Who is the most effortlessly intense author you've read?
For me it's picrel. There's a sort of urgent and intense undercurrent in all his stories I've read, even the humourous ones.
I like McCarthy too but his intensity seems forced - long sentences, exotic words etc.

faust was too intense for me. the characters did could not be calm for one damn minute. it starts with our hero just sitting and a chair and he's already losing his shit. i had to drop it because i found it exhausting.

>>24563067 (OP)
Pic attached is hard to beat.

He has a febrile intensity but he isn't tiring to read because he also has a really light touch. Not at all easy in German.

He has a good sense of humour, a good sense of rhythm and rock-solid intellectual surefootedness. Go Nietzsche!

Beckett is up there; "How It Is" might be the single most intense piece of art I've ever engaged with. Shoutout to Hawkes, too- the American D.H. Lawrence who took it even further.

>>24563067 (OP)
>McCarthy
meme bud