![]() ![]() like, they can't win if you're just totally over it already. irina is so frustrated at the patriarchal power men wield over her, because it's stupid that they can even do that when they're also so easy for her to manipulate, not nearly as sharp or witty or interesting as her, and often even physically weaker/smaller than she is: it's forcefully understated within the narrative by irina herself but we hear about her sexual abuse as a teenager at the hands of her teacher, there's an attempted rape within the story, her physical safety is placed at risk at numerous points within the narrative, "was it my idea to have him hurt me, or did he just let me think it was?" - and irina's constant downplaying of the mental and physical effects this has on her reads to me as a pointed and deliberate attempt to undercut male violence and power by just, like, ignoring it, scorning it, making fun of it, and at points even becoming the aggressor & exploiting or enacting extreme violence on others herself. but functionally, american psycho is a book that was marketed as being transgressive, and i don't think that it is, bc i think people conflate genuine acts of subversion/transgression with good ol' shock value and imo nothing's really being ~transgressed when a wealthy white man exploits and abuses his power over others in the way that patrick bateman does - and i'm talking about this bc imo this is why boy parts is so successful. would anyone miss you, if you went away? would anyone look for you? would anyone listen, or even care, if i hurt you? if i put my hands around your neck and crushed your windpipe and chopped you up, would anyone find you? and if it's a no to any of these, did you even exist in the first place?" ugh!!! i love it!) but moshfegh's year of rest and relaxation is honestly stronger on capitalism than american psycho and boy parts is far faaar stronger on The Gender Of It All and those are basically american psycho's only themes so it's pretty much been rendered redundant by better writers and we can stop comparing shit to it now please (no more patrick bateman! society has progressed past the need for patrick bateman!) anyway bret easton ellis is a hack and i'm really drifting away from the point i was trying to make here. the things you do, the things you are it's all nothing. everyone forgets, and everything disappears. all three books have similarly strong existentialist overtones (irina: "i explain to him that nothing matters, and nothing lasts. Okay i don't usually write particularly lengthy reviews but i have #thots about this one so.įirstly, i saw that it's been compared to american psycho a lot and i do get it - particularly in the second half when the narrative gets increasingly more violent and dissociative - but honestly i don't think that's the most pertinent comparison when ottessa moshfegh's my year of rest and relaxation is like, right there with its Same Hat tone/style/characterisation and equally horrible-but-oh-god-mood protagonist.
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