Reading 1001 discussion

"You were doing fine, a familiar voice informed my ear, until that man stepped into your path."

This ended up exceeding my expectations - it's too bad it took me fifteen years to get around to reading it - as I recall getting a copy the end of summer before my last year of university, having just returned from Scotland and house hunting with a week to go before classes. I guess on the rush, it just got put aside.

I thought it was a good exploration of the stifling roles for women and the pressures of academia. As a look at a nervous breakdown, also interesting. It's often compared to Catcher in the Rye and I think it's miles better.

5 stars

This book is not a fun read. It isn't enjoyable. No, it is harsh, voyeuristic and uncomfortable. It is an invasion of personal space and thought. It is immensely sad, and completely real. I have struggled with depression. My son has struggled. The moments in this book when I was in the hospital with Sylvia were so open that I found my heart rate was high, and my shoulders were tense and my brow was furrowed. I was angry on her behalf. But mostly I was sad that she was lost to this insidious disease. I have lost 4 family members to suicide and I know the pain for those left behind.

I did not enjoy this book, but I can absolutely see why so many people relate to it. The writing was wonderful and the descriptions clear. Yet, I read this book immediately following The Trick Is to Keep Breathing (which I feel is less known but often compared to this one) and I did not experience the same depth of feeling (the confusion and desperation of the main character) as I had with that one.

From one of the best opening lines in the history of literature, Sylvia Plath crafts completely compelling and beautiful sentences in a semi-autobiographical story of depression and suicidal feelings, as she charts the story of a student's mental illness and hospital stays.

Apart from the main storyline I also found the character's feminism intriguing. Hemmed in by ideas of marriage, chastity before marriage, that if you want a career you probably cannot be married, but also that a doctor is prepared to give her an IUD without being married is a sign of things to come.

We know that Plath sadly never got out of the Bell Jar but there is hope that Esther may (while pondering the story of her haemorrhage it occurred to me that a few months, even weeks earlier, she would have let nature take its course and not have sought help). The ambiguous ending was perfect.

5 stars.

Pre-2016 review:

***

This semi-autobiographical novel follows the downward spiral experienced by Esther Greenwood, young aspiring writer who won an internship on a fashion magazine in the 1950s. Uneasy relationships and a few disappointments led her to severe depression and several suicidal thoughts culminating in an attempt at her life. This obviously is not a joyful read. Nevertheless, it provides a strong insight of what exactly goes on in the mind of a seriously depressed person. There are many unanswered questions and it feels that there is a lack of development in parts, but I believe this was meant also to replicate her state of mind (not knowing exactly why she felt like that). I guess its presence on the List owes more to the "popularity" which followed her suicide (as happens with many rock stars unfortunately choosing the same path) than for the literary merits of the book.

I found this a fascinating insight into Plath’s life as well as the struggles women faced in the 1950s. There are times when Esther becomes annoying, and parts of the book dragged. The book also jumps around in time, e.g., Esther will mention an event and only later go back and fill in details; I often had to go back to make sure I didn’t miss something. Still, definitely worth reading.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

I read this book while in college and remember it as extremely dark and disturbing but remembered little else. I certainly did not remember any of the slight glimpses of humor or the clarity and even a certain simplicity in the writing. On this reading I was largely struck by the way that the Plath, likely drawing on personal experience, portrays depression as an estrangement from oneself which then leads to an estrangement from the rest of the world.
I particularly liked the way that Plath made Esther vulnerable and naive, which made her sympathetic, and yet at the same time she was often mean to herself and to others, which could be, as Jane mentions, annoying. I thought Plath also kept a certain distance between her readers and Esther, paralleling the theme of estrangement and being in a bell jar. We do not see all the horrors of a mental institution and we do not experience all the internal horrors that were no doubt raging in Esther. Rather, we are given an overall feeling of detachment and that in an of itself is disturbing.

I read this book first in the late sixties, when it was very popular, again probably sometime in the 90's when I was interested in Ted Hughes, and finally I have read it again, somewhat cursorily, to see if my attitude has changed. It has not. The first time I read it I was underwhelmed. Who hadn't had someone attempt to rape them? didn't every young person have feelings of inadequacy? didn't everyone's mother try to convince them to be a shorthand typist in a nice job and feel that their main purpose was to keep you virginal until an early marriage? I especially felt that Esther was unfair to her mother. However, I had almost no understanding of mental illness then and probably an inadequate knowledge of it even now. I didn't find Esther a convincing or sympathetic character in any of my readings.

I finished this just now, and stumbled upon my favorite line toward the end. I might even frame it for my kitchen:

"I picked up my empty snail shell and drank the herb-green juice. I had no idea if this was proper, but after months of wholesome, dull asylum diet, I was greedy for butter."