5★
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story."

If you are inclined to bouts of depression, find another book. If you've lived with or are fond of someone followed by the Black Dog, this describes the intensity of the feelings (and the treatment) well.

Countless critics and reviewers have written about this sad 'memoir' (written as fiction and first published under a pseudonym) about depression, but it is also full of funny anecdotes and perfect insight into American East Coast college girls in the 1950s.

Knowing that it’s autobiographical makes it more painful than usual to watch someone curl up in despair, feeling as if she’s been captured under a bell jar, suffocating. Being exceptionally smart, talented, popular and loved is no preventive against depression.

She is driven to write, and when she isn’t driven, she fears she’ll never get that feeling again. Therapy, asylums, shock treatment, you name it, it's done to her.

I’ve not read Plath’s poems, for which she is much lauded, but I liked the one that was included. I can’t help wondering if she’d lived a generation or two later if she’d have found anything that would have helped her better.

Interestingly, to me, are the mentions of feeling some comfort being in a tiny crawl space or wedged between her mattress and the padded headboard.

n  “It felt dark and safe under there, but the mattress was not heavy enough. It needed about a ton more weight to make me sleep.”n

This is reminiscent of Temple Grandin’s hug machine and the similar weights and aids that are used with people on the autism spectrum who may not tolerate real hugs but who crave the relief that pressure can give. There’s now a lot of information about these, but there wasn’t back then. Rooms with no windows feel safe to her, too.

Her alter-ego is Esther, and this scene is when she had a month’s internship at the popular Ladies Day magazine. She’s gone there, thinking she’s always wanted to go to graduate school or study in Europe, become a professor and write. But when her boss calls her in and asks her point blank what she wants to do, Esther is astonished to hear herself reply:

n  “'I don’t really know,' and I recognized it, the way you recognize some nondescript person that’s been hanging around your door for ages and then suddenly comes up and introduces himself as your real father and looks exactly like you, so you know he really is your father, and the person you thought all your life was your father is a sham.”n

This sort of thing that we might do ourselves and wonder idly about, has really thrown her. The fact that she gave father as an example is interesting, in that, her father died when she was very young, and she mentions later that she was never really happy after that. So for her to even contemplate as an example the idea of his being a sham tells us how startling she found her impulsive answer: n  “I don’t really know.”n

But there are so many funny anecdotes, that it’s not all heavy-going. She drank all the water (including the blossoms) in the first fingerbowl she ever saw (at a wealthy benefactor’s, who kindly didn’t remark on it), and found out only later when a college debutante told her. She dates, teases, goes to parties, joins in plenty of college-aged antics.

Her sarcasm and cynicism come through in comments such as this, when she and her med-student boyfriend are outside a delivery room, hearing a woman in labour making a lot of noise. He tells her that the woman is on a drug that will make her forget all about the pain because she’s in a kind of twilight sleep. (Yeah, right.)

Esther thinks:
n  “I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would invent. Here was a woman in terrible pain, obviously feeling every bit of it or she wouldn’t groan like that, and she would go straight home and start another baby, because the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been, when all the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor of pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again.”n

She wants to grow up, become an adult, lose her virginity, become one of them but remain outside of them, whoever they are. The popular crowd. She actually did a pretty good job of straddling the divide, I think, but that may have been part of her undoing.

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was EE Gee [her initials], the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, [many more dreams]. . . and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

There’s an enormous amount of information available about Plath and her work, as there is about Temple Grandin and hers, although they are very different women. Still, I sense some connection there.

I enjoyed the writing and have only a bit of criticism about the loose ends that I think she was unable to tie up and that we may think we have figured out, but I'm not entirely sure.

I'm sorry she didn't find, as the women in labour were supposed to find, an escape from feeling that an  "secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor of pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again.”n

My edition had a lengthy editor’s note at the end with some sketches and a biographical note by Lois Ames.

Fascinating.

