Ottessa Moshfegh: “It makes no sense to judge a literary work as morally wrong”

Appears after three books ‘Lapvona’ (Alfaguara / Angle), a medieval talesome unexpected, already known aspects to its readers cruel and cruel universe By Moshfegh, he’s particularly interested in scatology here, upping the stakes and pushing beyond bad taste. Well: old women breastfeeding adult men, rape, incest, torture, cannibalism – a character swallowed by a fingernail vomits his finger or something – a boyish governor who enjoys seeing his subjects suffer – some critics want to see a transcript of Donald Trump – and the much-reviewed scene where a maid tries to eat a grape that had previously been left in her young master’s rectum. is forced. “I love poop” is a regular expression in a story like this.

crucify the author

It seems that these periods of political correctness are not ideal times to accept these more typical excesses. Marquis de Sade or Georges Bataille and this, in a spectacular return to the tortilla, is now mirrored by social networks dedicated to crucifying the previously desired author. Criticism, let’s say seriously, has become polarized in the United States. Otessa became Applauded for his bravery, for his evil audacitybut they also slaughtered him for his apparent lack of empathy towards the Granguignolesque characters and immorality that shines through the text.

It’s not surprising that the author, who watched the video conference from her home in Pasadena, shivered, to put it quickly. He admits that he was “depressed” because of the backlash his book caused: “This novel has become something people want to hate. I have nothing to do with the TikTok phenomenon, it was created without me, but I get the feeling that it has a strange, undesirable effect. It seems that people are uncomfortable with me as a human being. But they’re wrong, it’s not me that shows up on TikTok.

He is particularly upset that the great collateral damage of this hatred is the acceptance of his book. “It makes no sense to judge a literary work as morally wrong. The value of literature has nothing to do with the subjects it deals with”, he assures with conviction. the literature and fictional demons must be protectedespecially in these times of pursuit of political correctness Cancel classics like Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’, one of its leading authors.

“I wrote a novel that did not voluntarily join the culture of cancellation. According to him, you can only speak with good intentions, but fiction demands other things, has other rules. The story needs to be interesting to begin with,” he says defiantly and adds sarcastically: “This is just a book. I should point out that while writing this, no living creature was injured, no child was injured. Nobody is being forced to read.”

children’s stories

Who would have thought that the origin of ‘Lapvona’ is the fairy tales the author was told as a child. He did not believe them. “I grew up with manipulated and flavored folktales so that everything ends well and doesn’t traumatize me. But I always felt that what was said there was not true and that my task was to bring back this truth without putting any restrictions on my creativity. Nothing can stop me. not even my husband [el también escritor Luke B. Goebel]If I had read his draft, he would have advised me to exaggerate it further”.

Despite the author’s demands to confine the evaluation of his novel to his own bubble of fiction, the It’s like David Cronenberg made Monty Python’s ‘Knights of the Square Table’.he also speaks of the present, strange as it may seem: “Lapvona is a vulnerable place, a environmental disaster. These are the problems that affect the future of that society, divide families and produce violence. It can be said that they, like us, are victims of a capitalist tyranny”. More moral? “Innumerable. My favorite thing about novels is that they are open stories so that each of us can make our own interpretation,” he says. What’s yours? Moshfegh returns to the subject of the complaint and doesn’t doubt it for a second: “Please get off the internet now.”

Returns with movie adaptations

At the Sundance festival last January, ‘Eileen’, an adaptation of the novel, premiered and received good reviews. ‘My name was Eileen’, With a script written by Otessa herself and her husband, who also took over the production. While the script sweetened many of the spooky aspects of the original novel, the author says he thoroughly enjoyed the experience. “The Hollywood industry is constantly looking for stories. He gets caught up in the novels, gets the rights, then becomes an unknown, the projects are suspended until they come back to life,” he says. This situation ‘My Year of R&R’ actress Margot Robbie bought it a long time ago and that doesn’t seem to be moving at the moment. It was talked about Yorgos LantimosA sensibility creator close to Moshfegh, he can get behind the scenes. Currently, the author neither denies nor confirms.