Review: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh- a world filled with ignorance

An entitled woman extracts herself from the world and its current state to indulge in a life of privilege and angst

Ottessa Moshfegh provides us with a sense of intimacy as we become one with the character and what is happening around her. The structure of her novel is easy to fall into and extremely observational. Beautifully written, My Year of Rest and Relaxation is disorienting yet extremely delicate. It is rare because we are engaging as a character that extremely few would live up to, but yet we are semi, sub-consciously jealous of her damaged life. This un-named anti-hero has enough resources to just withdraw from society completely. Life a hermit life and in a way relax.

The New York native is so detached from society that we can enjoy the blissful ignorance. Having the character be unknown and unnamed is a bold yet brilliant stylistic choice as we can relate her to anyone and anything. This unique character is whomever we want them to be in a way. Placing herself under a self-induced coma, driven by prescription pills is a statement to society, she feels alone and erased by her peers, so she might as well be.

(image: Amazon)

Her coma is broken into intervals of her keeping herself minimally alive by ordering take-out. This whole situation stems from the people around her who have influenced her. Her ‘bedroom drunk’ mother used to keep her calm as a baby by giving her Valium whilst she was invisible to her father. It was so far that even when they died, she still felt a sense of rejection from them.

Placing herself under a self-induced coma, driven by prescription pills is a statement to society, she feels alone and erased by her peers, so she might as well be.

As well as her parents, her ex-boyfriend Trevor was a sense of negativity in her life but she cannot seem to let him go and becomes extremely obsessive over him. Trevor was anything but good to her and sadly, that was all she needed. She breaks down a sense of modern-day romance by saying, ‘I interpreted Trevor’s sadism as a satire of actual sadism’. It was far from love and frankly heart-breaking to read but that is what Moshfegh wanted.

Another thing Moshfegh can be attributed for is her cut-throat writing and dark comedic timing. We do not want to laugh but cannot help ourselves. The main character gives us an escape from reality and allows us to pander in these anti-hero ways. It cannot be beat; everybody loves an anti-hero and Moshfegh has curated one of the best.

As we laugh, we hate ourselves, as we read privilege, we can only feel a sad hint of jealously, as she names all the pills she takes, we can only feel sad for her. The freedom that Moshfegh’s characters have is enlightening because they are freedoms most of us will never experience with economic ties. The dissociated with the characters comes across as indifferent and ignorant but we are so easily entertained by it. That is an extreme skill that the universe has bestowed upon Moshfegh.

(image of author, Moshfegh : Penguin Books)

The main character gives us an escape from reality and allows us to pander in these anti-hero ways. It cannot be beat; everybody loves an anti-hero and Moshfegh has curated one of the best.

We hope, just like we hope for the main character, My Year of Rest and Relaxation will be able to move on to better things, wake up from their own dream and adjust with society- no matter how horrible it is.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is available to buy on Amazon.