Thursday, July 25, 2019

Ms. Hen reviews My Year of Rest and Relaxation





My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Ottessa Moshfegh
Penguin Press
2018

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she had read another by this author, EILEEN, which she reviewed a couple of years ago, and she adored. She ordered this book from her local library, and got ready to read another lovely book about a screwed up, unhappy woman. These are Ms. Hen’s favorite types of books to bury herself in.

This novel follows an unnamed protagonist in the year 2000 and 2001, when she decides to sleep for a year because she does not want to deal with her life. She already sleeps a lot when she decides this, but she goes to a psychiatrist and tells her that she has insomnia and asks for medication. The psychiatrist is unstable herself, and she gives the young woman a sheaf of prescriptions. She drugs herself and sleeps most of the time, except to shuffle to the corner bodega to buy coffee and snacks, and when her bulimic, emotionally unhealthy friend Reva comes to visit and complain about her life and beg her friend to go out.

The character has an on and off boyfriend who is a jerk, and she is as beautiful as a model. Both her parents have passed, and since she has a large inheritance, she does not have to work. When she did have a job, she worked at an art gallery, surrounded by the freaky artists of New York and beyond. She is a recent Colombia graduate who majored in art history.

The aspect of this novel that Ms. Hen admires the most is the humor. It’s a novel about depression! So how can it be funny? It just is. The humor is dry and realistic, and current to that time and place. The character is obsessed with Whoopi Goldberg and notices that every time she appears in a film or a TV show, she makes it ironic. Ms. Hen doesn’t feel that way about Whoopi Goldberg, but she does think that Whoopi brings realism to her screen presence.

Ms. Hen loves the descriptions of the art and artists in this novel. Ms. Hen is interested in contemporary art, and how some artists have excess time to be able to create perverted, offensive art, to be able to make bigger works to offend people, or at least attempt to do so. Ms. Hen enjoys museums and galleries filled with bizarre things like this.

Ms. Hen found a mistake in the novel. The character was supposed to turn 25 in 2000, but later on she said she was born in 1973, the year that Roe vs. Wade went into effect. She thought her mother might have wanted an abortion, since she got pregnant when she was 19. She would have been 27 in 2000 if she were born in 1973. Ms. Hen thinks that she might have forgotten how old she was because she spent all her time sleeping.

Ms. Hen realizes that this novel might not be for everyone. This book might be for the weird kids who want to know that there are other weirdoes in the world who might be as messed up as they are. The world can be a terrible place, and sometimes life might not seem worth living, but you just have to muck through the shit to be able to stand on your feet again.



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