Abstract
There is an important countertradition in U. S.-American literature that goes against intense feelings and instead highlights apathy, unfeeling and disaffection. As a few scholars from affect studies have recently argued, apathy can signal a “detachment from attachments to hegemonic structures of feeling” and holds “the potential for striving toward a radical politics of liberation” (Yao 2021: 17). Literary texts that highlight apathy formally and thematically thus reflect on broader socio-political contexts of emotional withdrawal that was caused, for example, by labor fatigue, late capitalism and addiction, and pose a challenge to the affective status quo. One recent text that stages this complex dance between feeling and unfeeling is Ottessa Moshfegh’s 2018 novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation. In this article I argue that Moshfegh’s novel complicates the apathetic protagonist’s naïve goal of re-affection – that is, her attempt to overcome apathy, find happiness and reintegrate into society – by embedding her emotional experiences within an overpowering affective economy that is constituted by media, capitalism, neoliberalism and other socio-political forces. Instead of ‘correcting’ the affective pendulum from a solipsistic apathy into a naïve happiness, Moshfegh’s novel ‘awakens’ her readers to a more complex and undetermined spectrum of affective structures.
Works Cited
Adorno, Theodor W. and Max Horkheimer. 1947/2010. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”. In: Vincent B. Leitch (ed.). The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: Norton. 1110–1127.Suche in Google Scholar
Agathocleous, Tanya. 2021. Disaffected: Emotion, Sedition, and Colonial Law in the Anglosphere. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 10.7591/cornell/9781501753879.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar
Ahern, Stephen (ed.). 2019. Affect Theory and Literary Critical Practice: A Feel for the Text. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1007/978-3-319-97268-8Suche in Google Scholar
Ahern, Stephen. 2019. “Introduction: A Feel for the Text”. In: Ahern (ed.). Affect Theory and Literary Critical Practice: A Feel for the Text. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 1–21.10.1007/978-3-319-97268-8_1Suche in Google Scholar
Ahmed, Sara. 2014. “Not in the Mood”. New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics 82: 13–28.10.3898/NeWF.82.01.2014Suche in Google Scholar
Ahmed, Sara. 2004/2014. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Allen, Clark. 2017. “Are We Just Fucked?: An Interview with Ottessa Moshfegh”. Los Angeles Review of Books January 21. <https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/just-fucked-interview-ottessa-moshfegh/> [accessed 12 September 2022].Suche in Google Scholar
Kenny, Anthony (trans.). 2013. Aristotle: Poetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Suche in Google Scholar
Barrett, Colin. 2016. “Anhedonia, Here I Come”. The New Yorker April 11. <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/18/anhedonia-here-i-come-by-colin-barrett> [accessed 9 August 2022].Suche in Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 1936/2015. “Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit”. Illuminationen: Ausgewählte Schriften 1. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. 136–169.Suche in Google Scholar
Berlant, Lauren. 2011. Cruel Optimism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 10.1515/9780822394716Suche in Google Scholar
Brecht, Bertolt. 1936/1974. “Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting”. In: John Willett (ed.). Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. London: Eyre Methuen. 91–99.Suche in Google Scholar
Bright, Octavia. 2021. “My Year of Rest and Relaxation: How Ottessa Moshfegh’s Book Pre-Empted Lockdown”. Penguin May 24. < https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2021/05/year-rest-relaxation-ottessa-moshfegh-pandemic-lockdown> [accessed 24 August 2022]. Suche in Google Scholar
Brinkema, Eugenie. 2015. The Forms of the Affects. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 10.1515/9780822376774Suche in Google Scholar
Cavarero, Adriana. 2014/2016. Inclinations: A Critique of Rectitude. Trans. Adam Sitze and Amanda Minervini. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Diebel, Anne. 2018. “Sleeping Through It”. The London Review of Books September 13: 38–39.Suche in Google Scholar
Ellis, Bret Easton. 1991/2006. American Psycho. New York: Vintage.Suche in Google Scholar
Feathers, Lori. 2018. “Slumber as Self-Preservation: Oblomov and My Year of Rest and Relaxation”. Los Angeles Review of Books August 27. <https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/reviews/slumber-self-preservation-oblomov-year-rest-relaxation/> [accessed 12 September 2022].Suche in Google Scholar