P.S. See comment #25 for my response to another reader who hated the book because they were triggered by the racism and language, especially the use of the "n -word" (not the usual "n-word", but "Negro"), which IS what we were taught was the appropriate language in the 1950s.

Written in April 1963, this is the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King Jr. addressing his fellow clergymen about his work. In it he uses the word 'Negro' 64 times and the word 'black' only 5 times and when talking about 'black nationalists'.
https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles...

While I respect Plath for shaking up the literary world, I can’t just slap a “feminist icon” label on her without acknowledging the seriously problematic bits.

I understand everyone has different perspectives on separating the art from the artist, and reading is a personal journey so you do you. For me, in the case of The Bell Jar, the racism was so overt and glaring that it kinda ruined what might have been a beautiful poignant book.

“I looked as yellow as a Chinaman.”

“...I noticed a big, smudgy-eyed Chinese woman staring idiotically into my face. It was only me of course.”

“He’s from Peru.” “They’re squat,” I said. “They’re ugly as Aztecs.”

“Usually it was a shrunken old white man that brought our food but today it was a negro.... The negro kept grinning and chuckling in a silly way.”

“I drew my foot back and gave him [the “negro”] a sharp hard kick on the calf of his leg.”

While this semi autobiographical fiction has moments of beauty and insight into mental health, I have a problem with the main character physically assaulting a Black man for serving her two varieties of beans and her general dehumanising attitude and depictions on minorities throughout this book.

These aren’t just "product of their time" slip-ups; they’re the author’s not-so-charming worldviews creeping into the story, adding zero value and a whole lot of cringe.

I get that some folks can still enjoy this despite its flaws, but unfortunately, that’s not the case for me.

no <3

This was a book that was recommended to me by a friend (after challenging him to give it a try) so obviously I really wanted to like it as much as he did.
Unfortunately, I didn’t. It was a good book, really well written, but there were too many things about it that bothered me.

Her idea of feminism, rubbed me up the wrong way. I’m aware this was written in 1953, but still, it almost felt to me as if she hated men, despite the fact she worked with accomplished women in NY, female psychiatrists in the private institution, and was being sponsored by a successful female novelist. She also had fond feelings for her father, whom she lost at a very young age.

“So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state.”

“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.”

“Later Buddy told me the woman was on a drug that would make her forget she'd had any pain and that when she swore and groaned she really didn't know what she was doing because she was in a kind of twilight sleep. I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would invent. Here was a woman in terrible pain, obviously feeling every bit of it or she wouldn't groan like that, and she would go straight home and start another baby, because the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been,...”

Although there’s a nugget of truth in these statements, certainly in those days, they’re obviously as stereotypical as the often heard platitudes among men, that (married) women are bossy and a man loses his freedom and voice once married.
I regret that this book is considered by many as classic feminist literature, while to me, this intense pessimistic view only demonstrates her low self-esteem, her anxiety about the future, and her distrust of men ascribable to personal experiences.

I also felt uncomfortable by the racist utterance in the book :

”Usually it was a shrunken old white man that brought our food, but today it was a Negro. The Negro was with a woman in blue stiletto heels, and she was telling him what to do. The Negro kept grinning and chuckling in a silly way.”

“Soon after they had locked the door, I could see the Negro's face, a molassescolored moon, risen at the window grating, but I pretended not to notice.”

Her sudden descent into insanity/depression was confusing to me. I understand she struggled with feelings of anxiety and low self-esteem, and with a sense of alienation, but in only a very short period of time, this ambitious woman undergoes a marked change. I think I would have liked the book more if she had explored that transition more deeply.

Her prose is of an exceptional beauty,
“A thick white china cup was lowered under my nose. In the wan light that might have been evening and might have been dawn I contemplated the clean amber liquid. Pads of butter floated on the surface and a faint chickeny aroma fumed up to my nostrils. My eyes moved tentatively to the skirt behind the cup. "Betsy," I said. "Betsy nothing, it's me." I raised my eyes then, and saw Doreen's head silhouetted against the paling window, her blonde hair lit at the tips from behind like a halo of gold. Her face was in shadow, so I couldn't make out her expression, but I felt a sort of expert tenderness flowing from the ends of her fingers.”

but to me, the many poetic descriptions distracted from the story and felt incompatible with the deeply disturbed mental state of mind she was trying to convey. Even when she talks about suicide, she seems to have poetic rather than morbid thoughts.

