There were only a few dozen families in Lapvona when Ina was a child, and they all worked and lived together peacefully until the plague took half of them to heaven. That changed everything. The houses were burned down with the dead inside for fear that burying the bodies would infect the ground. The survivors became infected with fear and greed. Guilt was extinct in Lapvona thereafter.
I have enjoyed everything I’ve read by Ottessa Moshfegh, until now. Reading like a fairy tale — vaguely set in some Mediaeval European village, written in short, declarative sentences, with cartoonishly bad guys, and a witch who smokes cannabis through a hollowed-out human bone — we are presented with a world (not unlike our own) in which common people are forced by unchallengeable systems to suffer for their daily bread while the fat cats gets fatter. There are many acts of depravity along the way (every imaginable content warning might be given), but overall, I found this dull and unedifying: nothing unique is revealed about humanity or society; the fairy tale ends with no moral; I was not entertained along the way. I would give 2.5 stars if I could, and I just can’t bring myself to round up. (And I wish to emphasise how disappointed that makes me.)
Marek was a small boy and had grown crookedly, his spine twisted in the middle so that the right side of his rib cage protruded from his torso, which caused his arm to find its only comfort resting, half bent, across his belly. His left arm hung loose from its socket. His legs were bowed. His head was also mishapen, although he hid his skull under a tattered knit hat and bright red hair that had never once been brushed or cut. His father — whose long, uncut hair was brown — admonished vanity as a cardinal sin.
Although the POV is rotating omniscient (jumping between the minds of about a dozen characters), the point could be made that thirteen-year-old Marek is the main character of Lapvona. Raised by his abusive single-father, Jude — a brutish shepherd who only has love for his lambs and who self-flagellates every Friday for the glory of God — Marek believes that the only way to join his dead mother in heaven is to suffer on Earth, so his relationship with Jude involves provoking his father into beating him (for the glory of God!) and then enjoying Jude’s remorseful ministrations. Marek also finds comfort in spending time with his wizened old dried-up wet nurse (don’t ask!), and when he goes on an adventure with the handsome young son of the Lord of the Manor, events are set in motion that have long-lasting effects on the village. The main thing to know about Marek is: He may have been introduced as a sympathetic character — the village outcast with the horrifying homelife — but he’s as loathsome as any character here; high-born or low-, humanity is naught but a bushel of mushy apples, rotten to the core.
Moshfegh does a fine job of demonstrating how constricting societal systems are: The Lord, Villiam, and his right-hand man, Father Barnabas, are dim-witted, gluttonous, and self-satisfied. And although neither of them are capable of considered leadership, they set the rules — societal and religious — for life in Lapvona, and the villagers toil and suffer and follow those rules without question. If this is meant to be an allegory for modern society — buffoons rise to the top while the rest of us spin our wool, pay our taxes, and assemble like sheep for a Sunday Mass we don’t understand — it would work better if there was even one decent character to root for; if the plot led to a moral or character growth or a point. (There is one character — introduced in the beginning and not heard from again for two hundred pages — who smokes weed with the witch and has a sort of epiphany about the interconnectedness of people and the despotic nature of their strict society, but he doesn’t affect the plot or bring about change, so he doesn’t, ultimately, matter.)
Perhaps it is most miraculous when God exacts justice even when no human lifts a finger. Or perhaps it is simply fate. Everything seems reasonable in hindsight. Right or wrong, you will think what you need to think so that you can get by.
This quote from near the end is as close as Moshfegh comes to making a point, and it was too little and too late for me. I was not impressed by the sentences or the overall effort, I was often bored (and a little annoyed by my level of boredom), and I could have taken a pass on this read. I will, however, look forward to reading Moshfegh again.
