Lapvona's God is a facsimile, a placeholder, for it can take the form of craving, or pain, or tenderness, or love, or deprivation. Lapvona's God is mutable, taking shapes that fit its residents, anything to make the hardship of life worth living. thus, Lapvona asks the question: is an ever-changing God a real God? and are those residents who refuse to change, passionate in their rigidity

(Grigor, Jude)

, more holy than those who are less resolute?

i didn't expect to like this as much as i did. i'm not a huge Moshfegh fan, particularly because i found My Year of Rest and Relaxation to be... trite. but Lapvona was very engaging, and was a remarkably quick read for me. i found it hard to put it down. the atmosphere is Lapvona's strongest quality, and its overt social commentary, while interesting and valuable, feels secondary to the rich world Moshfegh creates. this is not negative-- in fact, while i am sometimes tempted to label Moshfegh as a somewhat heavy-handed author who writes from a moral pedestal, Lapvona has softened my opinion because of its casual delight in the grotesque. "what if there was a really fucked up witch lady with huge tits," Moshfegh says, and I say: "fuck yeah, man!"

(clearly, there is something to be said about Ina’s maternal and feminine presence in the novel, and her overall existence is not nearly as shallow as I am making it seem, but still)

speaking of Ina, she is a focal point by which a reader can parse the rest of Lapvona. she abandons her versions of God very obviously--for example, once she regains her sight, she starts to hate the birds who were once divine to her--and this sparks a thought in the reader to be on the lookout for more of this spiritual abandonment. Marek's religious changes one being adopted by Villiam are also very obvious, but who can blame him? and perhaps that is Moshfegh's point-- where can blame lie in a town like Lapvona, in a world so full to the brim with pain and filth that its residents have no choice but to break and act selfishly? every Lapvonian is doomed from the start, perhaps just by nature of their little village that has God in its shit and blood and hunger. 

in Lapvona, Moshfegh is like a god herself, looking down at this poor village of her own creation. she pulls her characters, puppet-like, between truth and falsehood-- only to reveal that there is no such thing as truth after all. she inflicts them with pain, and then with a wave of her hand that pain dissolves. she bestows divine inspiration, and then she makes the visions fade. her characters are all crazed. with a God as malicious as Moshfegh, who wouldn't go a little insane?