Book Recs: Seven Literary Lost Souls For Your Existential Crisis

The Lost Leading the Lost...which one will be your guide? ***All protagonists were chosen not only for their crisis level but also for their ability to philosophize eloquently--a key component for climbing out of the darkness!***

1. Holden Caulfield: Angry Teenage Boy

The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger.

LOST SOUL: sixteen years old; sensitive; an asshole, but doesn’t realize it.

jOURNEY: Expulsion from fourth boarding school, followed by a long weekend in NYC; thinks everyone is a "phony."

READ IF: avoided reading in high school; have Peter Pan syndrome; think life is just a gradual corruption of everyone's innocence.

2. Esther Greenwood: Depressed Yet Brilliant Student

Bettmann / Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

LOST SOUL: college junior; talented, intellectual, going increasingly bonkers.

JOURNEY: opportunity to intern in New York causes disillusion; failure to get into academic course causes questioning of self-worth; suicidal ideation and erratic behavior follow.

READ IF: being high-achieving is getting to you; being a female is getting to you; the world seems meaningless; humor is pitch black as in you laugh merrily as our protagonist contemplates suicide while on a particularly boring date.

3. Jonathan, Brod, and Safran: Three Disconnected Hopefuls

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer.

LOST SOUL(S): a writer on a mission to reclaim his family’s past; a girl once found orphaned in the river; a young playboy with a withered arm.

JOURNEY: the shetel Jonathan was looking for was destroyed; Brod fails to connect with her adopted father; Safran lies to everyone, really everyone feels disconnected and dishonest.

READ IF: impossibly lonely; yearn for something more, spend many hours gazing soulfully at the stars and/or thinking about what the earth looks like from space.

4. Robin Vote: Romantic Loose Cannon

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes.

LOST SOUL: a woman in search of a “secure torment” (so you know she has a healthy view of things.)

JOURNEY: briefly married; abruptly leaves for America; finds incredibly devoted new female lover; leaves her for a more predatory one; continues carrying, repossessing, and discarding the past (like the chic hats she favors).

READ IF: have a passion for destruction; want your world torn apart; make VERY BAD romantic decisions; can tolerate convoluted/poetic writing.

5. Tomas: A Philanderer and Dreamer

The Unbearable Lightness of being by Milan Kundera

LOST SOUL: thirty-something year old surgeon; casual philosopher; womanizer.

JOURNEY: plans to stay a bachelor are thrown upon meeting his true love; cannot stay faithful; pontificates on lightness vs. heaviness, ultimate meaning vs. momentary beauty; meanwhile the Prague spring is underway.

READ IF: fan of philosophy; enjoy miserable relationships; don't know if you should take things seriously or not.

6. Willy Loman: Man Who's Dreams Were Never Realized

Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller.

LOST SOUL: a middle-aged salesman with grandiose dreams, money troubles, and wayward sons; occasionally hallucinates about his brother Ben who struck out as a teenager and was rich by 21.

JOURNEY: a pay cut is followed by being fired; the illusion of his American dream comes apart at the seams; time catches up; he engages in a losing battle of spiritual and economic defeat.

READ IF: your career has tanked; had all the wrong dreams.

7. Avatar: A Plane Crash Survivor With Extraordinary Friend

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

LOST SOUL: a man stranded in the middle of the desert, someone once discouraged from art because “the grown-ups” didn’t understand, new companion to the little prince.

JOURNEY: a boy far from planet (asteroid B-612) tells him of the adventures he has had, including leaving behind a rose, taming a fox, and understanding the singularity of love; the avatar draws him a sheep.

READ IF: you want a reminder of what really matters—“what is essential is invisible to the eye.”