Greetings, bookish friends, and welcome to the discussion post for the inaugural #readwithLLM book, My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. Whew...when I chose this book, I gotta say, I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't what I found in these pages.
Here's what I envision with these posts. I've come up with a few questions that I would love your thoughts on, but I also want to open up the comments for any questions or thoughts you have. I do reserve the right to remove any comments that are offensive or hateful, because my goal is to foster a community of readers here, where folks are encouraged to share their thoughts and literary experiences.
So, without further ado, here are my questions and curiosities:
What were your original thoughts/impressions of the book? If you knew anything about the book to start, did it meet your expectations?
What do you perceive as the significance of the prevalence of art and the art scene in this book? Does the symbolism shift at the end, when the protagonist becomes an active (albeit unconscious) participant in the art that is being produced?
Define "unreliable narrator." Does our narrator meet this definition?
Readers are often encouraged to suspend all knowledge/context that exists outside a novel. In other worlds, the novel and its world should be able to exist on its own. Yet, this book, at least from an American experience, makes that impossible - here is a narrative hurdling towards September 11, 2001, and our narrator, unlike our selves, is wholly unaware of the significance of that date. How does the novel's setting impact your reading of it?
Did you like this book? Would you read it again?
What questions do you have for other folks who read My Year of Rest and Relaxation?
Share your answers and your thoughts in the comments below!
Yorumlar