My Year of Rest and Relaxation
My Collection of Thoughts on the Novel
Ottessa Moshfegh has an innate gift for writing messy, ugly, complicated characters. My introduction to her writing was Homesick for Another World, her short story collection which was quickly followed by a read of her latest novel, Lapvona. When I tell people I’ve read these prior to picking up My Year of Rest and Relaxation (MYORAR), I make sure to emphasize that this has given me an introduction to what I interpret as Moshfegh’s commentary and criticism on morality, grief, and the shadow side of humanity in general, as well as in specific ways unique to each plot. With this being said, I understand why people do not necessarily like this book. It’s monotonous and the main character is intolerable; she’s constantly complaining, she’s selfish, she’s proud, she refuses to help herself. However…these are all of the reasons why I personally love this book. Knowing what I knew about Moshfegh’s writing prior to picking up MYORAR, there was nothing else I really expected going into this novel. I expected messy. I expected characters that are selfish and rude and self-centered. My only question while reading was: what’s the point? And I found quite a few.
One of the first things I noticed while reading was that the main character didn’t have a name. While I initially felt that this was done so that we, as readers, would be able to insert whoever we wanted into the role (“I feel like we all know someone like this” is something my friend said while reading this novel) my feelings have somewhat changed. While I believe that is undoubtedly one of the functions of this choice, I also think it functions as a way to remove us from proximity to the main character and as a way to further demonize her for her behavior. While I believe that her actions are not entirely excusable, I also think dehumanizing her to the point where she has no name affects the way we view her. In fact, I found myself empathizing much more with Reva, even though they were almost exactly the same in a lot of ways (doomed romances with older men, self harming behavior, grieving their parents,etc). If we knew her name, if we felt like we were building more of a relationship with her the way we were with Reva, would we have more compassion and understanding for her? A parallel that I can’t help but think about is the way society – for lack of a better word – dehumanizes and criminalizes homeless people or people who are struggling with addiction —but especially those who are dealing with both. When we don’t know their names or their stories, it may be easier for us to look the other way, to blame them for their own blight. While I am not at all comparing the life of a wealthy, white, trust fund baby to that of someone who is a part of the homeless community, it serves as a point to make us think. To expand even more, would our thoughts — or the thoughts of those who might be more closed minded —be if this same kind of story was told about someone who is homeless and struggling with addiction? Would we be just as annoyed? Even moreso? Less? This is what I believe Ottessa Moshfegh is doing with this novel, or at least how I interpret it.
One of the other points that kept coming up time and time again while reading was: what is the correct way to grieve or be mentally ill? I found myself being more empathetic toward Reva simply because she wasn’t so mean and inconsiderate to other people. But then, does this mean I have more tolerance for people who aren’t so outward with their emotional distress? Do I like Reva more because she is able to mask the pain that she’s feeling and still able to feel compassion and care for those around her? Is it better to lock your pain away and care for everyone else as a way to cope or to sit in your feelings and allow yourself to feel them completely even if you don’t necessarily understand them? In addition to this, it is very easy to dislike a character like this when you can hear all of their internal monologue. How do we know that Reva wasn’t having the same or similar thoughts about the main character or about the people around her – especially with Reva’s already-established “fake it til you make it” mentality?
When it comes to addiction, I think it's very easy for people to not think about it too much or shrug it off in the case of rich people. Or, in cases like this, it is easy to judge them for refusing getting the help they clearly have access to. Money solves most things, why can’t it solve this problem that you have? I also believe that it's easy to feel like they brought this onto themselves or that they’re creating all of their own problems. How can you live this way when you have so much money? However, all of this is much easier said than done, even if you have the money to do this. How many times have we refused, failed, or procrastinated to make therapy appointments, get our prescriptions refilled, go on mental health walks, talk to a trusted individual about our struggles? Why do we assume that money would make the mental energy to do these things less? Why do we assume that rich people have nothing to be depressed about, no reason to not feel happier. I found myself a couple times while reading thinking something along the lines of “just book a trip”; “you could literally go anywhere” and I realized that these things alone wouldn’t even make my own mental health better. As someone who has struggled with alcoholism in the past (something I plan to delve more into within my writing as I continue to process that time of my life), as well as self harming tendencies, I know first hand just how hard it is to stop. This is something you’re relying on, you’re dependent on it to make you feel better or perhaps even to feel nothing at all.
