Ottessa Moshfegh

Interesting to read that ppl were waiting for the plot to get going, I absolutely wasn't - just didn't seem like that sort of story, even with the "I should tell you again about the gun" stuff. When something did happen it was more consequential than I was expecting tbh - don't want to get too spoilery so will leave it there.

I thought Christian Bale was laughably awful in American Psycho but later I read an interview where he explained he was doing a Tom Cruise impression the entire time, and there's definitely a similar thing going on in Eileen where the author is deliberately writing in a way that might seem simply laughably bad if you're not in on the joke.

Interesting to read that ppl were waiting for the plot to get going, I absolutely wasn't - just didn't seem like that sort of story, even with the "I should tell you again about the gun" stuff. When something did happen it was more consequential than I was expecting tbh - don't want to get too spoilery so will leave it there.

― scrüt (wins),

My problem was too much plot! It read like an attenuated short story, extended beyond its scope.

at least the cover's good

I get that tbf, I was thinking similar things (but with a more positive slant, like man I really wanna read her short stories cause that seems like the form she'd excel in) - but I don't really mind it. It's a pretty short novel so it feels like a short story where you just spend a little bit longer in the world. I also felt that there was a point to the structure in that Day 2 already feels like it should be the day of her disappearance, Eileen's situation feels unbearable and untenable, so the slow progress through several days of cringe-comedy setpieces was effective for me.

Xp

I should go back to eileen, I think, though I heard real mixed reviews. I got to the end of the first chapter, thought 'you should have started the story here' and have not gone back to it since

i don't think Eileen is as flawed as others do, but imo whatever problems it has are with mechanics or plot (if you read the interviews i posted upthread, Moshfegh repeatedly admits she 'sold out' to her og literary audience by making it so conventionally plotted, while i felt the plot dragged) while the writing line-by-line or paragraph-by-paragraph, is incredibly high quality. <tmi/slight spoiler> the scene where eileen describes her bowel movements was one of the funniest things i've read, but also an example of Perfect Writing imo

Totally mystified by all the Eileen criticisms itt. McGlue was the one that felt like an overextended short story. flopson otm about that particular scene, though iirc constipation is a recurring theme throughout the book, and I just remember reading it and seeing that house so vividly and feeling how cluttered and trapped she was. Never thought once that it was overextended or too conventional, it was a very weird, dark, and satisfying novel. I do prefer Homesick for Another World though.

https://longreads.com/2018/07/05/a-person-alone-leaning-out-with-ottessa-moshfegh/

new moshfegh alert! drudge sirens!

The narrator of Ottessa Moshfegh’s new novel, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, a 24-year-old New Yorker, wants to shut the world out — by sedating herself into a near-constant slumber made possible by a cornucopia of prescription drugs. In various states of semi-consciousness, she begins “Sleepwalking, sleeptalking, sleep-online-chatting, sleepeating… sleepshopping on the computer and sleepordered Chinese delivery. I’d sleepsmoked. I’d sleeptexted and sleeptelephoned.” Her daily life revolves around sleeping as much as possible, and when she’s not sleeping, she’s pretty much obsessed with strategizing how to knock herself out for even longer the next time, constantly counting out her supply of pills.

oh there's already an update on that up there. sorry.

yea im excited for this

preordered way back in February

Looks like this is the Ambien and Oprah novel

I think the thing that I have in common with this character is that I am acutely aware of how much I do not like my own mind. When I’m not distracted by my imagination or by something external, time passing feels like I’m just waiting for the time to pass until I die. It’s kind of like vigilant awareness of mortality and mindfulness.

otm

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/ottessa-moshfeghs-otherworldly-fiction

Moshfegh once told Vice, which published some of her early work, “My writing lets people scrape up against their own depravity, but at the same time it’s very refined . . . it’s like seeing Kate Moss take a shit.”

lmao. love her

Yeah, will be buying this next week.

When I’m not distracted by my imagination or by something external, time passing feels like I’m just waiting for the time to pass until I die.

This is an ego problem, not a mind problem.

Get one mustard seed, why dontcha

new book is great so far, pretty early on tho

yea im maybe 60 pgs in

i mean this in a value neutral way but it reads like fight club sorta idk
getting away from toxic femininity and social climbing by sleeping
rather than getting away from toxic consumerism by fighting

Dwight Garner says that she writes with "so much misanthropic aplomb, however, that she is always a deep pleasure to read."

otm

Also 60 pages in, waiting for the bomb to split.

I can’t quite get with Dwight Garner, sorry.

I mean in general, not what he said about OM.