”I waited, as if the sea could make my decision for me. A second wave collapsed over my feet, lipped with white froth, and the chill gripped my ankles with a mortal ache. My flesh winced, in cowardice, from such a death.”

“Wrapping my black coat round me like my own sweet shadow, I unscrewed the bottle of pills and started taking them swiftly, between gulps of water, one by one by one.”

I haven’t read any of her poems, but I can imagine she is more a poet than she is a novelist.

All in all, it was a good book, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to understand how it feels like to suffer a breakdown ; how it used to be treated ; how
people react to it and how isolated someone with a breakdown can feel. It’s a bleak journey into one woman’s shattered mind but one that doesn’t offer much hope.

“How did I know that someday --at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere --the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again?”

I had read several articles about Sylvia Plath's life and death over the last several years, having crept up on them slowly because the subject matter is so sad and I can be affected by the sadness of a person's life, in ways that don't feel healthy. I never planned to read The Bell Jar and I'm still a bit surprised that I did so but it was suggested as one of the books to read with members of The Traveling Friends Group and after looking it over, I decided to read it. I've never read Sylvia's poems and haven't ever been interested in poetry, but here was something that Sylvia wrote that might give more insight into her life and thinking and for that reason, the book called out to me.

Esther, the main character of the book, was a poor girl living in a rich society, making her way through her high school and college life, financing her education by winning awards and scholarships and working hard to earn money while making top grades, in contrast to the rich students around her who could party, travel, and live the high life while attending college, because they came from wealthy families. At the age of nineteen, she was able to be one of 12 young women who were chosen to intern for a month at a New York fashion magazine and this is where Esther's mental illness began to manifest itself.

This is the time in her life when she begins to think (and she is so very wrong but she is sinking into mental illness) that nothing she has ever done has been important, that the only talent she has (winning scholarships) has come to and end, that she can no longer even accomplish that feat anymore, and that all that she had ever wanted no longer interests her at all. She can't even remember why she wanted the things she wanted, she's lost all interest in life, the future, even getting out of bed.

We read her descent into madness and the treatment she gets from others (through her eyes only so what we see often may not be reality...but it IS Sylvia's reality) and the treatment she gets from the medical community. Because I know of Sylvia's life and death, and because this book is semi autobiographical, when the book ends, with Esther moving from the asylum where she was last treated, straight to her winter semester of college, after missing the fall semester, we are left with doubts about whether Esther is really going to be okay in the future.

I enjoyed Sylvia's writing and her sense of humor, which was there under the cynicism and despair. I don't know how anyone in her condition can be really helped, back in her time or in this time, because I haven't been in that state of mind and health and but my heart goes out to all who feel such despair and worthlessness. Sylvia Plath was a talented women who felt tortured by her mind and talents and this book gives us some insight into what it was like for her.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a Modern Classic and Literary Fiction Novel!

In 1953, protagonist Esther Greenwood, an ambitious and intelligent nineteen-year-old English undergrad from Boston, is awarded a summer internship as a guest-editor with Ladies Magazine in New York City.

Initially, everything is wonderful with the excitement of being in the big-city, working at the magazine, and the gatherings with other young women in the program. But certain things happen that Esther doesn't anticipate and she begins feeling disconnected, unfocused, and anxious.

When Esther returns home, she realizes the aspirations she imagines for herself are in conflict with current social norms for women. She feels confined and trapped by these expectations.

As these feeling intensify, Esther slowly spirals into a depression that quickly escalates into a mental break...

