The Art of Radical Rest.

~ A discussion on Otessa Moshfegh’s ‘My Year of Rest and Relaxation’ and its themes.

‘There is a secret yearning to return to stillness.’ - Sophie Tidman, REST AS A RADICAL ACT IN URGENT TIMES.

Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018) compounds ideas that have been long acknowledged: our lives are designed by distraction. Rarely are we graced with the time to sit and confront what immaterial thing resides within us. We are taught to be consumed by the pursuit of glory, and fame, and wealth. Working hard is the soul ethos of our economy; we think only our ‘own mortality’, as though the ‘beauty of our work can soothe the fear of death’. We involuntarily participate in a facile society in the hopes that it will lead us to something larger than ourselves, some hope of power or of glory.

What would happen if we actively opted out of such a society? What is there to be said of ‘radical rest’ and moments of stillness?

Unphased by Upper East Side of New York, Moshfegh’s narrator dedicates herself to taking an hourly concoction of psycho-pharmaceuticals to induce a yearlong slumber- hopeful for a rebirth and renewal at the end. The subsequent 120 days of sleep, and occasional moments of sleep walking, appears pretty absurd. But at the core of the narrator’s self-induced hibernation is the central notion of radical rest. Radical Rest is the act of withdrawing from the norm of working and doing in order to succumb to moments of solitude and stillness. As Moshfegh’s narrator puts it: to rest is ‘self-preservational’, an attempt to ‘save [her] life’.

There is something revolutionary and radical in allowing life to be still, slow, and gentle.

Sweet Doing Nothing, Auguste Toulmache.

Where Moshfegh’s novel is a work of satire, critiquing the superficial nature of post modern society through the lens of an unlikable, privileged, and devastatingly beautiful narrator, it is also characterised by Rachel Sykes’concept of the ‘Quiet Novel’. The ‘Quiet Novel’’s narration is focused on the inner workings of the introverted protagonist, derived from Henry James’ notion of a ‘chamber of consciousness’. This is indeed true of Moshfegh’s work; the narrator’s experience of the world beyond her sleep state is through the hazy lens of lethargy, and all other events are the catharsis of her consciousness in sleep. The narrative isn’t concerned by doing, more so ‘being’ and ‘thinking’. After all, this is ‘the beauty of sleep.. reality detaches itself’.

The work of a ‘Quiet Novel’ helps aid our own introspection. Sykes makes point of the Quiet Novels’ ability to be read as a deviation from contemporary novels’ conformity to mainstream culture. As such, we become immersed in the narrator’s inner workings, subsequently inwardly retreating and confronting our own conscience in the process.

‘Narrators of most quiet novels are not hermits disengaged from the social world but characters who find in quietness a more expressive way to engage with the contemporary moment…’ Rachel Sykes, The Quiet Contemporary American Novel.

The importance of Radical Rest is to ultimately connect with our inner selves, removing ourselves from the default thinking and pressures of post-modern society. Without rest, Moshfegh makes point that people are unable to connect with their inner selves, or confront the truths of their reality. Van Gogh is pioneered by Moshfegh’s narrator as being ‘right to start painting the dreary and the dejected’, it was the truth of his experience in ‘looking out the window at his own misery’. Moshfegh makes point of the needless ‘doing’ and useless ‘acting’ in a production-oriented society. The artists searching for glory were just ‘hanging feckless and candid, meaningless, pairings of things and objects’, ‘withering inevitably to their own demise’. Authenticity and understanding is championed here, where feigned attempts to fulfill the societal expectations of power and status is pictured as tedious. The narrator can only come to understand this in the aftermath of her year of rest, thus establishing rest as a necessary tool for combating the disillusioned state of contemporary society.

Self Portrait, Van Gogh.

