COUNTING ANYTHING BUT SHEEP

In the intriguing novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation by American author Ottessa Moshfegh. published in 2018 and reissued in 2021, the unnamed female narrator has problems with falling into sleep, at one night she isn’t sleepy at all and she is trying to force it by counting, following an advice of her mother, who said that if she couldn’t sleep she should count something that matters, anything but sheep.

She starts to count famous people who committed suicide. There are eight persons she recalls Diane Arbus, Hemingway, Monroe, Plath, van Gogh, Virginia Woolf and poor Kurt Cubain.

Here I stopped reading. Eight persons? Could I think of more important people, who have left their marks in the history of literature, fine arts, entertainment and science, individuals who died by suicide or struggled with mental health issues. What about poor Jim Morrison? (1943-1971): The lead singer of the rock band The Doors, known for his poetic lyrics and charismatic stage presence. Suicide? Struggle? What about (more recently) poor Amy Winehouse?(1983-2011): A very talented British singer-songwriter, known for her soulful voice and hit songs like Rehab and Back to Black? Suicide or struggle? And in science long time ago: what about poor Alan Turing? (1912-1954): A mathematician, logician, and computer scientist, often regarded as the father of computer science. Both suicide and struggle with mental health issues?

TIME FOREVER BEING TIME

Funny things are happening simultaneously with tragic events in this novel. But there’s not a flow of fun and the dramatic stuff comes from only inside her inner self, the troubled young lady in search for her identity, hopelessly experimenting with medicines.

She stays awake at night, counts shades of blues, many kinds of birds, different kinds of flowers, movies set in New York City, stuff like that but then at the end when the author tries not to make a parody of her protagonist, she counts the times she had cried in het life and at that moment she becomes aware that time could go forever being time, with or without her. Infinity loomed consistently.

Is this deep thinking? Superficial it is however not. By the way I don’t need to promote this novel, it is already an enormous bestseller, and proves that American literature surely contains original ideas about the weird aspects of modern life. The desire to escape reality, that’s a fundamental theme in literature of all cultures in the world.