‘My Year of Rest and Relaxation’ is a novel full of fear, anger, angst and pain but is also very funny. The unnamed protagonist is not particularly likeable but I had no trouble relating to her and understanding why the idea of a year of drugged-up hibernation so appealed to her. I loved her caustic wit.
In some ways hers is like a modern day version of Bartleby’s passive-aggressive “I would prefer not to” in Herman Melville’s short story but Ottessa Moshfegh’s story is much more extreme and could only have been written in the 21st century.
Making the protagonist young, pretty, thin and financially secure is a smart touch. It ensures that her opting out cannot he dismissed as her not fitting in. The fact that she ticks all the boxes of what is taken to be ‘successful’ means that we have to look for other explanations to her behaviour.
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Asian Dub Foundation made the inspired decision to use a brilliant anti-UKIP sketch by UK’s best stand up comedian Stewart Lee to make 
In these lockdown days, the escalation of video calls on WhatsApp, Skype, Zoom etc and online team meetings, means that David Foster Wallace’s inspired piece on video telephony in ‘Infinite Jest’ has become highly topical. The whole section is hilarious and here is just a taste of what he had to say:
