Moshfegh has a lock on a particular zeitgeist that I have identified, NYT-like–e.g., I have seen at least one other similar item, have decided two points make a trend, and am now on the hunt for more books that prove my point.
The trend: bodily horror, especially related to starvation or atrophy of the human body, as a mechanism to reject Rousseau and vindicate Hobbes’ contention that life outside society would be solitary, nasty, brutish, and short. In this case, by showing that even within society people will regress immediately to their worst natures when the chips are down.
I’m not surprised this book has such a low overall review. It’s not an easy read, sort of the literary equivalent to watching Dr. Pimple Popper but feeling like maybe the patients don’t realize what they’ve signed up for. There’s a blind midwife who’s miraculously fed many of the town’s children, who’s resigned to every so often giving someone a tit to suck for comfort, like some sort of adult pacifier. There’s grotesquerie of the lord of the manor feasting while the village suffers through abject famine, with both ends described with the sort of lurid detail that bring to mind “hate watches” of tradwife content late on a Saturday when you said you were going to sleep early and maybe meditate. There’s a scene with a grape that really requires no further thought.
Is it quite revolutionary a thought, that all bonds of people are broken in the face of Maslow’s hierarchy crumbling? I don’t know, but I devoured Moshfegh’s more cringe passages and can’t say that I can’t see the inevitable A24 adaptation. Screechy electric violins, I think, would go well with the trailer I have in my head.
And for those wondering, the other books with similar vibes (body is gross as metaphor for decline of humanity) I’m thinking of:
– the vegetarian
– vasterwilds
– the invisible life of addie larue has some towards the start
– james had it, but then again it’s about slavery which we can agree is actual proof of the worst of human nature
– glorious exploits
– our wives under the sea
okay that’s all