just enough anachronism here to amuse without irritating. The pointless, unrelenting cruelty seems true to life at the time, but the way everyone talks has the zip of modern speech. There is a valet named Clod, a venal and brainless clergyman named Father Barnabas. For the most part, it’s blithely free of the attention to fabrics, furniture, custom, or quotidian life that usually characterize a historical work. There’s no lavishing on of period-appropriate detail. Lapvona is not trying to dazzle you with its verisimilitude. How historically accurate is any of it? It doesn’t matter. The novel has the texture of a fable-the characters and scenarios are at times broadly drawn-but contains no lesson. Moshfegh’s work resists being read as an allegory. hilarious, poignant, controlled, a little nihilistic, and often disgusting.
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