Hi, so I just finished reading *The Flowers of Buffoonery* by Osamu Dazai, and I absolutely loved how he captured that feeling of “laughing, not because it is funny, but because it is too painful”.
I want to read more books that sound like this. So, please recommend me some novels that sound like a bitter laugh, but don’t mistake that the laughter is positive; rather, it is full of sadness. It’s like a laugh you hear when you hurt yourself so badly, whether physically or psychologically, that you cannot help but laugh bitterly, not because it its funny in and of itself, but because you are so sad that you must laugh so that you wouldn’t break down. The laughter is kind of like a coping mechanism to stave of the pain. Recommend me some novels that sound like that, please. Some cynicism and humor would do, too.
by Dapper_Wasabi4747
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Thomas Bernhard, specifically _Extinction_ but almost all of his work fits this vibe
Kobo Abe
Hubert Aquin