Books with no more than 1 character?

[Anonymous No.18937529]

I'm really tired of inter-personal drama being the focal point of a story. Can be fiction, non fiction (although I'd prefer to not have educated urbanites being tourists in the woods to ascertain some theory they developed,like Walden). Non fiction should present ideas and theories that don't concern other people (no sociology, no psychology, no law, no politics etc.). Anything else goes. Bonus points for actually going beyond just posting titles.

[Anonymous No.18937567]

>>18937529
any philosophy book, but then youd get told to start with the (dialogical) greeks. But it's your choice.

i'm not well-read enough in philosophy so ill refrain from suggestions, maybe another anon can help me out here

[Anonymous No.18937614]

>>18937567
>any philosophy book, but then youd get told to start with the (dialogical) greeks. But it's your choice.
Yeah, I guess philosophy kind of qualifies. But then again, I don't really want to read Greeks, so I can read Kant, so I can read 5 more supplementary books so I can read Schopenhauer, who's gonna tell me that I should kill myself, and that life has no meaning. It's just this never-ending cycle of books where it reminds me of the way people in university managed to take out the fun out of math.

[Anonymous No.18937617]

Sort of Malone Dies and the Unnamable y Beckett.

There are other characters mentioned (and created) in MD but they are only remembered, they never appear directly. In the Unnamable other characters may not exist at all and may be invented by the narrator (and he also may be the narrator of all of Beckett's previous novels, meaning they may all retroactively have no "real" characters except the narrator)

[Anonymous No.18937621]

>>18937617
*The Unnamable by Beckett
not spanish

[Anonymous No.18937623]

>>18937617
Thanks for the suggestion, but do you mind explaining if the story still revolves around conflict and drama between these characters (even if they're not real)?

[Anonymous No.18937680]

>>18937623
>if the story still revolves around conflict and drama between these characters
For MD no, it doesn't. The "plot" is just a guy passing time writing in a notebook and waiting to die. He describes a few interactions with other characters but those interactions don't seem any more important than Malone's interactions with the objects in his room when he's alone. He makes up some stories while he's dying which have more direct character interactions, but again, in the actual plot these stories are just the thoughts of a man alone in a room.

The Unnamable is a very strange book and it's not easy to explain what it's like, but there is a sort of "conflict" between the narrator and "someone else" but it's unclear what that "someone else" actually is (or even what the conflict actually is).

[Anonymous No.18937689]

>>18937529
Notes From Underground by Dostoy

[Anonymous No.18937696]

>>18937689
I was also going to suggest this, but only the first part.

[Anonymous No.18937705]

>>18937623
Also you might want to look into Beckett's plays. I haven't read any of them yet but I wouldn't be surprised if there was one with only one character.

[Anonymous No.18937742]

>>18937689
Read it already. I think both the going away party and his interactions with the whore are both fundamental aspects of the book, even if they're mostly used to explain the protagonist, not drive a story forward.
>>18937705
Yep, already tried to get Waiting for Godot as my intro to Beckett. I'll probably order a few of his works when I finish my current stack.

[Anonymous No.18937762]

>>18937623
>>18937705
Krapp's Last Tape is the most important one-character Beckett play. However, I very much doubt his stuff has the vibe you're after. It's full of "human conflict", mostly hopeless and unresolved, only finding release in occasional black humour. (On the other hand, most of this conflict is internal. That might be what you want, I suppose.)

[Anonymous No.18937770]

>>18937529
Wittgenstein's Mistress

[Anonymous No.18937771]

You could also just read some mathematics textbooks. Start with the Greeks (Euclid).

[Anonymous No.18937791]

>>18937529
What kind of story would that be? Like Man vs Nature?

[Anonymous No.18937813]

the wall by marlen haushofer

[Anonymous No.18937814]

>>18937791
Sure, that would be a good example. Man vs Nature, man vs post-apocalyptic hellhole. Man in a cabin, taking a walk, and taking nature in. Not every story needs to follow the best-selling formula, it can be completely flat. The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Dostoevsky kind of fits. The over-arching lack of dialogue is what I'm after.

[Anonymous No.18937824]

>>18937813
This fits perfectly, and is in line with >>18937814 . Thanks. But I have to ask, is it good?
>>18937770
Thanks.

[Anonymous No.18937875]

>>18937529
Trust me it's this one. Just start it right now and also resolve to finish it so you can't stop reading it. Trust me

[Anonymous No.18939066]

>>18937875
Finished it already bro. There's a billion characters, and dialogue is integral. It's probably my favorite book though. Except for when Tolstoy started sperging out instead of finishing the story.