Loneliness, that not so aberrant state that many people continue to avoid by clinging to something, which sometimes requires sacrifices in order to become someone freer but also miserable. Gabo knew it, as did Murakami or Hesse, authors who turned these 7 books for lonely souls into unofficial manuals to understand a state of the soul that is as natural as it is undervalued.
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez
Many of us are grateful that the initial title of The House was replaced by the name by which everyone today knows what is one of the great novels of our time . Because loneliness, despite how many children with similar names you have and that the ghost of your husband wanders in the rain, was always there for Ursula Iguarán, the most discreet heroine of that magical and existential literature that Gabriel García Márquez captured in his work of 1967.
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
As a product of the spiritual crisis that the German author Herman Hesse experienced in the 1920s, The Steppenwolf arrived to become the meat of misinterpretation and, at the same time, a new Bible for any transcendental reader who appreciated the portrait of a man. , Harry Haller , torn between a dehumanized system and a precarious life. A golden imprint and phrases like “ solitude was cold, it is true, but it was also calm, wonderfully calm and large, like the calm cold space in which the stars move ” remain for posterity.
Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
From the wild men of the 1920s who wander lonely streets, we move on to women who, despite having a job, a house and a good salary, continue to be victims of the eternal cliché that considers single men in their thirties as playboys and mature women as playboys. . . spinsters. In what remains one of the most influential feminist novels of the turn of the century, Fielding’s work, which emerged from different columns written by the author herself for The Independent newspaper , not only served to further unite thirty-somethings in the West, but to show us how hilarious Renée Zellweger could bein its film adaptation. One of the best books for lonely souls who want to laugh at themselves. Once and for all.
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
You, me, the neighbor. . . each person has a goal in life, be it more or less ambitious, but. . . What happens if those purposes are never fulfilled? Do we accept failure? Or are we still looking for the opportunity to show the world what we are worth? This was more or less the problem of Santiago, the fisherman who was the protagonist of the famous work by Hemingway published in 1952 . The story of an old man who entered the waters of the Gulf of Mexico to capture a fish so big that it could dazzle those who always saw him as a failure became the perfect excuse to narrate the eternal struggle of man against nature. . . and his own demons his.
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
They say that feeling alone surrounded by people is worse than doing it without anyone, which is why the protagonist of the perfectionist Flaubert’s work was always misunderstood. Because, did this wealthy woman, married to a doctor in love and with a beautiful daughter, have reason to feel unhappy? Flaubert’s work explores that dissatisfaction, that of a world that succumbs to social conditioning and in many cases sacrifices old dreams, something that perhaps has not changed as much as might be expected in the 21st century.
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
Controversial at the time due to its foul language and constant references to alcohol or prostitution , the most famous novel by the American Salinger is an analysis of adolescent rebellion against the system, rules, family beliefs or their own education through the eyes of the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, that young man of 16 who did not dare to give himself to a prostitute and who considered the world as “false”.
Tokyo Blues by Haruki Murakami
It was my introduction to Murakami, and as such I have very fond memories of it. Because despite seeming like a simple story, Tokio Blues is also complex, the perfect portrait of a confused youth embodied by the characters of the lonely Toru and Naoko, the ex-girlfriend of his deceased best friend. Throughout the pages of the work also known as Norwegian Wood, in reference to The Beatles’ song , Murakami tells us the story of characters immersed in their own universes and their inability to make all of them coincide at some point.
These 7 books for lonely souls will become perfect allies for those reflections, existential crises and lonely afternoons in which, rather than fearing the most contradictory feeling in the world, it is about accepting it, leaning on it to know our best version.
What books for lonely souls would you add?
