I need some more fiction in my life. What are you top five philosophy novel favorites?
for example, here are mine:
(in NO particular order)
The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse
Crime and Punishment, Dosteovsky
The Stanger, Camus
The Fountainhead, Ryand
actually i’m only giving four for now. i’d be repeating authors probably. i know there is someone/something else, but of course my mind is blank right now.
the name of the rose -eco
notes from underground -dostoevsky
the autobiography of malcolm x- malcolm x (not exactly a novel but a great story)
black robe- moore
black elk speaks -neihardt (again, not exactly a novel but a great story)
-Imp
Les Jeux sont Faits - Sartre
Siddhartha - Hesse
The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi (very much a novel, and Gandhi’s notes are superb)
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Wolfe
The Looking Glass War - Le Carré
The last two are not dedicatedly philosophical, but they are well written and provide ample food for thought.
Well a can say a majority of novels involve a philosophical theme. So here goes.
Austin: Sense and Sensibility
Burgess: CLockwork Orange
Keasy: One flew over the Cuckoo’s.
Steinbeck: Well look at my SN.
one more, thinking
well short story Cather’s Paul’s Case.
Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Orwell, 1984
Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
Dick, The Divine Invasion
Tolkein, The Lord of the Rings
…I posted about the philosophical content of that last one a while ago, but no one seemed interested. Great story though.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintinance - Robert Presig
Practical Ethics- Peter Singer
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas- Hunter S. Thompson doesn’t count as philosophy but he thinks in a very different way and that is just fun to experience.
I disagree that Atwood or Thompson have any decent philosophical content in their writings, but we needn’t get into why.
My five:
My ALL time favourite is:
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
I wouldn’t say these are strictlly Philction, except for Radiant Cool which is a philosophical treatise disguised as fiction. But these are all novels a philosophy enthusiast such as yourself might find essential.
Narcissus and Goldmund – philosophy of religion, aesthetics
Radiant Cool – time, space, matter
The Fermata – ethics, omniscience/omnipotence, time
Ender’s Game – social philosophy, game theory, psychology
And perhaps most notably…
Satan: His Psychotherapy and Cure by the Unfortunate Dr. Seymour Kassler – entropy, meaning, individuality, psychology, existentialism,
If you need fiction below are my top five fiction novels.
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
The Master & Margarita - Bulgakov
Dead Souls - Gogol
Death of a Salesman - Miller
My favorite though is Brothers Karamazov - in so many ways I feel like I am Alyosha (though I have a little bit of the other two brothers).
And if you just need any fiction book; how about Carson McCuller’s The Member of the Wedding: short but with depth and it is very touching.