The Bell Jar is written in the first-person voice of Esther as she shares details of her past and current circumstances. She has a non-conformist viewpoint about sexuality, marriage, and having children, a unique opinion for a woman in the 1950's.

My first impression of The Bell Jar is the beauty of Sylvia Plath's writing style and gorgeous prose that is in sharp contrast to the darkness of the story. Esther's journey is raw and frightening and yet the light within the writing continues to draw the reader in. I was completely engaged.

The Bell Jar audiobook is narrated by Maggie Gyllenhaal whose first-person voicing brings Esther to life. It feels like you're in her presence as she speaks the words. It's an amazing listen.

Some readers may have trouble separating the character, Esther Greenwood from the author, Sylvia Plath. Knowing this novel is semi-autobiographical is a hard reality to swallow. The trigger warnings of depression and suicide should be taken seriously. Parts can be difficult to read and this story stays with you after you're finished, so be concerned. With that said, it's a brilliant piece of Literary Fiction.

The Bell Jar is a novel I will remember, perhaps forever. I highly recommend this book to readers who enjoy Classics from the Mid-20th Century with a feminist point-of-view, like I do.

5⭐

n  The Bell Jar was originally published on January 14, 1963 in the U.K. under the pseudonym 'Victoria Lucas'. Sylvia Plath died less than one month later on February 11, 1963.n  
n  
n  The Bell Jar was not published in the U.S. until April 11, 1971 per the wishes of Sylvia Path's husband, Ted Hughes.n

I'm really struggling with writing a review for this one, given the unique nature of the book and the sad reality that surrounds it. Every book is a testament of its author in one way or another, but with this semi-fictional autobiography it's difficult not to equate the book with its tragic author, making the reviewing of it an exercise in the kind of delicacy I'm not very well versed in. A delicacy that, frankly, I don't really enjoy employing.

So what is one to do when he didn't really like "The Bell Jar"? Tread very carefully through the thorny bushes, knowing many in the Goodreads populace have a special place in their heart for this sensitive book. I decided on a respectful three-star rating even though my less delicate self would probably give it only two. It gets three because of its importance, because of its needing to be heard, but my heart of hearts doesn't care all that much about importance. It cares about being lifted up while this story mainly seemed to try and drag it down.

I called this book an "autobiography", but with the important difference that autobiographies put the emphasis on a life fully lived, while in this book life seems pretty empty and the story was mostly about reasons for and ways of ending it. This book reads very much like a cry for help, and cries for help don't generally make for pleasant reading. The fact I felt useless as I heard that cry, the dread that comes with seeing a person consumed by fires I can't put out and other such merry sentiments make it hard for me to say I enjoyed this book. Everybody who reads this classic also knows about the tragic fate of the author, making the cry for help all the more chilling and making it akin to the reading of an elaborate suicide note. In short: I'd be surprised if this makes it on any "best beach reads" lists. I realise that even if this isn't a pleasant read that doesn't mean that it's not a good read, or a meaningful one, so let me elaborate on my mediocre rating for a book so highly praised by many others.

I normally don't go for books dealing with depression, telling of a darkness with which I'm unfamiliar and quite uncomfortable, but reading is also about getting outside of your comfort zone. Also, I've got a severe gender inequality problem going on in my 2016 reading list and this book, hailed as an important womanly novel, caught my attention through promises of profundity and humor. The profound is there, in the intentions of the author to tell this deeply personal story, but I found most of the observations made in the book surprisingly superficial. The humor, while there in the earlier parts, felt like vinegar to a thirsty mouth. A perfectly enjoyable riff on the tipping system in New York in one of the earlier chapters gets a bitter taste by the end of the book, becoming a denouncement of one of the many things that are wrong with this world.

Despite the lack of living up to what was promised, not all was bad with this book. Plath had the gift of prose, with elegant metaphors and the creation of immersive settings, evoking indelible images like of Esther sitting in the breezeway trying to write a book or a pair of boots pointing to the ocean. She's got a poetic stroke that mixes very well with her cynical side, resulting in a reading experience that was artistically and aesthetically pleasing. It's sad that this first novel is also her last, because the markings of true talents, with a lot of potential to be further developed, were clearly visible.

