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Details About Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh PDF

• Novel Title: Lapvona
• Author: Ottessa Moshfegh
• Genre: Fiction Other
• Pages: 320
• Publish Date: June 21, 2022
• Language: English 

Book Review:

Lapvona by ottessa moshfegh this book first of all the cover design absolutely just like what more can you want from cover like truly black cover the blue font and that font it's giving me like 80s slasher vibes do you know 

What I mean do you get that something about it is giving like the classical font but also a little bit deceptive and sinister I'm obsessed so this book I read this I think two weeks ago 

I want to say and it's so hard for me to even begin to distill my thoughts on this book because it is so different from everything that she's ever written in the past this is a historical fiction novel she has written one book 

In a similar vein called mcglue that was set in the 1800s following a drunken sailor who may or may not have killed his best friend and this one is similarly historical

But we're in medieval times in the late middle ages in an eastern european fictional country called le bona right from the start you know this is going to be quite different from her typical interior depressed woman moving style books such as my year of western relaxation her most popular book 

By a long shot I think and eileen and death in her hands we're getting outside of focusing on one character and looking at a small town this book is aptly titled 

It's looking at a bunch of different characters within this town that's operating under a fiefdom that is being controlled by the lord called william first of all I'm obsessed with the name of the lord william sounds very close to villain 

I watch this interview with tessa moshfeg in which she talks about her obsession for lack of a better word the letter v she thinks something about it is kind of like sinister villainous 

She tends to like that in character names for example trevor riva vesta those are all characters in her books and I think she likes to use the v and it's very interesting hearing that 

Then seeing her title the book let vona having the v in there and then william being the lord he is probably yeah he's definitely the most depraved character out of any book that moshbach has ever written basically 

We see william controlling the operations of this small town and the novel opens on two characters named marek and jude mark is a young I believe 13 year old boy 

Who is disabled he is living with his father named jude who is a lamb herder in this town who lives at the bottom of this hill and at the top of the hill is the manner in which william lives and his immense copious riches and so the town is quite poor 

We see maraca navigating his abusive relationship with his father jude mark is kind of understanding his place in the world and I think marek is one of otessa moshe's most singular creations in all of her books 

He is a character that looks to god to try to understand the things that are going on around him and the abuses that he suffers he sees himself as someone 

Who is accepting the abuses and the evil things that happen to him as some sort of sacrifice for god and he thinks that he's going to go to heaven because 

He is sacrificing himself and enduring all this pain on earth in order to have a better life in the afterlife and what's really interesting about this book is the epigraph is actually a demi lovato lyric which when I opened that I laughed out loud I was like wait what um it is a line from their 

Song called anyone and the epigraph is I feel stupid when I pray and I tell you that is such a pure distillation of everything going on in this book in terms of people seeking solace in something using religion and faith in god as something to ground yourself in order to endure immense pain 

Human suffering as a result of corrupt and depraved human figures and what power and corruption does to a small town we see that mark is a motherless boy he is lied to frequently by his father about what happened to his mother 

He believes that she is dead and we'll quickly learn from jude in his thoughts that she is not dead in the various lies that he tells mark to kind of get him to move through his life and the ways that mark kind of thinks about his place 

Given the very limited scope that he has to understand the world around him particularly in the late middle ages as a young disabled boy the book opens on the scene in which bandits have come to the town 

They murder a bunch of people in the town including some small children and you see this bandit get caught and he's murdered in the town instantly this book reveals itself to be quite gory violent gruesome and really unrelenting in 

Its prose this book reminds me very much of the book hurricane season by fernando melchor it is a book that is unafraid to throw human depravity right at your face 

Let you grapple with it yourself and I think hurricane season and it's kind of like unrelenting style of placing the reader right in the middle of so much violence and uh just evil corrupt behavior it really makes you uncomfortable as a reader despite I think 

This book still having a sense of moshvag's kind of dark inviting humor I think it's on display more than ever what happens eventually in the plot is that a plague strikes and a record drought occurs in the town 

So it's subtly hinting at our current time this is a book that moshvag has mentioned was a way of her to seek solace in in the novel while going through the pandemic basically to kind of distill 

