Hi book suggestors,
I'm looking for protagonists (or other characters) in works of literary fiction (rather than genre fic), who openly explore how they conceive of and practice right and wrong.
Some classic examples would be Crime & Punishment, Great Expectations and other bildungsromans of this ilk and era, The Pilgrim's Progress etc.
I'm particularly interested in characters who examine an existentialist or nihilistic morality, and absurd characters who lose faith in or find it impossible to live 'the good life' in a world of destabilised moral codes, either because they lose faith in moral goodness or because the world presents insurmountable and tragic obstacles to their being morally good (on the latter, Jude the Obscure springs to mind for example).
Bonus points if you can suggest any 21st century novels covering these themes, with deep philosophical reflections and themes, who touch upon the big questions of moral philosophy after Kant/Adorno/Rawls etc.!
Thank you so much for your inputs 🙂
by newsocialorder
1 Comment
You should definitely check out **The Stranger** by Camus if you haven’t already – it’s like the poster child for absurdist morality and moral disconnection. For something more recent, **My Struggle** by Knausgård gets into some heavy moral self-examination, though it’s autobiographical fiction so might not fit perfectly
Also **The Road** by McCarthy has that whole “trying to be good in a world where morality seems pointless” vibe you’re describing