betrayal with the kind of existential pondering usually reserved for lonely people in cafes at 2am. It’s a … Continue reading Sex, Solitude, and a Side of Nietzsche: Making Sense of The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Alfie: The Charm, the Consequences, and the Loneliness Beneath the Swagger
A few days ago, quite by accident, I found myself watching a movie that reignited memories of a play I had already delved into some time ago. As the familiar story unfolded on screen, I felt the urge to revisit and refine my previous thoughts. Out came the metaphorical polish for an old essay, and … Continue reading Alfie: The Charm, the Consequences, and the Loneliness Beneath the Swagger
Through the Peephole: Henri Barbusse’s The Inferno
Lately, I find myself immersed in a sea of existentialist musings, possibly reflecting my own melancholic state of mind and sombre outlook on life. And the work I'm about to detail is hard to pin down to exactly which literary genre this introspective fluff belongs to - Existentialist? Modernist? Philosophical Fiction? Psychological Fiction? Perhaps it … Continue reading Through the Peephole: Henri Barbusse’s The Inferno
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