This book very simply it is a look at moshfeg's dark and very sinister look and reckoning with the pandemic and all that means for for us and what it revealed about human suffering capitalism 

Corruption amongst governmental forces so we see gradually throughout this book that william the lord of the manor is controlling a lot of what's happening down in the town and his complete lack of regard for their humanity and their suffering he doesn't really care that

He is you know himself diverting water under his own land so that the drought that occurs is completely at the hands of william and the town doesn't really know it they are constantly looking to god to 

Try to figure out and believe that whatever they're going through is going to lead to something better in the end when we as readers through a sense of dramatic irony know that's not the case william is a completely despicable man 

He makes his servants do things for his own amusement he makes him do very disgusting and just terrible things to themselves it's a way of joking or putting on entertainment for him there's 

One scene in particular made me want to throw the book across the room just because of how ridiculous he is and I mean it's kind of like this caricature of what I you know considered to be a representation of someone 

Who was in power not too long ago and I really liked her kind of scathing takedown of an authoritative figure over town who completely mistreats his people I mean it's completely terrible to read 

But I really liked the way that she represented him in the text and how she kind of frames him as the center of what is truly going on in this town that's not really revealed to the people in it including the main character here marek 

What moshvag seems to be doing here is looking at a fictionalized past to really understand our immensely troubled and not-so-different present the fiefdom of let bona is really this metaphor of capitalism 

She uses this kind of framework of medieval times to really highlight the depravity of of humanity this book has a touch of magical realism in that we have a character named ina and she is a wet nurse for this village 

So she has a sense of magical power and that she can hear things that the birds are saying in the village that kind of guide her that other people can't hear and she also is a wetness so she's able to without having 

A child herself be able to feed the people of levona and raise them and kind of get them through hard times um in their history so she's also kind of outcast from the town given her being thought of a sense essentially 

As like a witch so again that kind of parallel to hurricane season that book has a character who's kind of ostracized from the the small town you kind of learn more about why that is throughout the book when you're introduced to inna you learn that she is also blind um from a young age 

She loses a lot of her family and you also learn not to get too much into spoiler territory but she also knows more about marek's mother and that history there and you learn more about her kind of involvement with that 

Then later her raising mark in a sense and kind of serving as his mother figure and we often see the characters in this book trying to seek solace in things that seem to know more than they do whether 

It be god or whether it be ina again this idea of her knowing more than other people and the kind of magical realism elements about her special powers that she tends to have that isn't completely explained to the reader

But it doesn't really feel like annoying in that sense like it doesn't really feel like a cop-out or anything it feels like a necessary device to kind of understand the inner workings of la vonna in 

The reasons for why the characters are behaving in certain ways given this kind of external force on the plot I think she's a really interesting character and when I reread this book before publication

I really plan to focus on her character because I think even in the interview that I watched with her testimony I think last summer she mentions how important she is to the book and of course she is 

But I want to kind of explore more these ideas that I have about her as a character and what she's kind of doing with her there she's really interesting and you get a lot of time with her as well kind of understanding her story and she also engages in some horrific actions um it's just really 

I don't know this book is so interesting I'm kind of working on my thoughts as I'm saying all this I hope y'all are enjoying this kind of just blabbering about this book but again this is a section of the book in a lot of places where she's involved it gets very 

Grotesque in its imagery and it feels very you know moshfegian in that sense where she's not really afraid to dive deep into the body and its representations and kind of helps also the town during the play that happens throughout the book

Kind of keeps them sustained and how they kind of rely on her to keep them going despite william kind of constantly wreaking havoc on the town and kind of completely disregarding their health and well-being 

I have a rough theory about ina the character in terms of her kind of being this guiding force of the entire narrative she's very important to this book for reasons that I won't divulge here but I have this rough theory 

I would love when people read this to kind of entertain this theory but I think she is intended to represent the internet I think um in the sense of how like she guides people through through the plague 

The pandemic and how they kind of people always rely on her but also kind of blame her for things that are happening yet or she's constantly kind of like this this underlying current throughout the town and people's kind of thoughts 

About things and also the way this is that she kind of inflicts violence on certain characters it's kind of this interesting thing that just reminded me of the internet throughout the book I think that's what moshe is kind of doing 

