Fuck it, My Year of Rest and Relaxation is the modern Great American Novel. It distils the spirit of modern Americana: all the corporate vanity, and cultural slop, and contradictions of contemporary capitalism in a country that is fundamentally built on shaky foundations. It makes no excuses for the state of modern America.
There’s a certain strangeness when living through modern capitalism. You’re blasted in the face with pretty objectively garbage media, with figureheads that are drowning in drugs and money, with a culture that encourages the individual to package their lives and consumption into 90 second videos. But there’s a common thread between now and 25 years ago, in My Year of Rest and Relaxation’s setting of New York City in 2000. Moshfegh does an extraordinary job of writing how absurd and how pervasive capitalism is. The narrator, in her attempt to opt out of modern life by sleeping, couldn’t. Her body forces her to keep participating while unconscious, as if it’s impossible to try to opt out of capitalism.
I ran out of motivation to keep writing this review. Writing was okay, and Moshfegh writes an intriguing story and character. But oftentimes near the end some of the novel was lost on me.
3/5
Written 17 February 2023
Adapted from my review on Goodreads.
Notes:
- Writing is okay — not good not bad
- Author writes an intriguing character so far
- First little bit really feels like it evokes the strangeness of living in modern capitalism
- Reva acts as a foil for the narrator
- like a summary of capitalism
- In her despicability, the narrator is able to serve as a more radical critique of capitalism that a more likable character might soften or avoid
- much like Oe’s A Personal Matter