Felski, Rita. 2008. The Fundamental Uses of Literature. Malden, MA: Blackwell.10.1002/9781444302790Suche in Google Scholar
Filgate, Michele. 2018. “Ottessa Moshfegh’s New Protagonist Snoozes Her Life Away”. Publishers Weekly June 29. <https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/77390-ottessa-moshfegh-s-new-protagonist-snoozes-her-life-away.html> [accessed 12 September 2022].Suche in Google Scholar
Gilbert, Jeremy. 2015. “Disaffected Consent: That Post-Democratic Feeling”. Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture 60: 29–41.10.3898/136266215815872971Suche in Google Scholar
Goebel, Luke B. 2017. “Vanity is the Enemy: An Interview with Ottessa Moshfegh”. Fanzine January 17. <http://thefanzine.com/vanity-is-the-enemy-an-interview-with-ottessa-moshfegh/> [accessed 12 September 2022].Suche in Google Scholar
Gray, Richard J. 2011. After the Fall: American Literature Since 9/11. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.10.1002/9781444395860Suche in Google Scholar
Hassan, Ihab. 2003. “Beyond Postmodernism: Toward an Aesthetic of Trust”. angelaki 8.1: 3–11.10.1080/09697250301198Suche in Google Scholar
Hogan, Patrick Colm. 2016. “Affect Studies”. In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 31 August. <https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.105> [accessed 12 September 2022].10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.105Suche in Google Scholar
Horton, Emily. 2020. “Contemporary Crisis Fictions: Twenty-First Century Disaffection”. In: Alex Houen (ed.). Affect and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 355–372. 10.1017/9781108339339.020Suche in Google Scholar
Levine, Caroline. 2015. Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 10.23943/princeton/9780691160627.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar
Levy, Ariel. 2018. “Ottessa Moshfegh’s Otherworldly Fiction”. The New Yorker July 9 and 16. <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/ottessa-moshfeghs-otherworldly-fiction> [accessed 12 September 2022].Suche in Google Scholar
Lozada, Lucas Iberico. 2017. “‘Seeing Past the Mirror’: Ottessa Moshfegh on Her New Story Collection, Homesick for Another World”. Paste Magazine January 17. <https://www.pastemagazine.com/ books/ottessa-moshfegh/seeing-past-the-mirror-ottessa-moshfegh-on-her-new/> [accessed 12 September 2022].Suche in Google Scholar
McGurl, Mark. 2009. The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.10.2307/j.ctvjsf59fSuche in Google Scholar
Melville, Herman. 1853/2017. “Bartleby, the Scrivener”. In: Robert S. Levine (ed.). The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Volume B: 1820–1862. 9th ed. New York: Norton. 1469–1495.Suche in Google Scholar
Michel, Lincoln. 2018. “The Pleasures of Hating in My Year of Rest and Relaxation”. Chicago Review of Books August 8. <https://chireviewofbooks.com/2018/08/08/my-year-of-rest-and-relaxation-ottessa-moshfegh-review/> [accessed 12 September 2022].Suche in Google Scholar
Moretti, Franco. 1987/2000. The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture. Trans. Albert Sbragia. London: Verso. Suche in Google Scholar
Moshfegh, Ottessa. 2022. Lapvona. New York: Penguin. Suche in Google Scholar
Moshfegh, Ottessa. 2020. Death in Her Hands. New York: Penguin.Suche in Google Scholar
Moshfegh, Ottessa. 2018. My Year of Rest and Relaxation. New York: Penguin.Suche in Google Scholar
Moshfegh, Ottessa. 2018. “Letter to the President”. The Western July 10. <https://popula.com/2018/07/10/ottessa-moshfegh-letter-trump/> [accessed 12 September 2022].Suche in Google Scholar
Moshfegh, Ottessa. 2017. Homesick for Another World: Stories. New York: Penguin.Suche in Google Scholar
Moshfegh, Ottessa. 2015/2016. Eileen. London: Vintage. Suche in Google Scholar
Moshfegh, Ottessa. 2014/2017. McGlue. London: Vintage.Suche in Google Scholar
Moshfegh, Ottessa. 2013. “Bettering Myself”. The Paris Review 204. <https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/6208/bettering-myself-ottessa-moshfegh> [accessed 9 August 2022].Suche in Google Scholar
Ngai, Sianne. 2005. Ugly Feelings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 10.4159/9780674041523Suche in Google Scholar
Oates, Joyce Carol. 2018. “Sleeping Beauty”. The New York Review of Books October 11: 24–25.Suche in Google Scholar
OED = The Oxford English Dictionary. 2000–. 3rd ed. online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. <http://www.oed.com/> [last accessed 12 September 2022].Suche in Google Scholar
O’Neill, Eugene. 1956/2002. Long Day’s Journey into Night. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Suche in Google Scholar
