Novels with characters who live alone

[TheStatutoryApe]

"Hunger", by Knut Hamsun

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0486431681/?tag=pfamazon01-20

That one seems rather interesting. Why don't you share this sort of thing in the book review thread! ;-p

 

[arildno]

That one seems rather interesting. Why don't you share this sort of thing in the book review thread! ;-p

Perhaps I should have. I'll make a mini-review here then:

The unnamed narrator is a self-styled, self-absorbed intellectual who is relating the trivialities of his existence, along with describing the flights of fancy the hunger-induced light-headedness produces in him. "Weird" is very definitely how you'd characterize this guy, and the book.

It doesn't happen much in the way of external events; rather, "Hunger" is a "stream-of-consciousness" work, quite possibly the first to be accurately termed such (it was published in 1890).
For that reason. it is perhaps of historic interest to some readers, who might find the "plot" rather boring.


In the same modernist vein is his next novel, "Mysteries".

His work "Pan", in my mind an exquisite love story, is also recommended, along with his memoir, "On Overgrown Paths", written as a reaction to the psychiatrists who deemed that his mental abilities had become "permanently impaired".

To label the foremost Norwegian novelist as "old and senile" was the cop-out strategy for the Norwegian establishment in post-war Norway, which didn't want to put him on trial for high treason (i.e, collaboration with the Nazis in WWII).

He would undoubtedly, and deservedly, been found guilty as charged, but the "alternate punishment" he got with being labelled as mentally incompetent is a good example of shoddy, shameful cowardice. Besides, he didn't deserve that particular label, as "On overgrown Paths" abundantly shows.

 

[WhiteTim]

So one is looking for a contemporary novel about an individual living alone in a modern developed, industrial or post-industrial society? Why?

I've already explained why.

I think jimmysnyder has a point. There is probably not such a novel, so one would have to write one.

With the tens and tens of thousands of novels that are set in America in or after the 1950s, I'm sure there are many books that fit my criteria.

Criteria: Protagonist lives alone in a house/apartment/townhouse/condo and has a normal non-detective job in America in or after the 1950s.

That criteria is not so extraordinarily unique. Really, it's not.

 

[WhiteTim]

Lol... you seem rather picky here to have a problem over a matter of a few years. In all seriousness The Stranger would seem to come closest to what you are looking for, unless you can give us some more to go on. You may want to check it out regardless.

I really prefer the novel be set sometime after 1980 (so I'm really having a problem over about forty years, not just a few years), but I said the 1950s or later to expand the possibilities. I am interested in The Stranger, and I'm not totally dismissing it because it was written no later than 1942. You have picqued my interest, and I will be looking at The Stranger.

 

[Astronuc]

I've already explained why.

One explained: "I've always lived alone, and I want something that reminds me of my life."

Then one explained: "I stock merchandise on the shelves at a grocery store, and I have a second job as a cashier at a fast food restaurant."

I would have expected that at one point, one lived with one or both of one's parents, unless one was placed in foster care or an orphanage. Nevertheless, one had to have been living with other for some time.

With the tens and tens of thousands of novels that are set in America in or after the 1950s, I'm sure there are many books that fit my criteria.

Criteria: Protagonist lives alone in a house/apartment/townhouse/condo and has a normal non-detective job in America in or after the 1950s.

That criteria is not so extraordinarily unique. Really, it's not.

Novels about someone who stocks merchandise at a grocery store and has a second job as a cashier at a fast food restaurant is not going to make for a commercially successful novel.

I stocked the dairy case at one grocery store, while I was a high school student and living at home with my parents and siblings. Later, at university, I lived alone for between one and two years, then transferred universities. I shared a 2-bedroom apartment to keep costs down, and because afordable single apartments were unavailable. The guy I shared an apartment with was hardly around, and we didn't see much of each other, since I spent most of my time on campus or elsewhere away from the apartment.

 

[arildno]

I thought one of the main virtues of literature was that it enabled the reader to identify with OTHER life experiences than his own, rather than indulging in a self-absorbed tear-fest.

Evidently, I was mistaken.

