Alright, this isn't done very often around here, due to all the edginess
What is a novel that will make me HAPPY? One that is encouraging about life and will make me want to get out into the world and love and do shit?
one hundred years of solitude
House of Leaves
A Christmas Carol
Neverwhere and Bridge of Birds are my two favorite luck me ups.
Wind Sand and Stars has a vein of melancholy running through it but you'll definitely feel like doing things.
A Confederacy of Dunces
Herman Melville's Moby-Dick due to the high spirits of the narrator, Ishmael. Nevertheless, Ishmael notes the self-deception and shallowness involved in a keeping up an optimistic world view :
The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. "All is vanity". ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold of unchristian Solomon's wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks fast crossing grave- yards, and would rather talk of operas than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all of sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais as passing wise, and therefore jolly; - not that man is fitted to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably wondrous Solomon.
>>7460479
Happiness is only a distraction from reality. A lie and concept; a scapegoat for societies control.
i am a edgy suicidal teen by op is a faggot
>>7460593
Hahhahaha huehuwhueheu
>>7460479
unfortunately I cannot read and therefore cannot answer your question
The Beats, The Existentialists, and the local favorite Thomas R. Pynchon
I genuinely do believe - for all his darkness - reading Pynchon made me more outgoing and gave me a more positive outlook on life
>>7460560
/thread
It's like wanting to be rich or powerful... If it ever came true you would only then find reasons to feel sadness. Not even you consciously per say, but you wouldn't have a say in the matter. Your mind would find a way. The only happiness you can strive for is happiness in the form of bursts of joy through living as nature intended. Listening to the rain while being sheltered, feeling the warmth of the sun, filling your stomach after being hungry for so long etc.
>>7460788
what's wrong with wanting a family? or even a partner? that's the kind of happiness I think of when people say the word--someone who can bring me happiness over long periods, consistently or at consistent intervals
>>7460479
the unbearable lightness of being made me look at love differently and more intelligently. as a result of that, I was happier in my relationships. I can't say that's what you're looking for.
Chronic City made me want to feel as good as that book made me feel
Pride and Prejudice gave me the biggest shit-eating grin
idk
>>7460479
Cannery Row
>>7460801
holy shit this
>>7460801
Mike and the boys man. Shit made me tear up
>>7460801
This is pretty dope
>>7460479
Oblomov perhaps, by telling you what happens if you don't.
>>7460560
>Reality = misery
You know, your endless bitching is just a distraction as well
>>7460796
Love this book.
>>7460794
mein gott pure ideology
>>7460479
Siddhartha
The Death of Ivan Illyich
Virginia Woolf's Orlando had me cracking up and smiliing the whole way through