Here I don't know if I'm just reaching for that but I find it an interesting topic in terms of her kind of considering what we kind of use to cope through massive traumas and I think the internet namely of course is one of the biggest ones that everyone relied on throughout the pandemic 

Generally relies on in life now in a digital age and the final thing I want to talk about for the plot of this book is it's really a look at one year in this town and a certain event that happens in the beginning with marek 

What he does with another boy who lives in the manor who is the son of william something happens in their relationship that causes marek to end up living in the manor himself and all the implications that come when 

He is living with william as his sort of father figure it gets wild I will say that otessa moshbach does not give a single about what her peers are publishing right now she doesn't care she's doing her own thing and I respect her so much for it I don't want to say that adding all of this you know depravity and violence is necessary in itself something to be applauded 

I just think she uses it all so effectively to tell the story of humanity I think every single piece of this book in terms of its inclusion of human suffering of violence of greed and corruption of sexual abuse of death of plague it's also necessary to really in a hyperbolic sense understand our current time through 

This historical framework that I thought was so brilliant I think a book that also did this really well was matrix by lauren grah very similar in tone and that book also really looked at some kind of bleak and depraved circumstances of human suffering 

You know functions of the body and look at them very directly the way that this narrative is crafted from like a framework perspective is so interesting because there's certain scenes in which we see different perspectives of characters throughout 

This book namely marek jude william and there are certain points in this book when we get like a page or two from the perspective of marek and then we see what's going on with jude and kind of how their their storylines are kind of interwoven together throughout the entire story 

I found it to be so effective and interesting in terms of how she's able to propel the plot along in this really interesting way while also giving us really an interesting look at the minds of these characters 

Their impulses and their desires I think the root of the book is really looking at the sense of faith subverting reality misplacing guidance in something above us in order to one cope with it but also the ways that 

It's kind of inevitable under this you know particular fiefdom controlled by william how these people have no choice but to seek something above or something that may not be existent to try to understand what is going on around them and I 

Think this is something that has been commonly explored in literature but I really liked the way that she did this in the sense of showing us characters that are constantly misplacing their perception of something or otessa moshfeg

Uses dramatic irony so much in this book in the sense that we know many things that the characters in this book do not know or they later learn them in the ways that their lack of information is causing them to be behave in certain 

Ways and act out in certain ways or make certain mistakes and how certain characters namely marek changes so significantly throughout this book and she also does this really interesting thing in the book 

Where she kind of interjects this omniscient narrator at certain points near the end I thought was so brilliant it kind of reminded me right now I'm reading middlemarch by george eliot and this kind of subverting your expectation of this being like a story being told to you by someone who kind of knows more 

Than what the characters do is really interesting and kind of inserts otessa moshvag as this kind of omniscient presence over over these characters and kind of acknowledging what she's doing and kind of playing them like a game of chess it really felt like oh tessa moshberg is like winking 

At the reader given her being you know the creation of this while also centering the novel a lot and like fate and coincidence in the ways that these characters all kind of come together by the end of it in this quite disastrous way 

She kind of winked at the reader by you know showing that she's kind of controlling the narrative but also it really shows this quite plausible depiction of humans acting out the general human condition and operating under greed in this kind of capitalistic fiefdom to kind of tie 

It all together by the end of this book again without spoiling marek becomes a completely different person given the forces that he has been put under and the very vicious and abusive actions of his father toward everyone in the town of william how that affects a person and how they can become completely 

Changed despite their belief in something better despite inherently seeming to be like a very good person by the start of the novel how they can become completely corrupted by the end despite thinking that 

They're doing the right thing it's a very bleak and interesting look at humanity and how much humans kind of play on the development of others amongst community and how our own selfhood is determined 

By those around us despite us thinking that we kind of have our own autonomy over it this book is really questioning what external forces really do to a person mark is this sort of distillation of la bona in one character 

He is misguided he is abused he is corrupted he's robbed of faith and humanity and even by the end of the novel when he knows so much more about humanity and the forces around him he's still deluded in a certain sense so to kind of summarize my thoughts from there this book 

