What are some good books about being a degenerate hedonist living a meaningless life?

What are some good books about being a degenerate hedonist living a meaningless life?

BEEG

I'm working on a short story like this, that takes place during a complete social collapse.

Ulysses

lurking for suggestions as well

The book you want doesn’t exists because the author can’t be both a degenerate hedonist and a writer

Sharles Jewkoffski

Challenge accepted

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

the logic checks out. sad!

What if they enjoy writing, and making a book is an act of hedonism?

yes it's possible, but the vain thrill of receiving high praise seems to be outweighed by the fact that this book the author has created might, in fact, make many people other than himself feel happiness

my diary to be honest

The Beautiful and Damned is sort of close to what you want I think. Also lots of Oscar Wilde obvs.

But the author made them happy, which makes the author happy because now he emotionally has some degree of power over the people who enjoyed his work.

Look at any rabid fandom, and imagine the author responsible using them for their own gain.

a sort of spinning of the proverbial web to trap one's victims eh?
alright, you've convinced me
well in that case, all serial authors are without doubt hedonists

Child Of God by McCarthy.

Canova’s memoir.

Sade.

why did you post based nationalist living a meaningful life hunting dirty yanks?

You diary desu

A rebours

bukowski

inb4 >good

Although I guess it depends, do you want to see the tragedy of a hedonist in a pragmatic world? So it comes of as a failure of his life choices, or result of nihilism? Or a hedonist succeeding or thriving in his degeneracy, so more like a rad existentialist who gives no fucks and is super cool.

Hunger by Knut Hamsun if your interpretation of the shortcomings of the protag is that he's a hedonist.
Same with Notes from the Underground.
American Psycho.
Stuff by Sade, pure sex.
There are many, can't remember them all at the moment, my memory is getting very fucked because of meds.
Lolita.
I mean, most works with a hedonist show their life as meaningless to us, because consumed through hedonism their life falls without a purpose other than immediate satisfaction, or so is the common conclusion reached by authors. Unless you mean the hedonist being a hedonist and nihilist at the same time? how does that work? Hedonism and existentialism on the other hand is not an uncommon theme.

>good

I think there are some Chekhov stories that fall into that category, more or less, but I couldn't name one at the moment.

Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son

Blaze by Steven King?

>implying that's not all writers

Selby, Requiem for a Dream
Selby, The Demon
Selby, Last Exit to Brooklyn

>complete social collapse
sounds like my life status desu

I'm going to write the next hunger games and invite a few dozen of my cutest fans to my chateau in the woods for four months.

The works of Bret Easton Ellis

50 shades of eww?

Picture of Dorian Gray. Actually most of Oscar Wilde for that matter.

blue grass
flash or the great journey- Charles Duchaussois

Lester is a Platonist

Bulls and balls

>Nabokov was a pedophile
>BEE was a serial killer
>Kafka was a giant insect

kafka jerked it to sonic porn (srs)

Came here to post this. Wilde always seems to have some kind of degenerate hedonist character.

The first two are probably true, in fact, there's not much doubt about the second

Mind please explaining that
Genuinely curious

trying to pick this up. shame i cant find it at any store here

unironically milk and honey

What is it even about? Is it a collection of poems?

yea collection of poems made for hedonistic self destructive girls
the message is essentially "dont let anyone tell you what youre doing is wrong youre perfect"

The Art of the Deal

Maybe not what you meant but Doppler by Erlend Loe. It's about a Norwegian guy who throws away his life with wife and kids to go live in the forest and not give a shit about anything.

ugh

The obvious top-tier answer is J.K. Huysmans' Against Nature/Against the Grain

American Psycho fits your description well
The Great Gatsby is about a man grasping at purpose surrounded by degenerate hedonists
The Beautiful and Damned is probably exactly what you want, but its of questionable enjoyment and quality

nice seeing some Selby rec here desu