It is an unforgettable combination of creepiness and lunacy, but subtle it ain’t.Įlsewhere Moshfegh is defter. At her most crazed, she claims that the biggest threat to the human brain is microwave ovens and that meditation cures insomnia in rats. The couch in Tuttle’s office is piled with antique porcelain dolls with chipped faces. The psychiatrist, Dr Tuttle, is a notable comic creation. It follows from Moshfegh’s provisional approach that not all of her ideas are fully developed. Then, as if unsatisfied with this study in sociopathy, Moshfegh begins to paint a more poignant portrait we learn that the narrator’s parents are dead, that her father was aloof and that her mother was both aloof and alcoholic. We learn that the narrator’s parents are dead, and that her mother was both aloof and alcoholic Read more: International Women’s Day 2018: Five books by women, about womenĪ Shot in the Dark by Lynne Truss, book review: ‘Fresh and beguiling’ Her attitude to Reva – who is, admittedly, cloying, sanctimonious and given to quoting Oprah Winfrey – is in equal measure indifferent and unpleasant. She even keeps a photo of Reva handy “as a reminder of how little I enjoyed her company”. She is, as her best friend Reva says, “a cold fish”. Thin, blonde and blessed with family money, she has no need to curry favour. To begin with her narrator is markedly unsympathetic. Moshfegh confounds her readers’ expectations in more fundamental ways. In due course, perhaps inevitably, an artist appears who wishes to curate and document her big sleep. When she leaves to dedicate herself to sleeping she lays a turd in the middle of the exhibition space in farewell.īut that’s not the end of her adventures with art. By virtue of her looks and wardrobe the narrator works in an intimidatingly hip Manhattan gallery, despite judging the works on display “canned counter-culture crap”. Indeed, the art world itself intrudes repeatedly into the narrative. It is as if the novel is a piece of performance art in which a series of ideas are tried out to see if they will work. Moshfegh’s approach is playful throughout.
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