I'm sad for Sylvia Plath and for everyone who shared and shares her plight. I have a great yet tender respect for her, writing this book, which must have cost her a tremendous effort given all the dark clouds in her heavy mind, trapped under a bell jar. But it was not for nothing, because as she was heaving up the bell jar with every word she wrote, trudging along with it in order to be heard, she created something that would make her message heard, then, now and far into the future. Go on, Sylvia Plath, and rest in peace. Your bell will keep resounding, maybe not on sunlit beaches, but definitely in your readers' hearts.

There are many who have read The Bell Jar and absolutely loved it. I am gladly considering myself one of them. I was a little caught of guard when I read a few reviews of The Bell Jar comparing it to The Catcher in the Rye stating how it's the female version of it. I liked Catcher but I know there are many people who didn't and upon hearing that may be similar to Catcher not have the desire to read it. I assure you, The Bell Jar is a book all on it's own and should not be compared to any other book... even as a compliment.

When I first started reading the book I was a little put off, feeling it was an extremely pretensious novel. Her descriptions were crisp and precise, often using words that one rarely hears spoken or even read. I went into the novel knowing that Plath was a poet and felt that at first the book was just another form of her poetry and her showing off her writing abilities. But that only remained within the first two pages, because after that I became absorbed. The writing that I was a little sketchy about at first helped me visualize the setting and get to know the characters. And though Plath never really described many characters as to their personality, I began to feel I knew them all intimately.

Strangely enough, if you remember in my last review, what bothered me most about The Good Earth did not bother me in The Bell Jar. Because the Esther, the character we are following, is slowly descending into madness, time no longer matters. There are a few times I was confused about the timeline, but it did not upset me.

The book really spoke to me because of my own personal experiences with depression and suicide. It spoke to me as a woman and my views on sex and the confusion I'm sure most other girls out there face. It's amazing that this book was written and published over 30 years ago, really, when a new woman was coming out into the world. I have a feeling that this book helped women realize that they're not alone, and brought things to light that most people have commonly shoved aside; women and men. But what else is amazing is how relevant these topics still are today. Specifically with suicide, and specifically about the virtue and pureness of women compared to men.

So I guess that is why The Bell Jar is often compared to The Catcher in the Rye, with it's discussions and writings of often controversial titles. Setting off a new generation of writers, styles, and people. Another book also came to mind as I was reading, and that was The Perks of Being a Wallflower. There are moments when I could make a few direct comparisons between the two. With Esther slowly seperating herself from socialization and sinking deeper into her own thoughts and depression. Analyzing things that go on around her and her surroundings. Very reminscent of Perks.

If you feel you're suffering from depression, madness, confusion about topics pertaining to society and sex, or just looking for a good read, The Bell Jar is definetly the book for you. I also advise, if you're seriously suffering from depression, to get help for yourself. There is no shame in it, and getting help is better than ending your life. Even if you need to go on medication, DO NOT feel ashamed, especially if it's going to help you even more.

The Bell Jar is a disturbing and very powerful book chronicling an intelligent young woman's descent into depression and attempted suicide. It has always stood apart in Literature because of the way it closely mirrored the author's experiences.

Knowing that the novel was published in 1971 I was puzzled to find that the prevailing attitudes, culture and mores seemed to date from an earlier time - at least a decade earlier. The main character, Esther, feels suffocated not only by her own feelings of inadequacy and incipient paranoia, but also by the crushingly mundane life she as a female would be expected to follow. Starting off as an intern on a fashion magazine was possibly one of the worst choices she could make, but at this time there were few realistic options.

1950s, I thought, rather than late 60s? And it turns out that yes, it was published under a pseudonym in 1963, a few short months before Sylvia Plath's own suicide at the age of 29.

A very chilling tale indeed. How can one doubt that she knew whereof she wrote.

