The Bell Jar

Come back to write a review.

yeah. yeah.

i want to curl up inside this book and sleep like under a fig tree on a summer afternoon

I wasn't as emotionally involved as I thought I would be, but the prose is so beautifully written, and Plath portrays her own experiences with mental illness so vividly and harrowingly that I can see why it's regarded as a classic

I wasn't as emotionally involved as I thought I would be, but the prose is so beautifully written, and Plath portrays her own experiences with mental illness so vividly and harrowingly that I can see why it's regarded as a classic

A reread in order to review the new Folio Society edition, to come shortly on the blog. Reviews and more on my blog, Entering the Enchanted Castle

Doctor Nolan

I had never read this before, but after reading [b:The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free 54304210 The Barbizon The Hotel That Set Women Free Paulina Bren https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1612105261l/54304210.SY75.jpg 84737476] and learning that some of this book was based on Plath's time at the Barbizon Hotel (here called the Amazon) I got interested to read it. I'd heard this described as [b:The Catcher in the Rye 5107 The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1398034300l/5107.SY75.jpg 3036731] for girls, which is like, sure diminutive and disprespectful but like not wrong I don't think...anyway like Catcher I think it's dated in some (BIG) ways and in some ways speaks to some ~eternal emotional truths and I DEFO get it being influential in its moment. anyway if like me you have reached adulthood without having read The Bell Jar yet, like, honestly you're probably good imo but on an abstract level I get why people love this book

My favorite book of all time. Bleakly funny, beautifully penned, a wonderful and horrible companion through so many years.

Like many a self-serious adolescent girl with literary pretensions, I went through a Sylvia Plath phase in high school. Her poems exuded an aspirational world weariness; she knew all and I knew nothing. The Bell Jar has all the acerbic qualities I remember, but what impressed me most was the headstrong youthfulness of the writing. At some point, I looked at the short bio of her printed on the back of the book and was bowled over to learn that she had died at age 30. At the time of reading, I was all of one year older and already felt like I had experienced multiple lifetimes.

I was binge watching ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' for the second time, when I came across the dialog, “....here's the number of a psychiatrist, he helped my friend Sylvia Plath.” I turned my neck from the tiny screen of my mobile phone over to the shelf full of unread books and thought of giving this one another go.
Strangely enough, it was like Mrs. Maisel. At times we can see her building up a joke. It's smart, witty, honest, sarcastic and honey-coated with feminism all over; until the first half. I'd like to review this book as 2 parts. The first half is all wit and funny as hell, whereas for the 2nd half her mental health issues piggy-back over it, and at times fun takes the backseat.
When faced with the choice of going to the fur show or Coney Island, Esther chooses to

lie in the bed as long as she wanted to and then go to Central Park and spend the day lying in the grass,.... in the duck-ponded wilderness

was a secret voice speaking straight out of my own bones

After 19 years of running after good marks and prizes and grants of one sort and another, I was letting up, slowing down, dropping clean out of the race

I know my baby wasn't like that...... like those awful people, those awful people at the hospital. I knew you'd decide to be alright again

It feels weird saying I loved this, but I really loved this. Plath's writing is so simple and easy, but so real and raw. It's beautiful and heartbreaking.

Lo tenía pendiente de hace como mil millones de años, y me pasó algo raro. Muchos de los lugares me resultan ajenos, pero me pareció fascinante como un libro de esa época puede hablar tan bien de salud mental, de estar del orto “sin razón”, de la frialdad para analizar la mejor manera de encontrar la muerte, la imposibilidad de dormir, leer, escribir como antesala del inferno.

i've never felt more understood in my whole life, that's all i got to say.

There is certainly an underlying sad tone about this book. The premise is grim, the whole aura surrounding this book is grim. But the writing turned out not be heavy, it was actually a smooth read, and of course you root for the hero, but this is real life...

This is a hard book to read, partly for the confused start, but also the very real ending. A deep insight into clinical depression.

I have to admit that in reading this book I really struggled to enjoy it - and not because it of the nature of the book, but because it felt like I was bouncing around inside of Sylvia Plath's head in a random jumbled up, non linear fashion.

In fact, I'd say the first third of the book is almost entirely that. The mini stories that occur don't really finish, and as we were journeying through one recounted story, I'd find we'd quickly make a sharp turn and begin a new journey.

The middle third starts to become a bit more pieced together but the book was struggling to win me over. Esther Greenwood (which I'd read earlier The Bell Jar was semi-autobiographical) wanted to kill herself. The way that this third goes on read almost childish and, for my shame, I was beginning to hope the character “just get on with it”.

It was also that the first section of the book painted an extremely successful character and the character in the second part was very much the opposite end of the spectrum and the different was jarring and hard to consolidate (as a reader).