With this being said, I can certainly empathize with the main character more than I would like to admit. I’ve been there and even though I’m not a rich trust fund baby, that doesn’t give me the right to invalidate or discredit the mental health struggles of those who are. I have no idea what kinds of traumas people have, what they have the mental capacity for. And money can buy a lot of things, but happiness is the one thing that is not fully guaranteed, even if it’ll buy us things that will bring us joy in the moment. So, do we dislike the main character because she has all of the resources to help herself but chooses not to take them? Or do we dislike her because we feel better than her — us who likely have less money and resources than she does but still try our best with what we have. And even then…knowing what we know about her background and her relationship with her parents, I would say that this is the best she can do with what she has. As someone who was never given proper attention or taught how to process her emotions, therapy is something that would most likely feel unnecessary for her.
I think Moshfegh is a brilliant and talented author, and I believe that the knowledge that most readers would be unable to resonate with the main character is something that she expertly used to her advantage. She was able to make the character as obnoxious, intolerable, and self-centered as possible — all things we expect from a character with so many things handed to them — and still asked the question “does this person deserve grace? Does she deserve happiness?” And the answer is yes, but she should also really go to therapy. She was never taught how to empathize with people, she was taught to be in constant competition with the people around her. She was never taught how to healthily display or process her emotions or how to build lasting and healthy relationships with other people. She was never taught that it’s okay to cry. She was taught how to be cold, inconsiderate, and self-important. And while these things are unhealthy, and do make you a bad friend to people around you, they are also things that it takes time to unlearn, the only thing is that you have to be willing to take the journey. I believe that the MC is on the right track, although the means that she took to get to her desired end was unhealthy, extreme, and definitely did more harm than good there in the beginning. However, sometimes unraveling completely is the only way that we are able to build ourselves back up. Again, I’ve been there.
Spoilers Ahead!
My only qualm about this was that the ending felt cheap and like an easy way out. There was also a point toward the end of chapter 6 that I began to feel like she was just tired of writing this and wanted it to be over. There is only so much a character can do when they’re supposed to be sleeping and under the influence of heavy medications for a year, and only so many directions that the story can go and I feel like the author realized this a bit too late. The main character’s resolve at the end to have one final, four month long Intermiterol induced coma felt as if that was the only other thing that could happen. I feel like the plot didn’t really go further after that. Yes, we can see that she is somewhat happier upon waking and returning back to the world, but there is no character development that makes sense to me because I personally feel like it's incredibly unrealistic to be so depressed that you’re restoring to hibernation and then being magically cured from your depression after sleeping for four months straight. I also didn’t like the treatment of Reva at the end, and I feel like her (cheap) death was very unnecessary. It felt like the author was fishing for one final thing that would make the readers gasp or feel something other than annoyance at the main character but instead it added nothing but one final page that left me rolling my eyes after all of the deep thinking I’d done throughout the rest of the novel.
As someone who has always been a champion for messy, complicated, toxic, and intolerable female characters, I really loved this book for that reason. Women don’t have to be so put together all the time. There needs to be more rage, more messiness, more toxicity…but I also believe that women are the only people who can write female characters like this with integrity. With this being said, my overall rating of this book is 3.75 stars. On goodreads, I gave it 4 and said I might have to give it 3.5 because 4 feels too generous, so…3.75 it is.
Let me know what you guys think about this book! I’m interested in hearing other perspectives that I may have not taken into consideration! My next read is going to be Know My Name by Chanel Miller, which is a memoir I actually started reading in Spring of 2022 but put it off because I left it on the plane when I took a trip to LA! So I’m excited to pick that one back up; I remember really enjoying the way it was written and resonating a lot with Chanel’s internal struggles after being assaulted. Feel free to also leave book recommendations and follow me on goodreads.
Donadagohvi,
Arianna Haynes