Ottessa Moshfegh

Omg, I had the same experience. Sent me in to a total tailspin. I gave it to my wife and she got depressed, too. Not recommended (or highly recommended) for delicate readers feeling anxious or hopeless about current events.

the psychiatrist is just the best though

Yeah, Dr. Tuttle the best drawn character imo.

despite the descriptions of her having red hair I always picture her as Fran Lebowitz

Reading her short stories. She’s good with conception, setup, and details, but shit on endings

Who is good at endings, though?

'my year' is the worst thing i have read since 'ready player one'

the sort of sub-lanchesterian satire-adjacent archness of it

the (tongue-in-cheek? or genuinely fucking stupid?) september 11th 2001 millenarianism

this is otm:

It read like an attenuated short story, extended beyond its scope.

though i think alfred is actually referring to her other book there

tin ear approaching lanchesterian proportions also. i just got to the bit where the narrator orders “a case of sexual lubricant” which is good enough for the man himself almost

that tic of novels trying to prove a point about their new yorkiness by playing mad libs with ETHNICITY + SERVICE INDUSTRY

the laotian lady at the korean beauticians messed up when she was threading my eyebrows so i bought a cannoli from the iraqis at the jewish delicatessen and ordered a sicilian pizza from the sephardic jews at the Italian restaurant and hoped they’d send me the cute eritrean delivery driver

have you read anything else by her

hough i think alfred is actually referring to her other book there

― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp),

yeah -- Eileen

no one knows who lanchester is thom

she nailed the ending in Eileen imo, and the stories are impeccably constructed. I didn't like MYORAR at all though.

it made me laugh a few times but a bit of a letdown tho i had high expectations

that tic of novels trying to prove a point about their new yorkiness by playing mad libs with ETHNICITY + SERVICE INDUSTRY

― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Thursday, January 24, 2019 10:48 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the laotian lady at the korean beauticians messed up when she was threading my eyebrows so i bought a cannoli from the iraqis at the jewish delicatessen and ordered a sicilian pizza from the sephardic jews at the Italian restaurant and hoped they’d send me the cute eritrean delivery driver

― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Thursday, January 24, 2019 10:51 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao

If you haven’t read the John Lanchester thread you should leave ILB and not come back until you are ready to learn

ay ay captain

it’s a good thread but i categorically object to american writers being called lanchesteresque. also otessa has a great ear imo

Who the fuck is John Lanchester?

If you haven’t read the John Lanchester thread you should leave ILB and not come back until you are ready to learn

Who the fuck is John Lanchester?

And what does he have to do with OM?

the sort of sub-lanchesterian satire-adjacent archness of it

Take it to the JL thread

Read “A Dark and Winding Road” from the short stories and hated it, but "sub-Lanchester" is a bit of a low blow.

Maybe I picked the wrong story? It felt very I WILL SHOCK YOU, like the annoying over-talkative person at a party

I don’t mean to sound down on her, she’s brought me a good deal of pleasure. Still reading the short stories but will definitely go on to Eileen and Year. It’s just the endings...dark and winding is a good example of how she tries to up-end / shock the reader. Or “the beach boy” which isn’t very interesting to start with and just kind of putters to a stall. I know short stories are hard to end well - it takes a good measure of poetry. Maybe I’m being too hard on her.

Stories okay but at least we had Nirvana

(if the end of the short story is shit then it is a fail, I liked her collection a lot but also feel many great writers finish stories well)

What's considered a good ending though, especially when it's not particularly plot oriented?

I'm rereading Flannery O'Connoor, and, boy, she could end'em, sometimes at the risk of being reductive.

she sold her hair to buy him a watch chain - but he sold his watch to buy her a set of combs

I'm only answering this because I just read it, but Robert Aickman's short story "The Inner Room" has a *great* ending

the extent of the american annoyance at comparing a bad book of yours to one of ours is half amusing and half dispiriting

and i haven’t read the others. mcglue sounds .. more amenable? .. and certainly it is possible for writers of talent to produce bad books so i might give her another go. but this one just seems a spectacular series of own goals and self-owns

McGlue is her worst one imo, Homesick & Eileen are the gems

Eileen is at best OK, but why read it when you have the complete works of Patricia Highsmith doing it all so, so much better

I think the really great short stories are so much about character that maybe they've gone deep enough along the way to earn a fairly simple ending. tbf I don't remember thinking the Mosfegh stories ended badly, though I'd have to reread. I did think one or two, particularly the final story in the collection, were really poor. But I think that's common with short story collections, it is rare for every story in a collection to be brilliant and they do tend to frontload them. I've read collections where the last two or three were so bad it almost ruined a brilliant beginning.

I think it's Flannery O'Connor's Good Country People about which she said something to the effect of not knowing the end until the second she wrote it, and then realising it couldn't end any other way. Even that feels a bit too focussed on the importance of plot to me but I still like the quote, and all her writing about writing.

saying she’s a bad writer is crazy to me

O'Connor's remarks about endings have been myblodesrsrs foryears

Uh lodestars

this book makes me want to reread tao lin and a.m. homes and bits of lydia davis

although now there’s a random mention of mao II and i am going, oh, yes, of course

Ok I’ve got an example: the story Nothing Ever Happens Here. Last paragraph tries to put a spin on the events to that point but it’s not necessary. Why kill the mystery? The story should have ended with the old lady touching the dude’s face. Maybe OM just needs an editor.

eileen was chronic

is patricia highsmith really as raunchy and grotesque as Eileen, james?

https://garage.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/wjm5xm/whoopi-goldberg-ottessa-moshfegh