'I wish I could have been a singer...'

We meet Ottessa Moshfegh - and find which classic she hasn't read, her essential book, tv obsession and much more...
Find out more about Ottessa Moshfegh's writing po.st/OttessaMoshfegh
Her new book coming soon:
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh po.st/wn2Xnq
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[@ShankyLightfoot]

She is brilliantly talented

[@okayokayval]

A queen.

[@johnblyberg4801]

One of the best writers of our time

[@fabian5002]

Could you please help me decipher what is it what she says at 0:56 about her TV obsession?

[@johnblyberg4801]

@@fabian5002 documentaries?

[@mac8697]

@@johnblyberg4801 you did the lord's work decyphering that.

[@Kepxnfjflamchdlwnxlw]

lol no

[@chanjiachi]

Looking forward to her new novel. Love Eileen and homesick stories.

[@Suv33335]

It’s so interesting to me that behind this quirky girl hides the best writer of our generation. Can’t wait for the MYRR screenplay (I hope Yorgos Lanthimos still directs it) and the next novel she is going to gift us with.

[@fernfernisfernie]

Wow just finished it today and had no idea they were planning on making it into a film. I don't think anyone else could really do it justice besides Yorgos.

[@davidschmidt5507]

So on brand i thought this was a bit

[@thedustwhispered]

should have expected that she speaks with a vocal fry

[@TheChannelofaDisappointedMan]

Skill you wish you had: literary ability.

[@maryseo.]

A brilliant writer from a technical point of view but the themes chosen are too dark and vile for my taste. Good writing is not enough, one has to have purpose and intentions in their writing. I don't feel it's the case here. Also I don't trust a writer who has not read classics (maybe because I'm French).

[@m.u.4824]

exactly... couldn’t / can’t believe the hype.. i enjoyed My year of rest but its not really good- like e.g. lots of classics..

[@richardbuchanan130]

I'm sorry, I'm trying to wrap my head around a published writer who has not read or remembered any (really? ANY?) of the classics...Nope. Sorry. Still can't do it.

[@dyodidyodi815]

It is a weird answer, possibly a joke? It makes me think though. In bookstores, sometimes the classics sections go to the mid-twentieth century, sometimes only the end of 19th. Sometimes they put a Penguin Modern Classic there that was published in 1990. They might accidentally put Morrissey's biography there. Some people might only have the reading to name The Catcher in the Rye as a classic, or To Kill a Mockingbird. A Classics professor would say it could only be Greco-Roman! Chaucer would be out, and so would Gilgamesh. Is the Bible a classic? Or is it beyond classical? And what do we do with whole other continents and their literary traditions, often purely oral but ancient ones? Moshfegh just might have craftily dodged a bullet here. Or she could have said Gogol or something and then no one would care lol.

[@onlinepersona1995]

it's a joke.

[@urbaneblobfish]

She's referenced classics during other talks and interviews. It's obviously a joke.

[@milesknightestrada3286]

Shallow as the end of a pool, incompetent as an indolent youth, tactless as a stevedore. True writerly material right here folks!

[@nem0763]

Miles Estrada remember how Nabokov refused to do interviews unless he could rehearse his overwrought replies, or how JM Coetzee expressed his fear of appearing on camera and being asked to extemporize on things that can only sound inane and shallow in that setting? Writers who seem profound in person might actually confuse or alarm me. Talking is not their medium by choice, and neither by definition. Writers hopefully don't compose as fast as they can think or speak. If however you are criticising her actual work (which is not what your comment implies) then I would have to strenuously disagree with your opinion. Take care.

[@malakhakim4111]

@@nem0763 .

[@jessicafoster8738]

She's got style and grit, that's just her work, I mean. Best of both worlds. She knows her stuff, her shit, her craft. Wouldn't be because she writes about unlikeable, sometimes tedious, rarely perfect difficult women, would it?

[@blossombogenfroese]

Thanks for the new bio

[@user-ed8pr2ud7d]

the way you wrote that comment is insufferable and i doubt you’re any different irl