The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Bell Jar
Book Review: A Few Surprises
Summary: 5 Stars
I have always loved this book. Plath's literature is exceptional, in my opinion. But the reason I bought this copy, even though I already own one, is because there are a few of Plath's sketches included in this edition. It may seem insignificant, but for someone who likes Plath, this should be quite a treat!Book Review: A timeless classic with language that will bring you on the journey slipping into a deep depression!
Summary: 5 Stars
Sylvia Plath's, The Bell Jar, is a novel that will take you into the world of Esther Greenwood. A young girl clinging to straws trying to find her place in the world. The language that Plath uses is simple yet vivid, taking you into the mind of a depressed girl. From beginning to end you follow the journey from the unknown purpose in life into something much deeper and much more dark.
The sentences start as if in the mind of a sane person and begin to subtly change into the mind of someone with a darkness setting in and leaving you with the eerie feeling that something is happening...but you aren't quite sure what.
The vivid language stays with you and the characters that move in and out of Esther's life have a lasting effect on the reader, just as they have had on her.
The beginning of the novel starts "It was a queer and sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York." This simple sentence thrusts you into Esther's life and you will not forget the journey of a young girl sitting in the bell jar trying to escape.
Book Review: A very "readable" classic.
Summary: 4 Stars
I expected The Bell Jar to be much more depressing than it turned out to be. Esther has won a short story contest the prize for which is a month in New York as a guest editor on a popular ladies' magazine. While in New York, Esther begins to feel the lethargy of depression creep in and feels that she is squandering her wonderful opportunity by just wanting to escape. When Esther returns home, she falls deeper into depression until a suicide attempt lands her in a hospital.
Ester is also quite a burgeoning feminist. She bemoans the possibility of ending up tethered to a man and having her personality subsumed by him. Page 69: "And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs. Willard's kitchen mat."
I would have appreciated a deeper understanding of the root causes of Esther's depression. It seems she skims over the surface of her experiences, telling about events and feelings, without ever illuminating us as to the underlying issues. According to the end notes, Plath's mother wanted to prevent the book's publication in the states. Apparently some of the characterizations were quite thinly veiled, and Mrs. Plath was concerned that people would take offense. This might explain why Sylvia chose not to go deeper.
Also according to the end notes, at the time of her suicide, Plath was working on a second novel based on her experiences since being discharged from the hospital. I would very much like to have been able to read this book. According to Wikipedia, though Plath's husband, Ted Hughes has some manuscripts and journals that were not to be published until 2013. Hopefully, these works will then be published.
Book Review: A wonderful read!
Summary: 5 Stars
Great book! Beautifully written. It is a novel that I plan to keep on my bookshelf indefinitely.Book Review: Believe the Hype
Summary: 5 Stars
Sylvia Plath has in many circles been something of the poster child for modern nihilism, almost to the point of a cultural in-joke (see Fight Club), but the first thing I was struck with was how witty and humorous The Bell Jar starts. For example, this passage:
"I'd discovered, after a lot of extreme apprehension about what spoons to use, that if you do something incorrect at table with a certain arrogance, as if you knew perfectly well you were doing it properly, you can get away with it and nobody will think you are bad mannered or poorly brought up. They will think you are original and very witty."
Second, it didn't take long to figure out how much modern "chick lit" owes to Plath. Before shopaholics and Prada-wearing Devils, Plath had already been there and done that, all the way down to the poor girl working in the NYC fashion magazine angle.
Third, I was touched by the humanity that Plath brings to some tricky subjects: coming of age, sexuality, career-setting, societal pressure, care for the mentally ill, homosexuality, and social shallowness, just to name a few. Her descriptions of Esther Greenwood's trip into madness isn't like watching a specimen under her famous bell jar; you get the feeling that you're watching a living, breathing human being who is trying to find a way out of the mental and emotional box canyons in which she feels trapped.
I felt myself connected to Esther in ways that I didn't feel in that other work of 60's young adult angst, The Catcher in the Rye. Where Esther Greenwood is smart, creative, troubled, and desperate, Holden Caulfield is merely smug, whiny, spoiled, and self-obsessed. It's not hard to see why Caulfield resonated with many 60's social elites, since they share some of the same characteristics. In my opinion, Sallinger and Plath shouldn't even share shelf space--The Bell Jar is a deeper, more emotionally involved, and ultimately better written work.
Plath's first calling was as a poet; The Bell Jar was the only novel she ever published. Her poet's background served her well, as her prose flows along the pages. I think the book starts a bit better than it ends, but her writing style throughout is a wonder.
As for The Bell Jar being a scathing commentary on her personal acquaintances, I didn't get that vibe. It's hard to know what those personal relationships were like, but I got these sense of a person writing about what she knew (Plath had her own mental breakdown in 1953). I can see where some of those people would have been offended, but The Bell Jar was supposed to be the first half of a two volume work, the other half of which was never produced due to Plath's untimely death.
Lastly, it's good to remember that The Bell Jar was written in the early sixties and largely prefigures the feminist movement. It's often waved around as a feminist novel, and it certainly takes up some of those themes, but The Bell Jar predates political feminism, and in one of the more poignant passages, foresees the arguments of feminism and their ultimate rejection. Part of the passage is:
"Of course, the famous woman poet at my college lived with another woman--a stumpy old Classical scholar with a cropped Dutch cut. And when I told the poet I might well get married and have a pack of children someday, she stared at me in horror. `But what about your career?' she had cried.
My head ached. Why did I attract these weird old women? There was the famous poet, and Philomena Guinea, and Jay Cee, and the Christian Scientist lady and lord knows who, and they all wanted to adopt me in some way, and, for the price of their care and influence, have me resemble them."
In the end, The Bell Jar is a remarkable work--not merely just important, but also a good read. If you haven't read it yet, you should. It's amazing to think what Plath might have written had she lived longer.