Hilariously her doctor can’t even recall that the narrator’s parents are both dead even after she’s told this multiple times and makes extensive notes. Equally any emotion Reva displays towards the narrator is awkwardly accepted like when Reva hugs her at one point and the narrator observes how “I felt like a praying mantis in her arms.” The narrator regularly sees a quack psychiatrist named Dr Tuttle (when she doesn’t sleep through their scheduled appointment) but only in order to obtain worryingly strong doses of sleep medication to aide her in sinking into an unconscious oblivion. But the narrator barely tolerates her and breezily ignores Reva when she confesses that her mother is suffering from cancer or that she has an unwanted pregnancy. I could think of feelings, emotions, but I couldn’t bring them up in me.” Her only friend is an old college buddy named Reva who is perpetually insecure, suffers from an eating disorder and aspires to obtain the narrator’s privilege and waist line. The narrator has an all-consuming scepticism about human emotions and can’t engage in meaningful exchanges. Reading this novel is perversely pleasurable with its weary view of the world and the narrator’s overwhelming devotion to her hero Whoopi Goldberg who embodies for her the idea that “Nothing was sacred.” This takes place in New York City over the years 2000-2001 and she seems to be asking during this ominous period in which George Bush Jr takes office whether it’s more sensible to sleep through life than live it. Her reasons for this goal are elusive at first and appear to be nothing more than the whim of a jaded spoiled young woman, but gradually it takes on more poignancy as she describes her difficult relationship with her mother and the disappointingly shallow experience of working in an art gallery. But she doesn’t see this as an advantage as she slyly observes “Being pretty only kept me trapped in a world that valued looks above all else.” She’s an art history graduate that comes from a privileged background who sets herself the goal of sleeping as much as possible for a year. But where the protagonist of that novel was repulsed and embarrassed by her own body, the unnamed narrator of “My Year of Rest and Relaxation” takes easy pride in her beauty and size two figure. Her novel “Eileen ” portrayed an excruciatingly self-conscious protagonist recalling a dark mystery from many year ago. Click through this Amazon homepage link to buy more books.Ottessa Moshfegh has a particular talent for writing about vile characters in an engaging way. Without you having to pay a single rupee more – I just get a certain percentage cut of the price of the book sold on Amazon. This affiliate advertising service allows me to receive commissions for the book purchases you make. To buy the book and support this review, buy from t his Amazon link.įor The Public Eye is a participant of Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. And the effect their cowardice has on us. It’s a culture-shifting book, no doubt, about the absurdity of alienation and attachment. To read it is to feel the terror of purposeful loneliness detached from a legacy of affection and familiarity. I enjoyed how fragile, unreserved, and brisk the narration is. Through the looking glass of the protagonist’s life, I saw a heaviness of heart that’s incomparable and incontestable in this world. That is what the book characterizes – in a series of bare, unapologetic, and eventful details. And that is letting go of life’s subliminal trophies and embracing a psyche that propels one to seek and destroy a certain way to be. And in being so, it becomes society’s backbone, flowing in its veins and pumping through the world’s heart. An idea that, in its recess, is humanity’s greatest weakness. What My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh does is it captures a sacrifice that’s grave, perverse, and unimaginable. And to dissect them into smaller pieces that lead us to pay a penalty for our freedom. Harder still is to grasp the influence of our thoughts on our actions. Can you imagine a life outside of the one you’re living? Do you know what is redeemable and what is taboo? It’s easier to answer what you know than to know why you know them.
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