 

[WhiteTim]

I thought one of the main virtues of literature was that it enabled the reader to identify with OTHER life experiences than his own, rather than indulging in a self-absorbed tear-fest.

Evidently, I was mistaken.

I have no emotional stake in what you thought.

 

[Evo]

Criteria: Protagonist lives alone in a house/apartment/townhouse/condo and has a normal non-detective job in America in or after the 1950s.

That criteria is not so extraordinarily unique. Really, it's not.

It's also not interesting.

 

[arildno]

I have no emotional stake in what you thought.

And I have no emotional interest in reading about your personal traumas.

 

[Brilliant!]

He asked for book recommendations, not a psychological analysis.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Here's one from a woman's point of view. I haven't read it so I can't review it.

How to be Single by Liz Tucillo.

 

[WhiteTim]

It's also not interesting.

If you think that married characters or characters who live with other people are more interesting than characters who live alone, more power to you...

But single characters who live alone are more interesting to me.

 

[WhiteTim]

He asked for book recommendations, not a psychological analysis.

Exactly.

 

[WhiteTim]

And I have no emotional interest in reading about your personal traumas.

You're in luck then, because I have never wrote a word about any of my personal traumas on this forum.

 

[WhiteTim]

One explained: "I've always lived alone, and I want something that reminds me of my life."

Yeah.

Then one explained: "I stock merchandise on the shelves at a grocery store, and I have a second job as a cashier at a fast food restaurant."

This is also true.

I would have expected that at one point, one lived with one or both of one's parents...

Yeah; I lived with one or both of my parents for over twenty years.

Nevertheless, one had to have been living with other for some time.

Yeah.

Novels about someone who stocks merchandise at a grocery store and has a second job as a cashier at a fast food restaurant is not going to make for a commercially successful novel.

Actually it could...it depends on the plot.

I stocked the dairy case at one grocery store, while I was a high school student and living at home with my parents and siblings. Later, at university, I lived alone for between one and two years, then transferred universities. I shared a 2-bedroom apartment to keep costs down, and because afordable single apartments were unavailable. The guy I shared an apartment with was hardly around, and we didn't see much of each other, since I spent most of my time on campus or elsewhere away from the apartment.

Okay.

 

[WhiteTim]

Although Claire Davis' Labors of the Heart is a short story, not a novel, it is the epitome of the type of story/setting/theme I'm looking for in a book. Labors of the Heart is about a forty year old man, Clarence Softitch, who is 5'8" and weighs 482 pounds. The man works as a janitor at an elementary school at night. The protagonist of Labors of the Heart has an ordinary job, yet the short story Labors of the Heart was selected to be included in the anthology of the Best American Short Stories of 2001.

Softitch lives alone in an apartment, and he is a virgin. He foolishly tries to start a relationship with a slim, average looking woman, and she rejects him. The main character talcums his pants legs every day because his thighs rub together, chafing his thighs. Whenever I have been at my most overweight, I have gotten chaffed thighs because my thighs are so fat that they rub together. I don't think that a 40 year old 5'8", 482 pound man could walk around and be mobile enough to be a janitor. I think that Davis should have said the man was, say, 382 pounds, but I liked the story a lot nonetheless.

Here's a link to the story:

http://www.pshares.org/issues/article.cfm?prmArticleid=4827

 

[Astronuc]

I looked at some on-line novels, and although the protagonist was single, they all involved some kind of detective/spy/criminal element or fantasy fiction well outside the norm.

Now this is not a novel, but it is a story about a woman whe became 'single again', and she started an online forum for singles, but in the UK. Perhaps there's something similar in the US.

The Origins of Single Again
http://www.singleagain.co.uk/press/origins.cfm

Commentary on Singleton Britain
http://www.davidrowan.com/2005/02/times-singleton-britain.html

One could try - Press Play by Patti Gordon
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=17-9781590524879-0


It appears single women write or communicate a lot about being single, but men seem to be rather quiet/reserved about living singly.

Then again, there are a lot of books about being single but trying to find someone so that one is not single. There are lots of religious books about being single - until one finds someone else so as not be single - or one can have imaginary friends.


Actually I've known lots of singles, but mostly women, because they just haven't found the right guy.