★★★★★/5
This wan an interesting, fast read. It was interesting to deep dive into women's mind and world. I do not know a lot about Sylvia Plath, but now I really want to read her other works and maybe a life story.

This is, by far, the most disappointed I’ve ever been when it came to a book.
Not just with the book itself, but with how many people decided to ignore the racism taking place in it.
I’ve had this novel praised to me so many times that I idolized it for years before I even bought it. I was so scared that I wouldn’t like it that I kept waiting to be in “the right mind-set” before I decided to finally pick it up.
About a quarter into the book I had already encountered not one, but 3 racist comments made by Esther (the main character). And I was so surprised that no one ever mentioned this to me that I had to stop reading, go on goodreads and look at the reviews to see if anyone was addressing it, and nothing.
So I told myself I was reading too much into it and kept on reading, and by the 4th comment I was starting to lose it.
So I went online and looked it up, and the only thing that turned up was a personal blog and a goodreads thread that mostly blamed the racism on “the time the novel was written in”, to which I would just like to say, and pardon my french, that’s complete and utter bullshit.
This book was written in the 60s! The NINETEEN-60s!! in. the. middle. of. the. civil. rights. movement.
And I’m not saying racism didn’t exist back then, hell, that’s what the whole movement was about. And I get that people weren’t “woke”, and that using certain slang was normal back then, BUT I could name at least a dozen writers who didn’t feel the need to be racist while writing from (what we all know is) their personal pov. Hell, I could name novels published in the 19th fucking century that advocated against racism. Sylvia could’ve at least picked up ONE of those during her lifetime, jfc.
I’m not just speaking about the 5+ times she used the n word, it’s not my place to say whether that was wrong or not. I’m talking about the explicit racist comments (against more races than one, if I may add) that made me want to drench this book in gasoline, light it on fire then flush it down the fucking toilet:
•tIn one part, Esther Greenwood describes her reflection as "a big, smudgy-eyed Chinese woman staring idiotically into my face,"
•tIn another she says: “the face in the mirror looks like a sick Indian"
•tAt one point she calls indigenous Mexicans ugly and says things like "dusky as a bleached-blonde negress"
•tIn a scene where Esther is being served dinner while in the mental health institute. The man serving her is described as a stupid, laughing, indolent Black man with huge, rolling eyes, a racist trope made popular with books like "The Story of Little Black Sambo," which was published in 1898. During this scene, the man commits the “offense” of serving two types of beans for dinner, and Esther punishes him for it by kicking him.
•tWhen Esther’s friend is telling her about a guy she’s interested in, who happens to be from Peru, Esther replies with: “they're squat…they're ugly as Aztecs."



All of that being said, I think I should mention that:
a/ the writing was actually pretty decent
b/ I am not going to ignore the awareness it brought around mental health for so many years. But, if that’s the only reason you’re reading this, then I suggest you check out Girl, Interrupted instead, it’s equally as representative (if not more/better) of mental health, based on Susanna Kaysen’s real life (it’s more of a memoir-ish type), it includes plenty of documents and notes from her time in a mental health institute, and, most importantly, it isn’t problematic.

Okay, I know this is a classic, well-written, etc. My rating is not based on the writing, but solely on how much I enjoyed reading the book…and I didn’t enjoy it at all. From the very beginning, even before her breakdown, I found very little to care for or associate with about Esther. She seemed cynical, disdainful, self-important, and manipulative. I just flat out didn’t like her. So when she really began to have some trouble mentally (actually, even before that) I, as a reader, wanted to close the book and get away from her rather than keep reading and see her through it. When I did finish the book, it felt more like a relief than an accomplishment. This is not a story I ever want to revisit. There is much talk of suicide in The Bell Jar and it vividly describes what it can be like to experience a descent into depression. I admire it for what it is but it's just not my cup of tea. It left me feeling gloomy and unsettled.

In the same vein, I would recommend Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. I felt more involved with that one and felt like I learned a good bit about the subject matter.