Ottessa Moshfegh

In a village in a medieval fiefdom buffeted by natural disasters, a motherless shepherd boy finds himself the unlikely pivot in a power struggle that puts all manner of faith to a savage test, in a spellbinding novel that represents Ottessa Moshfegh's most exciting leap yet

Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, never knew his mother; his father told him she died in childbirth. One of life's few consolations for Marek is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him when he was a baby, as she did for many of the village's children. 

Ina's gifts extend beyond childcare: she possesses a unique ability to communicate with the natural world. Her gift often brings her the transmission of sacred knowledge on levels far beyond those available to other villagers, however religious they might be. For some people, Ina's home in the woods outside the village is a place to fear and to avoid, a godless place.

Among their number is Father Barnabas, the town priest and lackey for the depraved lord and governor, Villiam, whose hilltop manor contains a secret embarrassment of riches. The people's desperate need to believe that there are powers that be who have their best interests at heart is put to a cruel test by Villiam and the priest, especially in this year of record drought and famine. 

But when fate brings Marek into violent proximity to the lord's family, new and occult forces upset the old order. By year's end, the veil between blindness and sight, life and death, the natural world and the spirit world will prove to be very thin indeed.

A Novel

Lapvona

Helen 

His face was not something she had studied, but something that acted upon her. Like wine, it took hold of her mind and drew it into a golden light, the dawn of heaven, and her body tingled and relaxed. She felt more alive in these dreams, but woke up wishing that she, too, were dead.

Lispeth never complained of hunger or hardship. But Petra could see the bruise on her spirit, the little cuts of sadness. 

Jordan Card

‘What about heaven, Ina? Don't you want to go?’

‘It doesn't matter,' she said. ‘I won't know anyone.'

mallorie 🦌

"Forget him. He'll rot now. He'll feed the worms. Shall we pick some flowers on the way home?" 

james cao

Didn't they know that the land was God itself, the sun and moon and rain, that it was all God? The life in their seeds of wheat, the manure from the cow, that was God. The priest had nothing to do with it.

Perhaps it is most miraculous when God exacts justice even when no human lifts a finger. Or perhaps it is simply fate. Everything seems reasonable in hindsight. Right or wrong, you will think what you need to think so that you can get by. 

Arie P

None of them would have believed such a thing could happen, that life could begin again so quickly.

Divinity as good fortune, not bad. Something strategic to get ahead, connections between villiam and father Barnabas? 

Clark Louis

To Villiam, ‘divinity’ was a synonym for his own good fortune. He believed that wonderful things came to him because he was wonderful and therefore deserved them. 

"Beauty is the Devil's shade," Jude said.

"She was lucky to escape. I found her in the woods, nearly dead. Poor Agata. Why do you like this story so much?"

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