Forgive me if this is excessively specific. In Mann's Buddenbrooks, one of the main characters reads a chapter of Schopenhauer while dreading his death, and he has some kind of philosophical meltdown alone in his room one night. There's a lot of great stuff in there about rejoining some collective after death and reflecting on accumulated inadequacies and failures, and it's all in Mann's flowery and sentimental style (which I love) that takes the reader along through the characters' drawn-out thought processes. Another factor that makes me like this section so much is that the character having the experience is no scholar of philosophy, and his experience is written in that way. He's just a regular guy trying to figure something out about his life and being overwhelmed by what he finds.
I'm looking for books, ideally novels, that have a similar almost-psychedelic exploration of scary philosophical topics that take, or at least consider, the perspective of the uninitiated everyman. I like philosophy in books, but I don't think I'm that interested in reading theory. I could be convinced, but I generally like when the philosophical conversations are in service of the narrative in some way even if it's just a case of "these are ideas that influenced this character and here they are talking about them". My main priority with this ask is to find more works that move me and make me wonder in the way that this one did, so if you've got a rec that really affected you, I'd love to hear about it.
For further reference, I am currently reading Mann's Doctor Faustus (Woods translation) and I'm in love about 100 pages in. I've been enjoying Zola's Rougon-Macquart recently, but I think his style is more analytical than I'm looking for here. I love the warmth in Mann's work.
Thank you thank you for reading my meandering post. Looking forward to checking out people's recs!
by lit_throwaway1738