Robert Musil's "The Man Without Qualities" [1] is by far the most outstanding novel i have read, as it stretches the limits of what language can express past anything i tought possible. The protagonist is a mathematician whose scientific mind applies allegorical dissections over a wide range of existential themes concerning humanity and feelings. The polarity makes it for an extraordinary read.
Hermann Broch "The Death of Virgil". The novel creates out of a dying poet a rich, profound vision both of civilization and of primal concerns of all mankind.
Austrian authors where on another level in the late 30s and 40s of the 20th century.
Finally, Victor Pelevin's "Empire V: The Prince of Hamlet" [3] You gain instruction into the vampire life and by extension the humans which vampires feed and the nature of god and existence itself, with interesting meditations on existence, theology, matter, illusion and withering attacks on fashion, advertising, politics, the Davos elite, literature and particularly the nature of money.
Hermann Broch "The Death of Virgil". The novel creates out of a dying poet a rich, profound vision both of civilization and of primal concerns of all mankind.
Austrian authors where on another level in the late 30s and 40s of the 20th century.
Finally, Victor Pelevin's "Empire V: The Prince of Hamlet" [3] You gain instruction into the vampire life and by extension the humans which vampires feed and the nature of god and existence itself, with interesting meditations on existence, theology, matter, illusion and withering attacks on fashion, advertising, politics, the Davos elite, literature and particularly the nature of money.
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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_Qualities
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Virgil
[3] https://www.amazon.de/Empire-Prince-Hamlet-Victor-Pelevin/dp...