a study in abject shame and obsession

or, ideas expressed through my annotations while reading this ottessa moshfegh novel last year, mostly adjacent to 'delicious shame,' as eileen says best

Aug 10, 2023

ottessa moshfegh has been on my radar since my year of rest and relaxation, which I still haven’t gotten to reading. a former friend texted me last january with eileen’s summary and a note that it seemed like something I’d like. ever obsessed with knowing how people perceive me, i instantly dove into it without knowing just what to expect.

i like to consider myself somewhat of a hard-ass about books, but the truth is, being somebody who writes them, i recognize that a book is a beating heart sold and shelved. sometimes, I cannot, in good mind, say terribly mean things about a book because I know the sweat and labor that was poured into it intimately.

despite this, i will say that I didn’t love eileen at first. i was scanning it not unlike a burdensome terms and conditions document when suddenly i stopped, staring myself in the eye through the mirror of a lifeless page.

“That was when I began to fantasize about my disappearance, convincing myself bit by bit that the solution to my problem—the problem being my life in X-ville—was in New York City.”

i couldn’t tell you my exact age when this illusion began, but around the time i started to experience shame about my sexuality and when i started to clash with my parents, i saw it. a future of my own creation, fueled by hard work and sweat, somewhere far enough away that my home here— my shame here— couldn’t reach me. suddenly it didn’t matter that i felt small and judged and insignificant and inexplicably dirty, used and discarded, because i had a life in New York City waiting for me to claim it.

with this being said by eileen fairly early on, it dramatically altered my view of the novel. now I wasn’t reading to see what a friend thought of me.

1 i was reading it because I was getting to know eileen now and felt the beginnings of camaraderie and sisterhood.

I didn’t believe in heaven, but I did believe in hell. And I didn’t really want to die. I didn’t always want to live, but I wasn’t going to kill myself.

without any intention to sound any alarms, this sentence single-handedly enveloped me in a lukewarm embrace. eileen identifies a feeling that has haunted me on and off for years, that has driven me to write, crazed, in the dead of night as i am now. for so many years i find myself wishing to get back on occasion, i was unenthusiastic about life. i didn’t have a very great sense of self nor did i have any goals besides getting through the day and maybe being kissed once. just so i’d go to my grave knowing what it felt like to be wanted in that way.

but also, recognition through the novel aside, this isn’t an experience i would wish on anyone.

2as mary oliver said, ‘it is a serious thing/just to be alive/on this fresh morning
in the broken world.’ i am braver now, and awaken with, at the very least, hunger in my belly. even so, i am aware this is a feeling that sneaks into the lives of many others, and reading it put so bluntly here provided me with the comfort of being known. eileen finds this idea mortifying, repeatedly so repulsed by intimacy she cannot ever imagine herself willing to engage, and still we find ourselves eager to see this closed-off woman develop, thinking if she could do it, maybe we could too. if the caged animal could break free, so can we.

I’ve learned that it’s good to be foolish from time to time. It keeps your spirit young.

nothing much to add, but i like this one. it really is good, and it will feel good to let your shoulders down and laugh and be laughed at, if you let it. i spent about eighteen years loathing being the laughing stock of my friends and family, but it hit me this year that maybe bringing humor into daily interactions isn’t a thing of shame and inferiority, but of being a lighthouse for others. i can stomach being a lighthouse.

I can’t say I’ve ever really understood what it means to be Catholic.

i think the essence of being a good catholic was never meant to occur to me, hence why i quit. churches are beautiful, always have been a pleasure to look at. nut every time i stood in one longer than a few seconds, i felt an itching under the skin. i have a special affection for flawed faith— tried, fell short, and found a new home. there’s a lot of shame about being a catholic, or trying to. it just about crippled me. today I couldn’t tell you what else it made me feel but a powerful disconnect and doom about myself. i’m sorry, dad.

I had this childish idea that it is best when dealing with a new friend to withhold all opinions until the other puts forth her opinions first.

don’t we all just want to be affirmed and understood by our friends? eileen’s hesitation to reveal any information about herself speaks to the chameleons, the people who would shift just to touch acceptance. t’s hard to be vulnerable, bare your bones, and be met with a question mark or, at worst, a shake of the head. naturally, there are some things we wait to share. and it does not escape me the way this idea veers into politics as well. can we be ambivalent about that anymore? i don’t think we can. i think it is our duty to be transparent to save people the time of misplacing their faith, but it’s hard.

All the time I wasted plucking my face at the bathroom mirror, I could have written a book. I could have learned to speak French.

we live in a world where it is perverse to relax or cease working towards something. i could have published a book by now, you could be fluent in another language, we all could have more money. another job. such shame we let invade ourselves at the notion of stopping.

also, though, eileen thinks so much of herself, to the point that she hardly does much else. even when she’s at work or with another character, she is constantly fixated on, obsessed with how she is portraying herself, how she feels, and her own crawling feeling of impending misfortune. the way her skin doesn’t fit, her teeth are stained, her hair’s greasy, the exact weight of dirt under her fingernails.

throughout history, we’ve seen a lot of self-obsession. think narcissus. think of the narcissus that some become with their social media profiles, their anonymous validation. the modern currency of a digital heart. self-obsession through the coveted, reliant desire of other people. not often do we behold obsession in the way of nitpicking one’s every move, or clawing our skin until we erase the bad parts. moshfegh does an excellent job at embodying this. you can very nearly feel it in eileen. her utter fascination with her own bodily functions dominates most of her narration.

The shame of arousal, the arousal of shame.

this quote, only eight words, is to me such an essential part of the novel. eileen is not dominated, but completely devoured by shame, and in turn led by her interest in her own feelings of shame, so much so that it creates an inkling of arousal for her. this quote is so very catholic. i could go on about it for paragraphs, but i’ll be brief: it is incredible the capacity we have to be enraptured and uncomfortable by the same things at the same time. it is a feat to exhaust yourself by denying your eagerness.

It’s the map of my childhood, my sadness, my Eden, my hell and home. When I look at it now, my heart swells with gratitude, then shrinks with disgust.

i think about this a lot. how far is eden from hell, really? if not for the verses, could both lands be habitable? could the people of each be worthy of forgiveness and punishment?

and, lastly.

Still, nobody wants to admit they want to be bad, do bad things. People just love shame. This whole country’s hooked on it if you ask me.

delightfully unhinged little lesbian

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