4.5*

When we are young we used to think that we are unbreakable, more, that we are immortal. That whatever we touch it’ll turn into gold, that we can change the world. And then … life just happens to us.

They say about this book as a feminist manifesto. I understand why but completely do not care about this tag. The only thing I'm interested in is Esther and her desperate fight for remaining on surface, her attempt to get out of bell jar. I can easily see her when dressed up with her best clothes attends to trendy places trying to gain some of the glamour of New York. I see her gradually unstucking from reality, losing her courage and self-confidence to final breakdown. I see her bleak odyssey through hospitals undergoing treatment.

I second her struggles because I can understand her fear. Fear of unwanted pregnancy, boring marriage, unexpected motherhood, get stuck in a small town with tedious job. I understand her fear of life because every morning I repeat to myself, and can imagine others doing the same, into the battle. Because I understand how hard it is to face up to these expectations to be a good daughter, student, mother, wife. Because I understand the need to be someone else though we only just have an inkling of whom what significantly describes the scene of the dream of a fig tree.

Maybe this novel is not especially innovative but tragic fate of the author strongly affected it . How did I know that someday - at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere - the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again ? Exactly, how should we know ? That’s why I keep my finger crossed for every Esther of this world.