August Strindberg
2 books
- Strindberg mid-breakdown in Paris, burning his hands on alchemy experiments and convinced the hotel neighbors are sending electric currents through the wall. If you like watching a brilliant mind narrate its own unraveling with total sincerity, it's fascinating; if you need a stable narrator, skip it.
- You follow Arvid Falk, a young idealist who quits a government office where nobody actually works, into Stockholm's world of hack journalism and broke bohemian painters, and Strindberg skewers every institution he passes. Sharp, bitter, funnier than you'd expect, best if you like your satire with teeth.