My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh Published by Penguin on June 25, 2019
Genres: Fiction / Humorous / Black Humor, Fiction / Literary, Fiction / Women
Pages: 304
Format: eBook
ISBN: 9780525522133From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a novel about a young woman's efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes.
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?
My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.
Before we get to the review, I want to bring to your attention the Go Fund Me campaign to help Daneia and Mohamed save their family. Dania (it’s spelled both ways in the post) comes from a family of 9. They have lost everything, our home, our friends. They’ve been at war for 8 months and have been displaced more than 5 times. Every day they’re exposed to death, terror, and fear. “I was studying mechatronics engineering and I was dreaming of becoming an aspiring engineer, but the war came and destroyed my university and killed my friends. I want your help in achieving my dream. I am continuing my studies and achieving my goal. To escape death, start a new life, and leave for Egypt, we paid $5,000 per person, and we lost everything. We do not have the price of survival. I want your help in building a new life for us.” Any little bit can help them.
So, this was an odd read…that’s probably the best and most succinct way to phrase that, even though it’s super vague. I don’t think I would’ve read the book if it wasn’t the assigned book for one of my (many, many, many) book clubs.
It was definitely an indictment on the late 90s and early 2000s culture. One of the funniest and most frustrating aspects was Dr. Tuttle assigning the narrator all of these random drugs. I know from books, articles, and personal accounts that the random giving out of pills was so rampant, especially in cities like NYC and LA. I do love the mixture of real drugs with ones the author made up, which reminds me of John Oliver’s comment on how drug names and sci-fi races are interchangeable. It’s all wrapped up in this skinny, appropriation, let’s party culture of that time period.
What I found absolutely interesting was the cover. I was confused by why the narrator is described as blonde while the woman on the front is brunette. I figured it was just a representation of ennui. It’s actually a real painting from the late 1700s, which is right after the Reign of Terror. There was a group of young French aristocrats that embraced this culture of hedonism, a reaction to the horrors they went through was to “embrace decadence, silliness, and brazen eroticism.” With this woman, it’s opposite, yet also a complicated contempt in what’s going on. Similar to the late 90s and early 2000s, we’ve survived two world wars, the Cold War is pretty much over, there’s been an impressive amount of growth with a hopeful look towards the future of the new century. This “Portrait of a Young Woman in White” and the narrator both seem to understand that the decadence of the era is not going to last or that the unbridled debauchery is a cover for all the trauma experienced. We all know what is going to happen in 2001 with the terrorist attack on the twin towers and the subsequent loss of rights in exchange for “security.” Also with hindsight, we know that American history has covered up a lot of atrocities we committed, along with just making what has happened look nicer than it was (huge housing boom then in 2008 finding out all the massive fraud that was happening).
Now, while this book was a great commentary on the culture of the time period and the issues of mental health, it wasn’t exactly an enjoyable book. The way the narrator thought about her depression and want to sleep for a year hit really close to home with my own depression, so that was difficult to read. Also, all the characters (the narrator included) were so annoying throughout the book. Although by the end, I actually felt a lot of kinship towards the narrator.
I did enjoy it enough that I’m interested in checking out Ottessa Moshfegh’s other works.
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