my year of rest & relaxation: sleeping through the trouble
- paigenherbooks
- Aug 18, 2022
- 5 min read
4/5
Ottessa Moshfegh's novel "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" was a story I didn't expect to like as much as I did. A story surrounding a young woman who is tired of life...so much so that she decides to take it upon herself to sleep through the year. With the help of a slightly troubling psychiatrist and her slightly annoying "best friend" Reva, she accomplishes this. A story that dives deep into what personal growth can look at while also diving deep into themes of grief, loss, and a sense of self. A story told with brutal honesty that isn't always pretty or nice, "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" was a novel I thoroughly enjoyed and one I may re-visit when I'm in the need of contemplating my life or in need of some real upfront honesty.
Synopsis: Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, and works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a hole in her heart, and it's just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend. It's the year 2000, what could possibly go wrong?
The main thing I want to talk about with this story is the feeling I had while reading it and the things that I thought about during and after. I think the material with in the story isn't as important as the feeling the reader takes away from it at the end.
Point I: The Honesty
This book is brutally honest. In a way that I have never really read before. Our narrator is the "IT" girl. She's pretty, young, skinny, blonde, and rich. As someone who grew up almost idolizing women like that and often times getting made fun of by them (I'm over it now lol don't worry guys) it was almost a little scary to read a book where I'm in the head of one of these "hot bitches". The narrator was simply herself in a way that I was often appalled at. She said what she felt and never had a care if she was being too harsh, too rude, or too anything. She is the definition of "zero f's given". She was the embodiment and personification of every intrusive thought I've ever had. So, honestly in a way, it was almost therapeutic. To read and be able to resonate with the fact that the narrator is just doing her, and she doesn't give one flying care what anyone around her is doing. She doesn't bat an eye when Reva keeps coming around her, even though she is quite terrible to her. She simply doesn't care about anything but numbing her pain.
The situation with Reva was saddening but eye opening to me. Reva simply stuck around, maybe out of fear of loneliness or some hopes that by hanging out with the narrator, her looks, body, and money, would somehow rub off on her. It doesn't. and that's life. You will never be better or as good as someone you are comparing yourself too. You will always never live up to the things that are out of your control. At times I felt bad for Reva. She simply just wanted a friend, I think anyone to care for her. But on the other hand, I wanted to throttle her and tell her she has more self worth-and there is the duality of being human. I've found upon reflection, that I've evolved from someone who use to identify with Reva, the unhealthy wanting and need to fit in with those who simply wasn't in my league, and I wasn't in theirs. I can say I am A LOT happier now that I'm doing me and not doing everyone else. Oscar Wilde's quote "Be yourself, for everyone else is taken" came to mind a lot when I was sitting and pondering their relationship.
Point II: The Sleep & What It Meant
The other feeling the book left me with was the feeling that I was being seen. Everyone is in their own personal Hero's Journey cycle. At this point in time things are changing in my life. Things are falling and shifting, and sometimes honestly, I do just want to shut my blinds, close my door, and crawl under my covers and simply exist in a sense of unwanted attention or thought. It's tempting. The narrator herself almost accomplishes this with the help of a very eccentric doctor (she is wild yall). She starts blacking out, she starts only being up for a few hours per day. She is simply slowly accomplishing what she wants. Why though you ask? She is in pain. She is in a pain so deep that she doesn't know how to deal with it.
Death.
Death in the sense of the actual passing of someone she cared for, death in status, as well as death within relationships. When life got a bit too much, she decided that the only way she could fix her current situation and almost "reset" her mind was to rest. A deep, deep rest. She then returns on the other side "fixed". She is feeling more involved life and more "alive". Her struggle is one I think everyone has faced at one point in time. The want to just start fresh and rest. To sit and really get down to the problems and to start living life in a way that makes you feel alive and well again. Creating a world that you willingly want to stay awake for.
The honest way that the narrator simply states her struggles and her life in ways of sometimes gross imagery and wording, is something that is so honest, it makes the reader intrigued on where the story is going. You're not reading it for the plot, you're reading it for the feeling, for the hope that if this fictional woman can get through her extremely undiagnosed depressive episode, maybe we can too? Again, the book is one I think most people should read and focus on the feeling that they get when reading it. The questions and thoughts that come up while you're shifting through the pages.
This story was one that ended and I was shocked. Jaw on the floor couldn't believe it. After talking it over with a friend, it almost became clear that the book may just be one big metaphor. For life, for the human experience, for the reflection of us being the people we don't always want to be. A metaphor for resting and relaxing and hopefully coming out with a refreshed view of life. Even when tragedy strikes again. Even when things aren't perfect. Even when life is just tooooo much.
Take a pause.
And start again.
"My Year of Rest & Relaxation" was an almost eye opening story with a narrator I didn't always particularly like, but one I could none-the-less relate to. If you're going through it or simply want a smaller read that may make you stop and think with some deeper self reflection, pick this book up.
You'll be entertained, I promise that.
Feliz lectura amigos,
xoxo
paige :)
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