Krasznahorkai's oeuvre has a particular focus on futility, that the good times are behind us, that the future is nonexistent. Yet, there is spiritual resistance to this futility through art. Art exists wholly outside the sphere of our otherwise banal existence. Like in Herscht 07769, the protagonist claims that listening to Bach is the solution to the apocalypse as his music reveals, through transcendental beauty, that there is more to existence than what we can be tangibly experienced. In War & War, prose is the salvation to the human condition.

In War & War, Korin discovers a revelatory text at his job as a records keeper in rural Hungary. Already disillusioned with this life, he determines that his calling is publishing this work online before killing himself in the center of everything. So, he sells off all his belongings and travels to New York City.

The content of the text is revealed in metafictional recollections to various acquaintances Korin comes across; Four travelers, pursued by war, search for peace. The narrative shifts seamlessly between time and place, from Gibraltar to Babel, the quartet is repeatedly met with destruction. A crystalline expression of reality is captured in the pages of the manuscript that drive Korin to ensure its preservation for eternity.

The travelers meditate on love and peace along their journey, concluding that God exists within and art is the expression of that inner holiness. However, logicians and warmongers betray God. In illuminating the secrets of the universe, in killing mysticism, they are killing the part of the interior that reaches out to a higher cause. When all exists, nothing exists, and from there good mornings and bad mornings simply become mornings.