The Bell Jar

Indistinct but yet tortuous journey into the mentally ill mind.

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Thomas Moody

September 14, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Yes, indeed, this is an intensely harrowing but still subtle odyssey through the battle with mental illness. Sylvia Plath’s timeless epic still rings true today…Esther Greenwood, our fictional protagonist, is unfortunately only a veiled cover for Plath’s real world disease which reached its nadir in 1963 when she took her own life at the young age of thirty. And it’s this volume, her only full length novel, that explicitly but also with a seamless literary touch, conjures the deep emotional and physical conflicts borne from this terrible affliction. Within, we follow Esther on a slow slide into insanity with such nuance and foreboding that the reader is almost compelled to believe that it is all true. And given Plath’s heartbreaking outcome, the literary debate lingers on as to if this is, in fact, that shrouded memoir.

The story opens with Esther in New York, during the summer of her collegiate years, working and modeling for a prestigious NY magazine. Through many obscure and complex observations, we slowly get a picture of her; Boston suburbanite, Smith college-type on scholarship, the world literally at her feet. But it is, still at these beginning stages, the random comment or action that begins to creep in to her personality that makes the reader aware that something is not quite right. Sure enough, as we move on, Esther becomes more and more un-hinged, doing things far outside of her personality.

Soon we reach a point where she attempts suicide and discusses suicide as the answer to get her out from “under the Bell Jar.” The literary ease with which we go from NY magazine model to suicide victim is stark…I found myself having to put the book down occasionally to internalize what I’d just read. This is really an amazing ability that Plath had…flowing from one emotion to the other without noticing until the full force of Esther’s actions take hold. Where the first third of the novel is fairly light, the last two thirds are riveting, very difficult to put down. It’s very hard to understand how Plath had difficulty getting this work published…only under a pseudonym in 1963 London and not until 1971 in the U.S. after it had been turned down, harshly, by publisher Harper & Row. Today it is printed and re-printed in many languages and enjoys its well-deserved place among the literary classics.

To summarize, if one decides to delve into the classics, you can’t go wrong with this work. Dark, even frightful at times but always flowing and well written, The Bell Jar is both a stark referendum on mental illness and an amazing reading experience.

8 people found this helpful

A classic that doesn't really show Plath's unique writing voice as much as her poetry does

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tammay

July 5, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I was a huge fan (and still am) of Plath's poetry and I read this novel when I was in high school and loved it. Now, rereading it as an adult, I still like it, especially for its insights into the kind of oppression women in the 1950's experienced, but I find myself more critical of the book. It has usual first-novel flaws, like stagey dialogue and plot that seems more contrived for shock value than for truth. Esther Greenwood is very real with her astute, though sometimes rash, criticisms and intolerance for what sometimes seem like the mistakes of human nature (especially with Buddy Willard). One of the things that bothers me about this book is that it seems to mimic the kind of existential style of many 1950's male authors with its dead-pan cynicism, it's removal from emotion even as the events in the book are highly emotional. One of the reasons why I love Plath's poetry so much is that she had a unique voice and wasn't afraid to expose it. It seems, sadly, that she was more reserved about this in her first novel so her own voice doesn't really shine through. Tragically, we'll never know what Plath could have achieved in fiction in her own voice had she lived. But overall, this novel is a classic and it deserves to be one.

6 people found this helpful

Grace, humor, and frankness about a young woman's depression

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Zachary Littrell

September 20, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Esther Greenwood gets depressed. Really depressed. And she's also a young woman in the 50's/60's, just to add a not-so-helpful factor as well.

The elephant-in-the-room when reading this is A) it is known to be semi-autobiographical, and B) Sylvia Plath ended up committing suicide. That might for account how richly Plath captures depression -- how you rationalize the little things, the abrasive way nice, shiny, perfect things in the world exist around you, and the fear you can never feel the way you used to again. And I think the authenticity combined with Plath's stellar language (you can't take the poetry out of the poet) makes this probably among the best novels ever written about depression. The way Esther mulls over her virginity, her mother, her ex-boyfriend, and how to kill herself are enrapturing from beginning to end.

To me this is more 4.5 stars (or even 4.49), but rounded up because even the dullest parts of the novel are carried by witty narration and rhythmic prose. I don't think there'll be much to the story that will surprise a modern reader -- many stories have since followed the same structure of a young woman struggling with depression -- but none of them have the grace, humor, and merciless touch of Plath's words.

4 people found this helpful

There’s a reason this novel is iconic. Sylvia Plath is amazing.

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