My Year of Rest and Relaxation - a Character Study in Privilege

I could not escape a slight feeling of discomfort when reading Ottessa Moshfegh’s, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, but all the while I had a fervent need to keep reading. The novel follows an unnamed narrator as she attempts to sleep for an entire year under a varied mix of sedatives – waking up only to shuffle to the bodega to refresh her stash of pills, suffer under the unwanted attention of her college friend ‘Reva’, or rewatch Whoopie Goldberg movies. Her goal is to awaken from her sleep at the end of the year 2000, transformed and reborn.

Moshfegh makes sure our narrator is not to be pitied. She is notorious for her writing of unlikable characters, who are most often female. In this respect, My Year of Rest and Relaxation is no exception. The main character embodies the privilege of a white, blond, thin, pretty college graduate, unburdened by financial worries; she often comments on her own attractiveness despite her decline induced by self-confinement. She extends distaste to herself and others, criticising her job in the New York City art world: “I was the bitch who sat behind a desk and ignored you when you walked into the gallery”. Through this perspective, Moshfegh paints a picture of pre-9/11 New York, where optimism and self-hatred are present in equal measure: ‘Ping Xi’, an avant garde artist, makes his living through ejaculating on canvases and freezing dogs to death to make “cerebral” work; party girl ‘Reva’ is an alcoholic with bulimia. The narration is dark but humorous – the reader is gripped by a morbid curiosity to hear what the protagonist will comment upon next, whether that be the “piss-coloured” chardonnay, a stranger randomly described as a “child molester”, the art world categorised as “capitalistic, fueled by greed, gossip, and cocaine”.

Under this narration, there is the question of motive: though the protagonist is disillusioned with society as a whole, she seems to have been afforded all advantages in life – she is pretty, has a luxurious apartment in an area of the city synonymous with boob jobs and botox, and has a career in high art. There are hints within the book that she had been previously satisfied with such a life. Why then, does she feel the need to escape? Though her boyfriend is a banker who often makes advances towards her that are less than consensual, she doesn’t seem to care and “would pick him a million times over those hipster nerds”. Moshfegh uses this mystery to keep our interest, and, sure enough, lingering under this privileged exterior is grief and loneliness. The author expertly creates a character influenced by the passing of her parents, who were not present in the character’s life even before their deaths. In true Moshfegh fashion, however, this is not enough to redeem her: the narrator is not made more empathetic or likeable through these events. We are transfixed by the grotesqueness of her inner thoughts.

Though My Year of Rest and Relaxation is not a comfortable read, it is a captivating one – especially after our own period of self-confinement during the pandemic. Moshfegh masterfully creates a vivid setting where image is everything, and she can do this from within the narrator's apartment, thoughts, and memories. The main character is so repulsive it is difficult not to read on, embedded in distinctive prose that is steeped in privilege. The narrator’s voice creates scornful caricatures of others, though Moshfegh does this in such a way as to ensure the reader can see the humanity or kindness that the narrator misses. And yet, the speaker does not remain completely one-dimensional; her past is hinted at using flashbacks, giving some clue to her need for this year-long rest. As for whether the narrator is actually able to be “reborn” –  I would recommend reading the novel to find out.