Finished the book just now. Really disappointed.

~~~~SPOILERS~~~~

using 9/11 for suspense / as a central dramatic device is such a cliché and so worn out and I'm stunned that a writer as talented as OM would utilize it.

Having a similar reaction to this as I had to The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Need to sit with it.

Ottessa Moshfegh really, really loves herself, doesn't she?

haven’t read the nyorker profile yet but a friend recounted to me the story of how she met her partner (came over to interview her, and stayed inside her house for 17 days) i thought that was very romantic

Ottessa Moshfegh really, really loves herself, doesn't she?

― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison)

don't you?

Should be part of yr Buddha nature.

I loathe myself, and I'm not that keen on her, either.

i've only read her short story collection which is at times brilliant and at times truly horrendous, which is how i feel about her generally and her persona in interviews. the husband seems like such a massive bellend.

i've started to read the interviews for a laugh, generally. this one is fairly good: https://longreads.com/2018/07/05/a-person-alone-leaning-out-with-ottessa-moshfegh/

The ’90s were really, really different from the decades that preceded. At least, I felt. A lot of cultural shifts happened. You could get away with being weirder. Now things are so policed. You can’t even really express an opinion without getting haters on social media. But in the ’90s we had Nirvana

not sure i could bother with a novel.

lol

seems like a smart decision

The NYer profile completely turned me off of ever reading her. My loss, perhaps.

Maybe she meant it this way: "But in the '90s we had Nirvana *smirk* "

The NYer profile completely turned me off of ever reading her. My loss, perhaps.

― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Thursday, July 19, 2018 8:27 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yep

Who should we be reading besides Moshfegh? It seems like a problem with all media but we're living in a time where the gonzo-ness of reality is outstripping literature's ability to articulate anything compelling or insightful about it.

She's far and away the best young fiction writer in America. Struggling to think of anyone else that's even close.

https://www.thecut.com/2018/07/profile-ottessa-moshfegh.html

At the time I read moshfegh's story collection, I was also reading a novella about someone skating in abandoned swimming pools while dealing with her brother's drug addiction, and another novella about a corridista who sings himself into a ganglord's castle, and none of them struck me as being better or worse than the other (to the point I don't remember who the authors are). What is it about moshfegh you would say is more deserving of attention?

I relate to her misanthropy, her cynicism, her confidence, and her wounded optimism. On a technical level she's a fantastic writer & in the story collection demonstrated a pretty stunning range of voices & managed to consistently surprise me. And she's hilarious.

imo if a profile of a writer turns you off the writer the blame likely lies more on the writer of the profile of the writer herself. i love her interviews ymmv

If the appeal of a writer is largely persona-driven, then it seems like a good proxy for whether you'd enjoy reading her stuff, though.

It’s not at all persona driven for me. I knew nothing about her before I read Homesick for Another World - the qualities I listed above I found in her writing.

Right, but the qualities you initially point to describe a representation of an author, a voice, a sensibility, which are things I don't particularly like about, say, David Eggers' writing, but I'm enjoying Monk of Mokha right now.

Okay... what is the question again

time honoured ilx tradition

Also she has a bad take on Whoopi in TNG

lol some other people like her I think

calstars maybe you'd like McGlue, can't remember if you already read it. pretty different from the rest of her stuff and my least favorite, I feel like if you don't dig Eileen or the stories you might like McGlue.

Thanks flappy, I just started Year and will check out mcGlue after that. I like her a lot, just get frustrated with her

Whenever she appeared on-screen, I sensed she was laughing at the whole production. Her presence made the show completely absurd. That was true of all her movies, too.

Kind of a strange compliment to give an actor. Apparently Whoopi is chill about it though.

Totally wrong

Guinan is a totally earnest performance and whoopi approached the producers about appearing on the show as a fan of the original Star Trek (the part was then written for her)

I liked Eileen! The whoopi and Harrison ford stuff in the new one felt like some sub-American psycho shit

Yeah. Not to mention that Trevor seems to be based on P Bateman or maybe since it’s set 15 years after A Psycho, that character might be modeling his personality on the book / movie.

The scenes with him in it with the main character read like rosencrantz and guildenstern style perspective shifts of scenes that could be A Psycho outtakes.

read the first two stories in the collection. (i know -- not enough to form an impression -- but still, form one i did.)

she is an extremely talented humorist. both "bettering myself" and "mr. wu" are kind of like, elaborate and fucked up jokes. "bettering myself" is less depressing because the narrator, who is the butt of the joke, is also in on the joke.

the characters are profoundly alienated and misanthropic. their lives feel like a kind of purgatory. probably more than half of all contemporary literary fiction seems to feature characters like this, which seems notable.

the ending of "mr wu" is brilliant, deranged and masterfully crafted. but i'm not sure what i'm supposed to make of that story or that character. i also wonder if anyone found that story racist.

HOLY SHIT

Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation is to be made into a movie by none other than Yorgos Lanthimos. Name a more iconic duo. H U G E !

— Louise Benson (@benson_louise) January 6, 2020

New novel Death in Her Hands out in August (was scheduled for this month)

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71D6XhjXZQL.jpg

Cover art on her books is consistently far better than the contents deserve

I'm surprised I haven't seen more mentions of 'My Year...' as proto-quarantine lit.

“Sub-American Psycho shit” is still basically where I am with “my year” but I would watch the lanthimos adaptation no question

sad this got pushed back but i have enough to read rn i guess

i read mcglue a little after i was being grumpy on this thread. maybe i would have felt more charitable about it had i not read my year first but, gosh.

She is very gifted but what I’ve read of her work is incredibly and unrelentingly misanthropic. The fact that someone so talented is writing about characters like this—like, that this is for her a plausible representation of humanity as such, even if it’s supposed to be a slight parody—is cause for alarm I think.

I’ve only read that short story collection and the stories were really funny and well-crafted but unrelenting. There really wasn’t any sympathy or generosity in there, that I saw, to add levity to the pettiness and seething hatred. This was the source of the humor, obviously—like a really committed version of curb your enthusiasm—but it seems notable that these kind of characters and narratives feel naturalistic to contemporary. It’s like one part of human psychology has been given outsized prominence. It’s either a problem with capitalism or with fiction.

*feels naturalistic to contemporary readers

Including myself, I should say. I wouldn’t be surprised to open up the minds of other New Yorkers, for instance, and find these kinds of bizarre solipsistic dramas playing out.

McGlue seems like it could be interesting though. Hard to imagine what she’d do with a historical setting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/books/ottessa-moshfegh-death-in-her-hands.html

Just finished the new one, love it.

Nice didn’t realize it was out yet