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Lapvona

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Lapvona

By: Ottessa Moshfegh
Narrated by: Ottessa Moshfegh
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

In the land of Lapvona, the lord of the land Villiam is cheating the local villagers of their food, their water, their livelihoods. Grotesque and ridiculous, he marries the pregnant and tongueless ex-nun Agata, whom he believes will make him God, and his son will be the second Christ.

It's a land of murder, cannibalism, incest and rape. Despite all of the characters' individual inadequacies and madness, you find yourself completely engrossed in each character's fate, be it Marek, Jude, Agata, Villiam, Lispeth, Ina, Father Barnabas. It's an anti-fairytale within a fairytale—maybe this is what hell on earth looks like? Is it an indictment of humanity, of religion, of grotesque despots?

An original work of brilliance—singular, funny, horrifying and entertaining in equal measure.

©2022 Ottessa Moshfegh (P)2022 Penguin Audio Dark Fantasy Dark Humour Fantasy Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Magic Scary Comedy
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Most relevant
I don't think the categories really do this justice; all fiction is a kind of fantasy and this is like a dark fairy tale. A story one makes up of a small world with simple elements, just here populated with sometimes dark detail, especially when contrasted with the normal. It is not horror or superficial or obvious, but illuminates as light through the crack in a little opened door, what is in our dark minds.

Captivating

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The first half of this book had me hooked but then it just fell apart for me. It even felt as though the dialogue style completely changed. Maybe that was intentional. Narration was great though.

Mixed feelings

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A weirdly captivating, intriguingly grotesque historical fiction narrative of capitalism and religion, loved it, want to read more

Awesomely grotesque and unsettling

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It dives into perversions of humans, the reality of the social classes and religions along side magical events. The narrator is just what the story needs, she did write it after all!

The right kind of twisted!

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“Right or wrong, you will think what you need to think so that you can get by,”

Little Marek the abused son of a shepherd never knew his mother. The only bond he has is with the village midwife, Ina. Ina is also the village wet nurse, but she takes that role to extremes (In fact Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel takes a lot of things to the extremes!) Little Marek’s life is changed when a violent event takes him into the world of Lord Villiam who lives in the manor on the hillside. Villiam is a ‘man child’ who’s childish games and pastimes are not for the feint hearted or the weak stomached! “Let’s see who can eat the most sausages while Lisbeth holds her breath” being one of his less grotesque games.

As a biblical draught ravages the village and the people starve, they are reduced to eating dried sheep dung while Lord Villiam drinks from his private lake and eats his fill while playing out his bizarre games. The villagers are devout Christians but their church isn’t offering them the redemption they seek. They lead a life of vegetarianism as the priest gorgeous himself on meat. But when the drought strikes they eat any thing they can get hold of no matter how degrading or disgusting.

Set in a village in a medieval fiefdom, Lapvona is a difficult novel to pin down. It’s quasi medieval setting feels like it’s straight out of hammer horror or a Bergman movie. It’s bizarre, striking, and disarmingly revolting. Lapvona is a land strangely void of humanity, it’s inhabitants grotesque clowns from a Shakespearean play. It’s Game of Thrones meets Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It is cartoonish and repulsive, it’s as if Moshfegh’s has attempted to fill her novel with every kind of human degradation she can think of just for laughs, but the humour is of the darkest kind. I think the point is it’s too gross for comedy, and too silly to be be taken seriously. I found it to be a bit of a slog, it’s the grimmest of fairy tales. There’s no redemption to be found here and just when you think you’ve seen it all the ending gives us one more final salvo.

I have tried to put my finger on what is is about Lapvona that failed to resonate with me, it’s difficult to see. However I felt despite the cruelty and spiritual barrenness nothing new or fresh was being offered. The obscenity here will polarise readers but I wouldn’t criticise that, that’s not my problem with Lapvona. It’s violence in the end however becomes too silly, the message ‘death comes to us all’ isn’t enough. Despite the atrocities I struggled to find sympathy or empathy with any of the characters.

It did have its positives though despite my criticisms, it is a well written story and in the form of the nurse Ina it has one redeeming character. She seemed to be the only adult in the room here. She’s the only one who is aware of what’s going on, her wit and worldliness is a relief.

I normally I love books like this, a bit quirky, a bit left field. So I may revisit this book at some point and give it a second chance. So it’s not all bad. The narration I thought was quite good, the pace and the downbeat delivery fit the context of the story.

The grimmest of fairy tales

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