"Mój rok relaksu i odpoczynku" Ottessy Moshfegh i "Serotonina" Michela Houellebecqa w świetle koncepcji bezczynności Giorgia Agambena
Agamben’s Concept of Idleness in Michel Houellebecq’s "Serotonin" and Ottessa Moshfegh’s "My Year of Rest and Relaxation"

Author(s): Wiosna Szukała
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: inoperativity; inoperosità; Agamben; Houellebecq; Moshfegh
Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to compare literary representations of inactivity in the light of Giorgio Agamben’s political philosophy. The subject of the analysis are two novels published at the same time, just before 2020: "Serotonin" (2019) by Michel Houellebecq and "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" (2018) by Ottessa Moshfegh. The protagonists of both narratives experience a crisis, a sense of ending, a broadly understood exhaustion, causing in them the need to temporarily withdraw from the world and reflect on the current form of life. The author looks at the genesis of the existential strategy of inaction undertaken by the narrators, the elements that constitute it, and the results which it leads to. Then, using the critical categories proposed by the Italian philosopher – such as inoperosità, potentiality, katargeo, acedia, bios/zoe, habit – she reflects on the subversive potential of inactivity presented in the novels.

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