Pham, Yen. 2017. “Interview with Ottessa Moshfegh”. The White Review August. <https://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/interview-ottessa-moshfegh/> [accessed 9 August 2022].Suche in Google Scholar
Robert, Philippe and Valeria Manera. 2021. “Definition of Apathy and Differential Diagnosis”. In: Krista Lanctot and André Aleman (ed.). Apathy: Clinical and Neuroscientific Perspectives from Neurology and Psychiatry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/med/9780198841807.003.0001Suche in Google Scholar
Scholes, Lucy. 2018. “My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh — It’s a Knockout”. Financial Times July 27. <https://www.ft.com/content/81d219ee-890d-11e8-affd-da9960227309> [accessed 12 September 2022].Suche in Google Scholar
Smith, Rachel Greenwald. 2015. Affect and American Literature in the Age of Neoliberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Suche in Google Scholar
Tolentino, Jia. 2018. “Ottessa Moshfegh’s Painful, Funny Novel of a Young Woman’s Chemical Hibernation”. The New Yorker July 11. <https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/ottessa-moshfeghs-painful-funny-novel-of-a-young-womans-chemical-hibernation> [accessed 12 September 2022].Suche in Google Scholar
Toth, Josh and Neil Brooks. 2007. “Introduction: A Wake and Renewed?” In: Toth and Brooks (eds.). The Mourning After: Attending the Wake of Postmodernism. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 1–13.10.1163/9789401204064_002Suche in Google Scholar
Vonnegut, Kurt. 1969/1991. Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children’s Crusade. New York: Dell. Suche in Google Scholar
Wehrs, Donald R. and Thomas Blake (eds.). 2017. The Palgrave Handbook of Affect Studies and Textual Criticism. Cham: Springer.10.1007/978-3-319-63303-9Suche in Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond. 1977. “Structure of Feeling”. Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 128–135.Suche in Google Scholar
Wilson, Helen F. and Ben Anderson. 2020. “Detachment, Disaffection, and other Ambivalent Affects”. EPC: Politics and Space 38.4: 591–597.10.1177/2399654420912445fSuche in Google Scholar
Yao, Xine. 2021. Disaffected: The Cultural Politics of Unfeeling in Nineteenth-Century America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.10.1215/9781478022107Suche in Google Scholar
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Light and Divine Wisdom: An Alternative Interpretation of the Iconography of the Fuller Brooch
- Tu beoð gemæccan: The Key Concept of Maxims I Representing One of the Fundamental Principles of the World Order
- Wulf and Eadwacer Reloaded: John of Antioch and the Starving Wife of Odoacer
- Sensational News about Nature: Risk and Resilience in Satirical Ozone Poetry of the Victorian Era
- Influences of George Gordon Byron on Asdren
- Construction of Identity/World and ‘Symbolic Death’: A Lacanian Approach to William Golding’s Pincher Martin
- The Anatomist of Love and Disease in Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body
- Conventions of the Ungendered Narrative
- “In My Mind’s Eye”: On the Relocation of Hamlet’s Story by Michael Almereyda
- ‘Force’ and ‘Chi’: Duality, Identity, and Struggle in Star Wars and Buchi Emecheta’s Kehinde
- Anxious Dynamics of Exile and the Ambivalence of Arab American Identity in Diana Abu-Jaber’s Crescent: Critical Reflections and Contemplations
- Between Remembering and Confession: A Refugee Narrative in Dina Nayeri’s Refuge
- Orfeo: A Posthuman Modern Prometheus. Uncommon Powers of Musical Imagination
- On Literary Apathy: Forms of Dis/Affection in My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018)
- Reviews
- Roberta Frank. 2022. The Etiquette of Early Northern Verse. Conway Lectures in Medieval Studies 2010. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, xxx + 265 pp., $ 65.00.
- Claire Breay and Joanna Story (eds.), with Eleanor Jackson. 2021. Manuscripts in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Cultures and Connections. Dublin: Four Courts Press, xvii + 256 pp., numerous colour illustr., € 58.50.
- Mark Amsler. 2021. The Medieval Life of Language: Grammar and Pragmatics from Bacon to Kempe. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 264 pp., 2 figures, 2 tables, € 106.00.
- Alexandra Barratt and Susan Powell (eds.). 2021. The Fifteen Oes and Other Prayers: Edited from the Text Published by William Caxton (1491). Middle English Texts 61. Heidelberg: Winter, xxxvi + 54 pp., € 44.
- Carolin Gebauer. 2021. Making Time: World Construction in the Present-Tense Novel. Narratologia 77. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter, xvii + 378 pp., 5 tables, 5 illustr., € 99.95.
- Kai Wiegandt. 2019. J. M. Coetzee’s Revisions of the Human: Posthumanism and Narrative Form. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, ix + 280 pp., € 90.94.