Suffice to say, she does indeed attempt suicide. For the final third of the book she is institutionalised and undergoes therapy but also electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). The ECT isn't glorified nor is it vilified which was interesting and challenging (particularly with the story being semi-autobiographical).

The last third takes its time and walks gently through the journey that she takes during her institutionalised. None of this part of the book is glamourised and she doesn't make some magical recovery.

It's slow, gentle and unsure. Even as Esther finally reaches her board review to see if she can leave the institution, she herself is unconvinced that anything has changed, but something is certainly at rest in her.

The last part of the book definitely calls for reflection and helped to give me an insight into those who struggle with existing. There's rarely some grand purpose that drives them to death by suicide, and indeed in Esther's case there's nothing that particularly explain why she wanted to end her life.

There's a moment with her medical supervisor where Esther says that she hates her mother. This is after their last encounter - and her mother isn't bad in the slightest, it's that her mother wants to know what she had done wrong to have not been able to help protect her daughter from these feelings. The supervisor (slash therapist) says, “I believe you do”. She doesn't try to sympathies or give Esther another point of view. This line surprised me, in a believable way.

And as the book ends, Esther is reunited with her mother, and her mother, naively says she just wants to forget about it all and move forward from this, healthier time. To which Esther writes that her mother may want to forget and that perhaps Esther might forget those feelings:

> Maybe forgetfulness, like a kind snow, should numb and cover them. But they were part of me. They were my landscape.

Having dealings with depression myself, and shock grief of the worst kind, it really doesn't go away, and it isn't forgotten. It's as Plath writes: it becomes part of your landscape.

—

This is a hard book to read, partly for the confused start, but also the very real ending. Made harder by knowing that Sylvia Plath died by suicide the same year of this book's release.

Plath described the book (to her mother) as:

> a pot boiler really, but I think it will show how isolated a person feels when he is suffering a breakdown.

Indeed that's the experience of the last third of the book.

15-02
900 libreria Sta. Fe

Wish I would have read this in highschool alongside Catcher. Avoided it for the longest time because of the stereotypes around the people who adore Sylvia Plath. I regret it. I adore Sylvia Plath.

I went in expecting some purple prose about psychotic breaks and their historical mistreatment, and I got that. What I didn't expect was the wealth of charm, wit, and dark humor flavoring the experience. The amount of personality that shines through is stunning, and for every line that made me laugh out, I found parallel heartache at the loss of such an agonizingly relatable human.

“The floor seemed wonderfully solid. It was comforting to know I had fallen and could fall no farther.”

উপন্যাস, তবে সেমি-অটোবায়োগ্রাফিক। কিছু স্টেরিওটাইপ ভালো লাগে নাই। এবং, মাঝেমধ্যে মনে হয়েছে প্লাথ হয়ত রেসিস্ট ছিলেন।

অনেকে এই বইটিতে ‘ফেমিনিজম' পেয়েছেন, আমি পাইনি। অবশ্যই প্লাথ স্বাধীনচেতা। কিন্তু সেটা তার চাহিদা। ফেমিনিজম শুধুমাত্র সেই চাহিদাটা না। বরং, নারীদের সেই চাহিদা এবং তার অনুকূলে সিদ্ধান্ত নেওয়ার যৌক্তিকতা বিষয়ক দর্শন ও আন্দোলন হচ্ছে ফেমিনিজম। বইটায় চাহিদাটা আছে, দর্শন নেই।

I studied the Bell Jar for my Alevel English Lit course work, in which we could choose a work to write an essay on or create original creative writing based off. I elected for the second, writing from the perspective of the fig tree (in the instance where it is described by Esther as a metaphor for her overwhelm over her future) as a motherly figure. I think i chose the bell jar as i was 17, on the verge of the worse period of mental health ive probably ever been through and feeling widely misunderstood... tho ive been re-reading the bell jar recently and i do think it stands up against the trope that it is just for angsty depressed teen girls - not that i think that is as awful a thing as we like to make out.

really inspired writing.

Terrifying to admit but Sylvia feels the way I do and expresses it the way I wish I could.

This work, as much poetry as it is prose, chronicles the downward spiral of sophomoric teenage college student Esther Greenwood. Plath's voice creates Esther as sardonic and misfit, acting as both victim and brutal enforcer to the social and gender roles of her time.
While Esther's petty snap judgments and internal dressing-down of all those who surround her never truly ceases, her growth beyond obedience to absurd self-held maxims chronicles the most important of journeys that one makes in the transition from young adult to adult.

Plath is one of my favourite poets, and now, one of my favourite novelists. She is a brilliant writer.

The Bell Jar is beautifully written- so many meaningful and thought-provoking quotes. The main character is hilarious and feels like an old friend. An easy read (ignore how long I took quite with it, life got in the way) and will surely be a re-read in the future.

There are passages in this book that are still very relatable and I understand why it's such a classic, but also chunks of it are pretty boring. All in all worth reading.