Suggest some authors of pessimistic bent

[tonalized]

So far I've read TCATHR & Benatar's Better Never To Have Been. I'm becoming quite the fan of darker ideas. I was thinking about picking up some Schopenhauer. Any other authors or specific books anyone can recommend. I really wish Ligotti would have put a 'References' appendix at the end of TCATHR.

	TCATHR The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

[gveranon]

Edgar Saltus, The Philosophy of Disenchantment

Samuel Beckett

E. M. Cioran

W. G. Sebald

Philip Larkin

for non-fiction, carlo michelstaedter's persuasion & rhetoric, schopenhauer's aphorisms, jean amery's on suicide, giacomo leopardi's pensieri, h.g. wells the mind at the end of its tether, john zerzan's future primitive, the anatomy of negation ,the philosphy of disenchantment, and lords of the ghostland by edgar saltus, benjamin de casseres, yi-fu tuan's escapism, michael novak's the experience of nothingness, john gray's straw dogs, the dark side: thoughts on the futility of life from the ancient greeks to the present is a great resource, william brashear's the desolation of reality, notes of an anatomist by f. gonzalez-crussi, nihil unbound by ray brassier, and everything by emile cioran come immediately to mind. oh and let's not forget white line fever by lemmy kilmister

[G. S. Carnivals]

The first writer of fiction I thought of was Barry N. Malzberg. Dark pessimism with a wink and a wry grin.

[MagnusTC]

Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Th. W. Adorno (Minima Moralia etc.), Max Blecher, ... Lautréamonts The Songs of Maldoror perhaps.

[gveranon]

Quote Originally Posted by no one

for non-fiction, carlo michelstaedter's persuasion & rhetoric, schopenhauer's aphorisms, jean amery's on suicide, giacomo leopardi's pensieri, h.g. wells the mind at the end of its tether, john zerzan's future primitive, the anatomy of negation ,the philosphy of disenchantment, and lords of the ghostland by edgar saltus, benjamin de casseres, yi-fu tuan's escapism, michael novak's the experience of nothingness, john gray's straw dogs, the dark side: thoughts on the futility of life from the ancient greeks to the present is a great resource, william brashear's the desolation of reality, notes of an anatomist by f. gonzalez-crussi, nihil unbound by ray brassier, and everything by emile cioran come immediately to mind. oh and let's not forget white line fever by lemmy kilmister

Some good suggestions there, no one. I'm going to follow up on Saltus's The Lords of the Ghostland, Benjamin de Cassares, and The Dark Side: Thoughts on the Futility of Life . . . .

But Michael Novak?! From what I know of him, he has written some scholarly books but is also a kitschy, pop-Catholic polemicist who is wont to say things like "God is our friend."

Also: I'm trying to decide if I need to know more about Lemmy.

ahh...you are quite correct sir. it is the same michael novak, now painting himself as a religious clown. the experience of nothingness was written prior to all of the religiosity, and in it one can discern the writer ultimately fleeing from his own realizations at the end of the book, into the "safety of a new dark age", much the way des esseinte, and indeed huysmans himself did.
as for the lemmy, that was my sad attempt at humor.

[gveranon]

Quote Originally Posted by no one

ahh...you are quite correct sir. it is the same michael novak, now painting himself as a religious clown. the experience of nothingness was written prior to all of the religiosity, and in it one can discern the writer ultimately fleeing from his own realizations at the end of the book, into the "safety of a new dark age", much the way des esseinte, and indeed huysmans himself did. as for the lemmy, that was my sad attempt at humor.

I don't know much about Huysmans, and I myself don't think religion is an answer to these problems -- mostly because I just don't believe it -- but I do think there is a significant difference in quality between Huysmans, or Simone Weil, or Kierkegaard . . . and the condescending, oily, Sunday-school-for-adults sales pitch perfected by Novak and others like him.

Lemmy isn't really a pessimist? I'm shattered.

[Michael]

Thomson's poem "The City of Dreadful Night" immediately comes to mind.

[Gray House]

What is Man?, by Mark Twain