Jamie asked:

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7 years ago
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Judy Lindow In the definition of "allegory" - a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one - something being "hidden" is significant. The main character attempts to find a new reality by consuming too much, mindlessly (drugs, products, media, sex, etc). Nothing hidden about this in the story. I think however, in this part of the story she's trying to cover, hide, ignore, or run away from what she's afraid of - she appears to be running from something - and we get glimpses of: abusive relationships, grief, and more - but I think what we're seeing is her running from what's hidden and it's the unknown. Wanting not to face anymore of her life if it continues to bring her suffering. And so even the numbing is a strategy to ignore the 'unknown'. I think all these addictive, numbing strategies are just that -- when I lost both parents and became an orphan I started doing crossword puzzles, consuming more, eating more, and reading fiction full time. Haha. So although it's commentary on all the tools we have at our disposal when when we run from feelings and fear of the unknown - I don't know it's some huge political message.

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Hayes

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Isabel Marqués

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)[I don't know if I'd call it an allegory because to me the whole story sounds more like an explicit critique of capitalism, class and gender privilege, and also a suggestion of the impossibility of composing a solid counter-narrative of it (let alone to find an alternative way to live). I think one of the novel's achievements is that the narrator is no longer a traditional unreliable voice, but rather one leads readers in and out of a world in which she actively, if reluctantly, takes part. While it's easy for us to understand her motifs and ambiguity, there's always a safe ironic distance that allows us to be critical with everything she does - starting with her year-long sleep project, which to me echoes these neoliberal rituals like the cleanse, the makeover, the yoga retire, the detox diet, etc.
As for the interpretation of the ending, I think it's definitely ambiguous and Moshfegh plays under multiple layers of [literary] convention and [historical] expectation. I remember that the first time I read it I interpreted it as a moment of epiphany and a realization of how much she truly loved Reva (I think this is an easy reading because Moshfegh makes us pity Reva all the time, while appreciating her rare, innocent intelligence). But now I think that if there's an epiphany, is more like a twisted one, not exactly illuminating, but even more confusing (a bit like what Deborah Eisenberg calls "reverse epiphany"). The protagonist is amazed by the falling woman's "awakeness" in her decision to jump off the building, but as @Hayes says, it sounds pretty dark and depressing, knowing that she's barely choosing another way to die. In this sense, I think Moshfegh doesn't show much hope for any kind of alternative political action (the popularization of "woke culture" outside the BLM movement resonates here), but on the other hand, there may be a true recognition of individual choices and unusual alliances (remember that Reva has usually been been portrayed as a sort of postfeminist replicant, "a drone" and her friend often wondered if she'd ever "wake up").
Also, I don't think the novel works well as a 9/11 text in itself, but it probably expects readers to analyse it from the point of view of a critical subject in the late 2010s. I mean, many of us know about what came after the event, and how the pictures of people falling from the Towers were used as part of a narrative of martyrs and heroes in a campaign for the war on terror, and later for the intervention in Iraq. So the protagonist's fascination for the falling woman may be yet another morbid joke that points to the brutal prevalence of the State in human decisions, but also to the possibility for tiny liminal states for freedom and resistance. (hide spoiler)]

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Marta This is one of those rare books that is very open to interpretation. On the surface nothing happens, but there are so many undercurrents. There could be allegories to many things. I did notice the allegory to the numbingness of consumerism, but I thought there was also an allegory equating sleep and death - something very common in art.

@Hayes - I thought the last scene with the woman jumping out of the window alluded to that - sleep and death, and weather there was a new life after that. Also, perhaps to the awakening of a country by a tragedy.

I think this will turn out to be a much studied book, as readers can see so much into it.

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