#existential-dread

#existential-dread

It's the sort of party where attendees are drinking "all kinds of syrups" in their cocktails and "everyone gets to be themselves". On "God's A Raver", over jubilant, Scissor Sisters-lite piano, Nemo - born Nemo Mettler, in Biel, Switzerland - trills: "If there's a God, we just met at the gay bar. She is a raver just like me!" Partying is again a holy practice on the whimsical, glam-pop stomper "Ride My Baby": "The universe is a club, and I'm convinced that you're God."

His sentences can go on for hundreds of pages; his plots don't resolve, they dissolve; and his persistent mood is existential dread. But the Hungarian novelist's central theme is easily parsed and sadly evergreen. Krasznahorkai writes about the stultifying effects of political oppression, but he also writes in defiance of people's readiness to accept them. As a result, his work is equal parts depressing and invigorating.