Type of bind: Paperback
Label: Bantam Books
Manufacturer: Bantam Books
Page Count: 216
Printing Date: 1972
Publishing house: Bantam Books
Sale Popularity Level: 23857
Studio: Bantam Books
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Sylvia Plath's timeless novel The Bell Jar has without a doubt exceeded my high expectations. Her writing is nothing short of beautifully detailed, incredibly creative and downright genius. She, unlike other authors has the ability to keep her readers in such a way that to abandon the book is virtually impossible. Her novel is as smooth and effortless as her poetry. The heartbreaking story tells about the year she tried to kill herself and the inescapable feelings that haunted her, feelings of being trapped and alone - as if in a bell jar. My criticisms for Plath are little to none. The book is at times excruciatingly painful to read, the ideas that went on in Esther Greenwood's head are explained beautifully but are also about death and feeling suffocated, trapped and isolated - they are about sheer depression and the end of her innocence. It is hard to read the chunks in the book when the people that love her make desperately vain efforts to save Esther. And although the book's plot can at times be hard to digest, the writing is so fantastic that it is well worth the read.
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The Bell Jar is a truly amazing book; I am sad I just now discovered it in 2008! I read it in an entire day & read it again. An interesting view on mental disorders in the 1950s, following the life and her perspectives starting from a summer working for a magazine through the mental institution. The way Plath writes is unique, and I re-read several passages so intrigued by the cleverness on how it's written. I plan to purchase more of Plath's books now.
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Insanity is a weird thing - most people are `insane' to some degree or the other - while a minority succumb to the polarities of the disease and swing back and forth much like a pendulum. Sylvia Plath fell into the latter category, and while the positive end of her spectrum meant that she created some shockingly good work, the negative end ensured that she would meet a tragic and self-inflicted end. Her suicide I think, remains the most mechanical, yet most poetic death of all the great writers, and it's a pity that shes often remembered as `that woman poet who stuck her head in an oven' when in fact she was well spoken, eloquent woman whose command over the English language was much vaster and encompassing than yours or mine.
"The Bell Jar", her only full length fictional prose work, is almost autobiographical in patches. The publishers make it clear that this is not Plaths' own story, but you cannot help but identify the lead character as Plath herself. The way I see it is this - Sylvia created a fictional character, but gave it her mind and thoughts, leading to one of the most fascinating fictional characters in modern prose. To me, this was the literary equivalent of a convergence of both David Lynch's masterpieces "Inland Empire" and "Mulholland Drive". The same "a woman in trouble, yet she doesn't know it yet" theme permeates the entire novel, and by the time it reaches its (somewhat obvious) conclusion, you're left wondering how Plath didn't invest more of her time in churning out full fledged prose novels.
Simply put, this novel chronicles the descent of a womans' mind, but its so much more than that. It speaks of mental disease with a frankness that the author probably didn't quite comprehend at the time. Maybe she did, but either way, I think what she was doing her was to capture the state of her own mind frame by frame until that fateful day in real life when she so notoriously took her own life. "The Bell Jar" has its moment of adolescent wandering and naivete, which I found quite endearing considering the age of the author when she wrote this. Perhaps she wasn't mature enough to deal with life as she grew older, or maybe she was too caught up in her own web of literary wonder to crawl out of it. I think all the great poets were afflicted to some degree with this disease, and Plath is no exception.
If you're interested in a semi-autobiographical (though the blurb won't admit it!) book by a great poet, this is the book for you. Its never boring, and is quite an easy read as Sylvia trades in her famous double entendre poetic metaphors for more easily accessible and simply written language. Short crisp sentences. Clear dialogue. And yet, the sentences get shorter, and thoughts get more fragmented as we plummet with the author into the very depths of insanity. An unforgettable, and somewhat scary experience - but as a book lover, one you should definitely experience.
Five Stars.
Rated by buyers -
Sylvia Plath was an incredibly bright, feeling person who was terribly disturbed by the ideas lurking in the dark corners of her mind. I think that depression is something that befalls an extraordinary amount of brilliant artists. (Some psychologists say depressed people have it right...which is...comforting when you are depressed but scary all the same.) Through reading these words that Sylvia pressed to paper, you really get an idea of the sadness that plagued her and eventually led to her suicide. She is a wonderful writer and you will feel inspired by her accomplishments as well as quite sorrowful for the life that was taken by a sickness that clearly wasn't treated. Some people seem too intelligent for their own good and she is definitely one of them.
Oh, and this book is labeled as fiction but it seems more like an autobiography that perhaps isn't totally accurate.
Rated by buyers -
Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar is a window into the psyche of a mentally unstable woman in the 1950s; it shows an interesting point of view of being in a mental institution. There are not many books that are about or have this perspective of a mentally unstable person losing their mind for the very first time and going to a mental institution. There aren't many good books about that, at least. I found that this book was incredibly hard to put down, it keeps you on the edge of your seat a lot, I found myself reading for hours without even realizing it. It is written so well and seems like something a lot of people, myself included, can relate to on several different levels. The way she describes what is going on and what is happening to her it almost seems logical. We can see it from her point of view, the way she thinks and goes about doing everything. It is like a window into her brain, the reader can see what is going on inside her head and the logic behind things she does.
One thing that really interested me was the constant referral to a bell jar, like the title, which symbolizes her madness. It is so intriguing the way she describes it as her being inside a bell jar that drops on her, distorting her perception on the world. And then towards the end when it is lifted off of her but still hovers, she knows she is not well but is getting better. It left me wondering what would happen to her next, when the bell jar will fall on her again and what will happen subsequent time it does.
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