Scan barcode
A review by lydiogames
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
ugh. had actually entirely forgotten that I'd even read this despite it being quite a short time ago, and that I've read very little else in all the time around it. I'm sympathetic, and do think that Plath has such a legitimate knack for encapsulating so many minute instances of how depression and mental health can disrupt your thinking, abilities, your life, et al. especially in regards to that alienating haunting loneliness -- there's some passages here that are just written terrifically; Esther's illness in the middle of the night and her lack of connection in New York really spoke to me and pulled me into the print. and, of course, there's also the famed fig tree metaphor that encapsulates so many frustrations about womanhood and simply living.
and yet, for as good as this book often proved to be, in equal parts it frustrated, disappointed and discouraged. simply, if the chapter isn't working, each page turned felt like a conscious and deliberate effort to continue, an almost sisyphean task. sometimes a chapter might not work because it's simply, luck of the draw, one of the less good ones, and othertimes it's a consequence of Plath's seemingly constant racism and homophobia. there's a hangup to be had about Plath's terminally middle-class, white feminism regardless, in The Bell Jar and in her poetry, but Esther, the author's avatar, frequently engages in comments about "smudgy eyed Chinese women", "look[ing] like a sick Indian", "ugly as Aztecs", and even beating a black nurse with cartoonishly stereotypical features. and this thing was published in 1963, in the midst of the civil rights movement. it's hard to stomach because it's such an unrepenting and unapologetic display of flat-out vulgarity and inelegance from someone we're so desperately supposed to feel empathy, sympathy, connection to and support for. and again, this is called semi-autobiographical.
ultimately just not very pleasant and an unbalanced experience. frankly far less interested in the stuff outside of New York too. but it's so clearly ahead of its time in many ways and there is a real tragedy in knowing there's legitimate suicide following. both a great book and a pretty terrible one interchangeably, simultaneously.
and yet, for as good as this book often proved to be, in equal parts it frustrated, disappointed and discouraged. simply, if the chapter isn't working, each page turned felt like a conscious and deliberate effort to continue, an almost sisyphean task. sometimes a chapter might not work because it's simply, luck of the draw, one of the less good ones, and othertimes it's a consequence of Plath's seemingly constant racism and homophobia. there's a hangup to be had about Plath's terminally middle-class, white feminism regardless, in The Bell Jar and in her poetry, but Esther, the author's avatar, frequently engages in comments about "smudgy eyed Chinese women", "look[ing] like a sick Indian", "ugly as Aztecs", and even beating a black nurse with cartoonishly stereotypical features. and this thing was published in 1963, in the midst of the civil rights movement. it's hard to stomach because it's such an unrepenting and unapologetic display of flat-out vulgarity and inelegance from someone we're so desperately supposed to feel empathy, sympathy, connection to and support for. and again, this is called semi-autobiographical.
ultimately just not very pleasant and an unbalanced experience. frankly far less interested in the stuff outside of New York too. but it's so clearly ahead of its time in many ways and there is a real tragedy in knowing there's legitimate suicide following. both a great book and a pretty terrible one interchangeably, simultaneously.