Her eccentric and highly dangerous psychiatrist, an envious college best friend concerned for her wellbeing (think Gossip Girl’s Blair and Serena’s vibes), a fuckboy ex, an experimental artist, the ghostly memories of her dead parents, and the Egyptian men at her local bodega fill the lucid moments our socialite experiences. Surrounded by an odd ensemble, our main character’s life isn’t as solitary as she makes it seem. Her subconscious takes charge, and causes the exact emotional confrontations that the character is wanting to avoid. But this journey is far from a peaceful slumber into the next year.
Privileged in society in almost every way, she is still emotionally overwhelmed enough to decide to sleep for a year, hoping to be reborn.
Our nameless character – protagonist doesn’t feel like the right word in any sense, she is far from a hero – lives off her inheritance on the Upper East Side of New York. Kate Moss heroin chic is the style, and the book is set in a time when feminist was still sort of a dirty word, using gay as an insult was perfectly acceptable, and the Twin Towers were still standing. In this second novel, Moshfegh takes us back to 2000, a year most of us don’t remember or weren’t even alive for. Her subconscious takes charge, and causes the exact emotional confrontations that the character is wanting to avoid Despite being published back in 2018, My Year has since been scooped up as one of the darlings of ‘booktok’ – the community of book lovers on TikTok – and has subsequently branched out to a younger audience. Moshfegh’s work has always been well praised, with her debut novel Eileen nominated for several awards.
Running on a cocktail of drugs, the character takes us deeper and deeper into her plan to sleep for a year to heal herself from the traumas of her past. But weeks ago I had frenzied dreams, my days blurred into one another, and was overwhelmed by a desperate, desperate desire for sleep, much like Moshfegh’s narrator.Įxcept my ordeal was from my body fighting off Covid, whereas Moshfegh’s character inflicts this misery upon herself.
I’m a 20-year-old student journalist trying to pass my degree in a small town in the Midlands, 21 years later. She’s a 27-year-old Columbia graduate/socialite (of sorts) in new millennium New York. Ididn’t think that I would ever be able to relate to Ottessa Moshfegh’s protagonist in My Year of Rest and Relaxation. TW: eating disorders, drug abuse, suicide
0 kommentar(er)