- Linda K. Hughes, Sarah Ruffing Robbins and Andrew Taylor with Heidi Hakimi-Hood and Adam Nemmers (eds.). 2022. Transatlantic Anglophone Literatures, 1776–1920: An Anthology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 808 pp., 60 illustr., £ 29.99/$ 39.95.
- Juliane Braun. 2019. Creole Drama: Theatre and Society in Antebellum New Orleans. Writing the Early Americas 4. Charlottesville, VA/London: The University of Virginia Press, 280 pp., 12 illustr., $ 69.50.
- Lisa Gotto. 2021. Passing and Posing between Black and White: Calibrating the Color Line in U. S. Cinema. Film Studies. Bielefeld: transcript, 247 pp., 30 figures, € 49.00.
- Daniel Stein. 2021. Authorizing Superhero Comics: On the Evolution of a Popular Serial Genre. Studies in Comics and Cartoons. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, xv + 315 pp., 28 illustr., $ 34.95.
- Books Reviewed: Anglia 140 (2022)
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Light and Divine Wisdom: An Alternative Interpretation of the Iconography of the Fuller Brooch
- Tu beoð gemæccan: The Key Concept of Maxims I Representing One of the Fundamental Principles of the World Order
- Wulf and Eadwacer Reloaded: John of Antioch and the Starving Wife of Odoacer
- Sensational News about Nature: Risk and Resilience in Satirical Ozone Poetry of the Victorian Era
- Influences of George Gordon Byron on Asdren
- Construction of Identity/World and ‘Symbolic Death’: A Lacanian Approach to William Golding’s Pincher Martin
- The Anatomist of Love and Disease in Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body
- Conventions of the Ungendered Narrative
- “In My Mind’s Eye”: On the Relocation of Hamlet’s Story by Michael Almereyda
- ‘Force’ and ‘Chi’: Duality, Identity, and Struggle in Star Wars and Buchi Emecheta’s Kehinde
- Anxious Dynamics of Exile and the Ambivalence of Arab American Identity in Diana Abu-Jaber’s Crescent: Critical Reflections and Contemplations
- Between Remembering and Confession: A Refugee Narrative in Dina Nayeri’s Refuge
- Orfeo: A Posthuman Modern Prometheus. Uncommon Powers of Musical Imagination
- On Literary Apathy: Forms of Dis/Affection in My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018)
- Reviews
- Roberta Frank. 2022. The Etiquette of Early Northern Verse. Conway Lectures in Medieval Studies 2010. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, xxx + 265 pp., $ 65.00.
- Claire Breay and Joanna Story (eds.), with Eleanor Jackson. 2021. Manuscripts in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Cultures and Connections. Dublin: Four Courts Press, xvii + 256 pp., numerous colour illustr., € 58.50.
- Mark Amsler. 2021. The Medieval Life of Language: Grammar and Pragmatics from Bacon to Kempe. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 264 pp., 2 figures, 2 tables, € 106.00.
- Alexandra Barratt and Susan Powell (eds.). 2021. The Fifteen Oes and Other Prayers: Edited from the Text Published by William Caxton (1491). Middle English Texts 61. Heidelberg: Winter, xxxvi + 54 pp., € 44.
- Carolin Gebauer. 2021. Making Time: World Construction in the Present-Tense Novel. Narratologia 77. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter, xvii + 378 pp., 5 tables, 5 illustr., € 99.95.
- Kai Wiegandt. 2019. J. M. Coetzee’s Revisions of the Human: Posthumanism and Narrative Form. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, ix + 280 pp., € 90.94.
- Linda K. Hughes, Sarah Ruffing Robbins and Andrew Taylor with Heidi Hakimi-Hood and Adam Nemmers (eds.). 2022. Transatlantic Anglophone Literatures, 1776–1920: An Anthology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 808 pp., 60 illustr., £ 29.99/$ 39.95.
- Juliane Braun. 2019. Creole Drama: Theatre and Society in Antebellum New Orleans. Writing the Early Americas 4. Charlottesville, VA/London: The University of Virginia Press, 280 pp., 12 illustr., $ 69.50.
- Lisa Gotto. 2021. Passing and Posing between Black and White: Calibrating the Color Line in U. S. Cinema. Film Studies. Bielefeld: transcript, 247 pp., 30 figures, € 49.00.
- Daniel Stein. 2021. Authorizing Superhero Comics: On the Evolution of a Popular Serial Genre. Studies in Comics and Cartoons. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, xv + 315 pp., 28 illustr., $ 34.95.
- Books Reviewed: Anglia 140 (2022)