Lapvona- Ottessa Moshfegh
By Hannah Johnson
“‘Don’t worry,’ Marek said. ‘Death is not the end. You shall rise. What are the birds but angels? You will never have to walk among the monsters. It’s much better up there. You’ll see, you’ll see. You will be so happy and free, you’ll sing.’”
A dark and magical novel from Ottessa Moshfegh, Lapvona is a unique, daring and radical work of fiction, not for the weak-hearted. Marek, troubled son of a shepherd, finds himself wrought up in brutal violence, an intense power struggle and the supernatural world, in an unstable world riddled with desperation, uncertainty, depravity, and death. As the novel progresses, this fragile world unravels and what is understood about life, death, and power is reduced to lawless nothingness.
Moshfegh’s story is endlessly chilling, with captivating and all-encompassing darkness that lures the reader in and envelops them completely in this mysterious new world. The mysticism and supernatural magic of the tale go beyond the pages to effectively lure and trap the reader as well as the magic lures and defines the characters and the story itself. Moshfegh master’s a writing style that perfectly complements the complicated and eerie nature of the novel.
The characters also have a captivating darkness to them, unsettling, and creepy, but done brilliantly by Moshfegh. Making readers motivated to continue along with a novel with characters as troubled as those in Lapvona, shows her brilliance in characterization. Everything Moshfegh does in Lapvona is so organized, creating a world and characters all woven together with incredible complexity, adding to the feel of this novel, how this brutal world endlessly spins around the character or the reader with no stopping, violent and disjointing. A troubled character like Marek against the frivolous nature of a ruler, for example, creates a brilliant clash that continuously adds to the unsettling world of the story.
The darkness of this novel doesn’t take away from the brilliance but is beautifully done in a way that is incredibly raw. Moshfegh writes with a purpose that is consistent and strong throughout. Moshfegh explores, through a radical lens society may be uncomfortable with, complex themes that humankind still can’t define or find the answers to- power, magic, life and death. She faces death and brutal violence square in the face without fear, and, thus, her readers face this death as well, and sit with the emotion, the discomfort, that Lapvona evokes.
Though this novel is so radical, readers can find plenty of elements within to connect themselves with, even if one doesn’t usually find themselves attracted to darker novels. Lapvona doesn’t easily fit into one genre and mixes the magic and supernatural elements one may commonly see or associate with sci-fi or fantasy adjacent books, with elements of myth, legend, the gothic and folklore. The horrors of the novel will captivate readers who embrace the creepiness and darkness, and the medieval setting blends a unique, completely fictional world, with what one might assume and what one might’ve seen before of medieval society in novels. Those eager to find literary controversy or explore some “weird” fiction can find themselves utterly entranced in Lapvona.