The aftermath of Moshfegh’s narrator’s hibernation sees her evolution into the nineteenth century’s ‘flaneur’- a person who observes society in a detached way. Sykes establishes the pivotal point of flaneurs in Quiet Novels, using them to perpetuate the act of protest in withdrawing from society. Moshfegh’s narrator ‘flaneurees’ to the park in the days after her 120 days of rest, watching lapdogs and their owners. Her life is nothing else but watching and thinking, she has withdrawn from social engagement and instead her narrative is entirely comprised of reflection. With the resulted rejuvenation from her 120 day dormancy, Moshfegh’s narrator has a revised outlook of life, seeing beauty where she once scorned and assigning spiritual value to things where once she was fixated on the material.

‘Thinking is generally thought of as doing nothing in a production-oriented society’ - Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking.

In spite of our practical concerns and worries of a psycho-pharmaceutical coma, we come to empathise with the need to withdraw from the contextual landscape. The setting of East Coast of New York, usually ‘disneyfied’ as Sarah Baume would say, is depicted as a queasy setting of seediness and shallow-natured people. It lacks humanity and feeling, solely focused on weight, sex, and status. The narrator is ‘plagued with misery, anxiety’ and wishes to resist the constant ‘condemnation of the world around her’. Her critical judgement is viewed as just- the world around the narrator is impersonal and unfeeling. There is no hope of love or human connection, life is comprised of ‘colonics and facial and highlights’ partnered with sleeping around in ‘spurts’ and ‘going out more than less’. Hence, the dedication to rest and relaxation proposes an opportunity to revise her relationship with the world, being re-birthed into it with a new lens of understanding.

Edward Hopper, ‘The Loneliness Thing’.

Quiet Novels characteristically form a tension between the noise of the narrator’s city setting, and the quiet they seek for refuge. Moshfegh’s narrator finds that ‘everything in the city makes [her] cringe’. She is like ‘a baby being born- the air hurt, the light hurt’ and ‘the details of the world seem garish and hostile’. Even Moshfegh’s character of the scatty therapist gives sense to the alien-nature of city living, noting ‘the modern age has forced us to live unnatural lives. Busy, Busy, Busy. Go, Go, Go’. However, in her hibernation, the narrator spends her ‘waking hours gently, lovingly, growing re-accustomed to a feeling of cosy extravagance’. By taking stock within herself and withdrawing from the restless urban setting, the narrator is able to adopt a steadier pace of life more attuned to her innate needs.

We may feel as though this lifestyle of Moshfegh’s making holds a mirror to our own. We come to recognise the constant obligation to show face and upkeep physical appearance, following a particular timeline and fulfilling predetermined expectations. At a parallel, Brazilian Artist Graciela Carnevale highlights the same notion of ‘involuntary participation’ (1968).

 Graciela Carnevale, Involuntary Participation (1968).

Carnevale highlights the path we are all unknowingly and involuntarily placed upon. We are spoon fed pre packaged pipe dreams of how to act. Here, act is the operative word- Carnevale asserts that we are merely ‘actors’, giving sense to both the constant doing and performance of participating in post-modern society. Hence, to commit to resting and dedicating time to moments of stillness, you give yourself to Richard Long’s notion of ‘the economy of means, propriety of explanation, and quietness’. This is a radical act in an economy that is funded by our time and bodies- to make a claim for autonomy and actively ‘opt out’ of defaulted society. To rest, to refuse to have anything to do or anywhere to be, unapologetically releases the shackles of involuntary participation.

‘The economy of means, propriety of explanation, and quietness’. - Richard Long.

As shown in Chapter 7, in the fifth month of her hibernation, Moshfegh’s narrator enters a pure state of physical detachment and meditation - her ‘conscious self roams like a goldfish’. Her past self and memories appear before her and she is struck by the fact that ‘even if she could go back… there is really no point’. Confronting her inner truth and sitting with the spiritual side of herself, the narrator’s universe ‘narrows into a fine line’, making her feel at peace as a ‘clear trajectory’ emerges. She is revising and reshaping her understanding of the world as she knows it. In Radical Rest, you allow space to revolutionise the lens in which you view the world.

