The Bell Jar (P.S.) | Sylvia Plath | Why, oh, why was I reading Holden Caulfield when I should...

The Bell Jar (P.S.) | Sylvia Plath | I was moved

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The Bell Jar (P.S.)

	The Bell Jar (P.S.) Sylvia Plath Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 479 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under -- maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

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Why, oh, why was I reading Holden Caulfield when I should have been reading Esther Greenwood?

One might think that a novel about a young college woman's experience with madness in the mid-20th century would come across as dated or even quaint. On the contrary, as I read I found myself nodding emphatically, and even calling up friends to tell them about passages I'd read that were particularly familiar. This reaction emphasizes The Bell Jar's staying power after half a century; any ambitious young woman who has struggled with anxiety about their future, or felt like a square peg in society's round hole, will find themselves identifying with this novel.

The story is heavy with the weight of the author's suicide; in fact, the novel is so close to Plath's own experiences that it wasn't published in the United States until after her death, as she was afraid of hurting the real-life people who were thinly veiled as characters in the novel. While the Bell Jar is an important novel in its own right, it will also give readers a more nuanced perspective on Plath's poetry.

The Bell Jar sheds light on psychiatric care in the 1950's, under the stifling expectations of a woman's role in post-war America. The novel explores themes of feminism and mental health without being didactic; Esther's insights feel relevant and real today, while revealing much about the society in which Plath herself came of age. Some find heroine Esther Greenwood's descent into mental illness to be depressing, but I found her story to be ultimately life-affirming; Plath avoids nihilism by not merely focusing on Esther's breakdown, but also her recovery.

You needn't have spent time under "the bell jar" (Plath's metaphor for the extreme anxiety and depression felt by the young protagonist) to appreciate this novel; Plath makes the workings of Esther's mind accessible and real. Plath's matter-of-fact style makes neurotic thoughts and suicide fantasies feel almost ordinary; Esther's struggles seem like a perfectly natural response to a world full of date hypocrites and phonies. Some readers may empathize more than others (a friend told me "it's like we all become our own version of Esther Greenwood while we're reading the book"), but it's difficult to be unaffected by what has become one of the most iconic novels about mental illness, feminism, and the youth experience.

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I was moved

I was hesitant to pick this up, but I am so glad I did. Plath beautifully wrote her story about a woman's undefinable mental battles combined with the demands of instant perfection from others (academically, socially, career-wise, and talent-wise), her own insecurities, and her own desires to be what she wanted on her own terms (something that didn't happen in her generation.) I could really relate to Esther in many ways, and I was swept away with the beauty in which it was written. It was interesting to be someone on the outside looking in on someone who was on the inside looking out. It was also interesting to get a glimpse of the struggle professional and intellectual women faced with the demands of 1950's housewife society. This was an amazing read.

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This isn't a book about depression

Reading through some of the mediocre-to-negative reviews of this book, many people seem to have the idea that Esther Greenwood is depressed. Just really, really depressed. I feel like these people either know nothing about mental illness (aside from those conditions advertised in prescription medicine commercials) or they weren't paying attention when read the book. Esther may have started out as depressed, but she clearly becomes paranoid and delusional, losing her grip on reality and rationality as the book goes on. Her more bizarre actions are often implied or described through the casually mentioned comments of other people, and you'll miss them if you don't stop to think about what you just read. Esther herself doesn't seem to think these things are noteworthy, and it's clear there's more going on than she bothers to mention.

Anyway, I found this book interesting and worth reading, but I had one issue with it, that being the overuse of similes. While Plath's comparative images are always spot on, they sometimes seemed like unnecessary padding, and the more I read the more irritating they became. This happens throughout the book, not only when Esther is extremely ill, so I guess it's just Plath's writing style. I read some of her poems after reading the book, and the extensive use of similes seems more at home in the poetry. I would have preferred that particular literary device to be used more sparingly here, to leave only the ones that were really needed to improve the image or set the tone.

Overall, this book is worth reading for anyone who's interested in understanding what can go on in the mind of someone who is mentally ill. For those who have gone through similar periods in their lives, the book can be comforting and reassuring to the fact that you are not alone. Some people make it through, and some people, like Plath herself, don't. But I find it to offer a hopeful perspective overall.

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Left feeling disappointed

I purchased the 25th anniversary edition after ready an bit of the new introduction, and was really excited to read the book and didn't think that I would be left feeling disappointed. I was wrong - the book seemed to drag, I found it rather fragmented, and just as the story started to get "good", I was at the end of the book, and found myself wanting more, when there was nothing more.

It is written well, but, I would have to say, I really don't understand what all the hype is about.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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