Writers Who Inspire Us Series: How Ottessa Moshfegh Helps Me Surrender to the Genius
Ottessa Moshfegh’s talent stems from her knack for writing intellectual comedy but her genius emerges from her ability to balance comedy with the right amount––just a splash––of perversity. She has become a go-to artist for me to submerge myself in when I'm feeling bored, or worse, boring, and in need of an Ottessa-sized courage dump of writerly risk-taking to help encourage my own genius to come out. Genius, I realize, is a bold word to throw around casually about one’s creative goals. But I think everyone is capable of genius. I like what Baudelaire said on the subject: genius “is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.” In this way, accessing one’s genius becomes a ritual of freedom. An act of releasing or ignoring that which plagues our self-doubt. In many ways, reading Moshfegh’s work, for me, is like answering the question: where can my creativity go when I don’t worry what imaginary intellectual men think of me?
Moshfegh has said that the process of writing many of her books was not unlike channeling. It was while she was in grad school that the inspiration for her first novel, McGlue, a mid-nineteenth century seafaring yarn based on the true story of a New England man, a drunk, who cannot recall whether he killed his shipmate slash best friend. Moshfegh had been looking through library archives when she came across the article that inspired her to write McGlue; its potency was immediate and clear to her. She felt in that moment that the book had been handed to her “either by Satan or God,” and once she began writing, the book poured out of her as if McGlue himself were telling his story through her. In other words, Moshfegh did not play host to any creative-killing hyper-critical interior editor. She did not allow the time for second-guessing herself or the unconventional circumstances of her process. She let the story flow; the genius emerge. Albeit, painfully.
When I was in graduate school working on my MFA in creative writing, I sometimes thought about what Moshfegh said of her own MFA experience: “You have a lot of people who aren't good at writing yet, telling you what to change about the way that you’re writing. So you better be radical and you better hate everyone. Not that I did personally, but that I had to if I was going to protect the thing that I knew wanted to grow.”
There is something about the phrases “you better hate everyone. Not that I did personally,” that makes complete sense to me as MFA advice. Because I did want to protect “the thing,” or the genius, we all want to grow. This quote also speaks to Moshfegh’s willingness to risk unlikeability on the page. In her second book, Eileen, the title character lavishly relays all the details of her explosive, laxative-fuelled bowel movements. The writing throughout Eileen is bleakly bizarre, but also elegant, horrific, and lovely. Moshfegh describes it as “Kate Moss taking a shit.” Whatever your feelings on explosive diarrhea, the flame of Moshfegh’s brilliance is undeniable. The prose feels channeled. It feels unburdened. Childlike, but serious. Like the Goddess Inanna, emerging from the Underworld, there is a purity to the work.
The psychic and actual terrain of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Moshfegh’s third novel, take place in New York City just on the precipice of 9/11, before the twin towers fell. Once again, the phenomenon of a compelling, very readable yet unlikeable main character–– we are never told the protagonist’s name ––is thrust upon us. Under Moshfegh’s care, the horrible choices the main character makes––drugging herself into a self-induced, four-month hibernation in an attempt to really heal––manage to touch upon legitimacy, reason, and logic. How?
How indeed. As with all of Ottessa Moshfegh’s work, the universe her characters come from is thorough, understood, and complete. She surrenders completely to the story and the rules of the characters’ domain. That’s what Moshfegh gets right. That’s her genius. As a reader, all you have to do is settle in and trust the ride; trust that you are in excellent hands. Moshfegh has shown us and will continue to show us how to let go. We don’t have to listen to the inner critic deriding our imagination. We don't have to question the process. We just have to surrender to the genius.
Books by Ottessa Moshfegh:
About Suzanne Garcia Pino
Suzanne Garcia Pino is living the dream, meaning she takes at least one nap a day, in Missoula, Montana. You can follow her sporadic esoteric musings on Instagram: psychicfemme and on Substack: thepsychicfemme.substack.com