The imagery of Moshfegh’s ‘fine line’ of the Universe similarly strikes resemblance to Richard Long’s ‘A Line Made By Walking’.

Richard Long, A Line Made By Walking.

Long’s artwork serves to show us a path made by walking the track less trodden. Reclaiming time that was stolen, Long participated in an act of ‘Radical Rest’, forging his own path.

Long gives sense to the revolutionary act of opting out of the involuntary participation of society. Instead, he claims back stolen time to forge a new, personal path. Resting, being in stillness and solitude, having no sense of urgency or direction are all acts of rebellion, claiming back personal autonomy that is lost. Reverting back to the role of the Flaneur, to do nothing of supposed ‘importance’ and have no destination in mind is the antithesis of post-modern society. In this way, Radical Rest is underlined as one of the most important acts of non-action for personal revolution. Similarly, in her slumber and at-oneness with the universe, Moshfegh’s narrator concludes that ‘there is no need for reassurance or directionality’ as she is ‘nowhere, doing nothing’- ‘I am nothing. I was gone’. This supposedly nihilistic view is actually the key to her liberation- where she once was determined to keep her ID and keys as an ‘inheritence’ from her life of wealth before hibernation, she now realises that these things are redundant in comparison to reconnecting with her immaterial and inner self.’

Radical Rest is one of the most important acts of non-action for personal revolution.

In participating in rest, we are able to sustain ourselves to moments of the present, rather than illusions of the future. The nihilism of Moshfegh’s narrator encourages this philosophy; while her existence is certain, everything else is meaningless and even the contrived capitalist idea of ‘glory… is mundane’. In her year long slumber, she is solely focused on the mechanics of her own consciousness. From this, she learns how to center herself in the present moment as ‘the notion of the future suddenly snapped into focus: it didn’t exist yet’. The realisation that ‘time is not immemorial, things were just things’ followed ensue. The induced 120 day coma allows for the narrator’s disillusionment with her waking world to be shattered. Her perspective of the world around her is revolutionised. This encourages the necessity of resting as a radical act; it lends energy to forging a new understanding of contemporary society that deviates from the norm. It steals back time consistently taken in the strengthened connection to the Now.

‘An optimistic attachment to the future is first an attachment to the present’, Stephen Greer.

Similarly, to be quiet and introspective gives sense to the excess of chaos and noise in a constantly ‘doing’ culture. Karem Bijsterveld remarks how contemporary Western Culture is ‘deadly afraid of silence and the passiveness that is associated with the absence of sound’. Hence, to opt out of society in a bid for silence and stillness is seen as a threat to a society desensitised to chaos, noise, and trauma. Moshfegh’s narrator embraces the full spectrum of human emotion in her dormancy and awakening; she feels her ‘eyes leaking’ as though ‘each tear was a vision of [her] past’, while also giving time to observe the ‘majesty and grace in the pace of the swaying branches of the Willows’. This demonstrates how Radical Rest allows time for the true experience of emotion, rather than desensitising the self to pain and trauma. As such, with a larger capacity to feel, there is a larger capacity in which to be ‘soft and gentle and feel things’. In a society focused on work and productivity, to be attuned to emotion is the largest threat. Emotion reminds us of the shortfallings and injustices of a way of living we are supposed to simply accept.

Mouvais Gout, Sometimes.

Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation as work of a Quiet Novel, provides important insight into the revolutionary non-action of Radical Rest. To withdraw from society, and the constant expectation of ‘doing’ and ‘being’, is a necessary tool for reassessing the way we navigate and perceive the world around us. Moments of solitude and stillness allows us to be tender and honest, where tenderness and honesty are considered counterproductive. In committing to rest, we steal back the time taken from us and are able to forge new personal paths that may deviate from the norm. Quietness helps us hear more clearly in the noise of a late Capitalist society.

While it needn’t be a 120 day stint, Radical Rest is a personal revolution.