If you can't tell is incredibly disturbing it's incredibly complex it's completely new territory for tessa moshvag and it really cements her she's already been cemented in my mind as a masterful storyteller and craft writer 

But I'm just completely stunned by the flex of this book like the audacity the gall the gumption to write this book is just so stunning whoo I just can't believe it this is wild to me that I'm living in a time where writer is doing everything that I want a fiction writer to do like her books are just everything to me 

They're everything to me I want everyone to find a writer like this for them like I just I adore her so much this book is so good why am I getting emotional I'm proud I feel like a swifty you know what I mean like when she drops a new album and you're just like wow 

I am so proud that she keeps giving the gift that keeps giving she seems so hyper aware of humanity and helps me also as a reader through fiction understand how up everyone is you know what I mean like she's so clearly enamored by humanity and looking at people at their nastiest and most 

Vile places and try to understand how can a human get there what causes people to be the way that they are and what does that mean for the rest for everyone else like are we all this type of person given these forces on us and do we hide it to a better extent than other people do 

Like what is that and I think her novels really question that that topic and it's interesting because this book is so so different from other books it's told in third person it is looking at many characters in one town it's historical it doesn't really have a historical feel in its prose style it feels quite modern and it's telling but just rooting the characters in an older time 

But I will say this book is quite similar to her other books as well the time jumps in the isolation of setting is very similar to my year of wrestling relaxation I think this look at a single person 

You know being abused and being an outlier and the father child relationship and cyclical nature of abuse and inheritance is very similar to the themes of eileen I think this idea of god and the questions of storytelling and what a person is allowed to do in telling a story what is permitted 

By the novelistic form and whether death and fate are fortuitous or written by you know some force above such as god it's all questions that are explored in death in her hands which is my favorite of her books I think mcglue that's an easy comparison to make in the historical context 

Focus on men which is quite interesting this book also focuses on women but um I think that's kind of one interesting thing about this book is that usually her books are like a first person narrator in the mind of a woman 

This is really looking at men and their youth and older fatherhood as well and then finally even her short story collection kind of reminds me of some things of this book 

It's kind of tangential to this but I think this kind of idea of this amalgamation of isolated plots to kind of explore a grander theme of being you know homesick for another world of questioning humanity and wanting to be somewhere else 

I think you know the final story in that collection called the better place is another one of those books or sorry stories that's quite singular in its approach and quite different from everything else that she does but again as we're rooted in these similar questions

I'm kind of scared that otessa moshe exists because like I just don't understand how she's so good at what she does this is a writer that is meant to be writing novels I know I sound crazy and I'm probably like you probably think I'm exaggerating but this is truly 

How I feel I am so excited to keep reading her books going forward hope she never stops writing they're just a joy to read despite having so much depravity again this book is definitely the heaviest and darkest book she's ever written so warning going into it 

There is quite everything you can possibly imagine that is uh terrible in this book but I still think it's worth your time and it doesn't feel at least for me it doesn't feel too manipulative or just putting in violence for the sake of violence I think everything here is intentional moshmag 

Is too good of a writer to kind of stoop to that level I don't know I highly implore if you like any of moshe eggs books please pick this up I think if you like historical fiction um and you haven't tried her I think this is a really good one to to try out I will say nothing else she's written

Is like this so I think this one kind of stands alone and it kind of makes sense as this like coveted response novel but I highly recommend it I am so grateful to the publisher penguin press for sending me a copy of this I am just I feel so lucky that I got a chance to read it in advance I can't believe it 

I am on tik tok and I make many tech talks about otessa moshberg and I make funny content I kind of like I kind of do the most on that front because I think it's kind of funny to like be a stan of moshvag um and to a certain extent 

But I really do respect and appreciate her work and I just think she is a mad genius and I will follow her wherever she goes I am so excited I don't know I'm rambling now but basically I love this book

I think death in her hands remains my favorite but this one feels like leagues beyond for moshvag and like in her development as a storyteller and her taking the chance to tell the story that is 

So weird and out there and messed up and unafraid to go there that is my review of la vona by tessa moshbag it was quite long-winded but I had to get all my thoughts out to do it justice.

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