Moshfegh does an amazing job in shaping the narrator’s voice in “Malibu”. She creates a character that is so tangible and interesting and feels like a real person. At his core, this character is insecure; that is incredibly obvious. He hates the body that he’s living in. He suffers from bulimia and low self-esteem. He constantly complains about parts of himself he considers disgusting- even unlovable. He repeatedly tells readers he hates his acne, his weight, his rash, and his hands. These are the things he first brings up when he meets people; it’s at the forefront of his mind, he believes them to be the most noticeable things about himself. He asks points them out to Terri on the phone, the doctor he visits, and the prostitute he hires. The narrator is afraid that these imperfections ruin his chances at love.
But the curious thing about the narrator is that he is simultaneously insecure and over-confident. At the beginning of the story, he states that he is a handsome person. Later stating that he’s aware that he’s more attractive than Terri and that she should be grateful to have sex with him. He is completely judgemental of the people around him and in his life. His uncle, who supports him, especially. These conflicting traits- both self-hating and arrogant- make him so confusing and unlikeable. It’s astonishing that although he has such personal struggles he still finds the time and energy to critique others. Moshfegh creates a character that proves the point that bullies are the most insecure. The narrator wants complete acceptance of admiration of his flaws but is unwilling to do the same for others.
Also, side note. All of the men in Moshfeghs stories are awful and I’m having so much fun reading these.
I’m so happy you pointed out how the narrator was a weird amalgamation of being insecure and cocky about himself. Whenever I first read it I found him so infuriating because he only seemed to have confidence about himself whenever he was tearing down someone else internally. It’s like he wants to take responsibility for how he looks, his eating disorder, etc. but he doesn’t want to internalize it so he projects it onto others in a poor attempt to distract himself from problems that he either can’t fix or doesn’t want to. He initially confused me on my first read too, he was like an insecure narcissist, and his whole interaction with Terri was baffling to try and read because of how much his tone flip-flopped. That wasn’t to say that I didn’t find the story interesting, but I definitely agree with your side note. The men in these stories are frustrating at best, but thankfully they both make for interesting characters and are nothing more than that: characters.