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Avg. Rating: 4.5
And Now I understand....
I've recently decided to write a review for every book I ever loved. So, yes this is written in retrospect. And perhaps I don't have all the detail written down perfectly. But if you want to read a summary, I'm afraid to inform you that I cannot give you one. I can only give you my opinion.
I was quite young when I first read this; maybe 14 or 15. Perhaps I was too young to fully understand it. I was, for one, a neurotic over achiever and couldn't quite grasp that someone could have an inability not to work. But looking back, I now find myself in the same situation or rather coming out of the same situation.
I recommend this book to everyone, but only after you break into a few of life's tragedies and turmoil. Otherwise, there will be a void in reading this that can't be comprehended or severely hinders the reading.
This was certainly written by a poet. It flows smoothly and nothing too contrive or sentences that were complicatedly constructed for the sake of being complicated. I remember fully enjoying this book.
This book is as relevant today as it is was in the 60s when it was written. Things have changed, yes. But things have also remained the same. The same stresses, worries and concerns still plague many up and coming adolescents. (It's funny for me to write that sentence as one.)
What I love most about this book is that it is not a moral tale warning about the rights and wrongs of life. Neither is an apologetic story. She doesn't make excuses. She tells it like it was for her. Being lost, being annoyed at being asked "what are you going to do with the rest of your life", being the odd one out, being gawky. All of this is still relevant today as it is for me.
Where it loses people is when she starts to spiral down. It's a natural progression that flows smoothly downward---there was never one big incident or anything that explain any such thing. It doesn't try to prod in the physiological of the matter. It's like a first hand account of an accident about to occur where the person can't explain what is about to happen. She just knows she is going to crash.
I'm not saying you have to be depressed or a wounded human being to read this. No. No one is perfect; everyone has problems. If you're young, maybe give this books a few years. But if you've lived some, then read this. This is not a story to be missed. Easy. Deep. Mesmerizing.
The Belle Jar
I chose to read The Belle Jar because I had the book and always wanted to read it but didn't have the time. It happened to be an autobiographical novel too. I have heard a lot of people talk about the book and how good written it was. Also, my mom recommended it; it was her favorite book in collage. I've heard that you had to read it in high school, so now I have a head start. Sylvia Plath, the author, committed suicide in her early thirties. I thought it would be interesting to read a memoir of a suicidal feminist.
The book is about a girl, Esther Greenwood, in the 1950's. She won a contest to go to New York for the summer and be a guest fashion editor for Ladies' Day magazine. While she is in New York she befriends some of the other guest fashion editors, Doreen and Betsy. Esther believes she is more like Betsy than Doreen. One night on the way to a party two men, Lenny and Frankie, stop her and Doreen in their cab. They go out to dinner with them. Frankie leaves early and Doreen spends the night at Lenny's apartment while Esther walks home. The pounding of the door of her hotel room wakes Esther up. Doreen comes in wasted and passes out. In the morning, everyone got food poisoning from the breakfast. Buddy, Esther's old boyfriend wants to marry her, but she doesn't want to because she thinks she can't maintain her duties as a wife and write poetry at the same time. Also, she thinks it's unfair that women are expected to stay "pure" until they're married, while men are not held to such strict standards. She wants to lose her virginity because she's frustrated with her naivety. Esther believes it will transform her. She realizes that a man would never sleep with the women he loved because he thinks it seems animal-like.
She goes on a blind date, with Doreen and Lenny, with a one of Lenny's friends, Marco. Marco is a "woman-hater". He makes Esther dance with him even though she doesn't want to. He tries to rape her in a puddle of mud. She thinks if she just lies there "it" will happen. Then he calls her a slut and she begins to fight back, she punched him in the nose and he smears his blood on Esther's cheeks. She took the train back to her hotel in Manhattan. She changes and takes the train to Massachusetts, where she lives.
The family doctor refers her to a psychiatrist, Dr. Gordon. He does nothing but make matters worse. Dr. Gordon doesn't listen, is conceited, and sends her to shock treatment. Esther attempts suicide four times. She tried slitting her wrists but couldn't bring her self to it, hanging her self but couldn't find a high enough place to do it, drowning herself but keeps floating to the surface, and taking fifty sleeping pills. After trying to overdose, she passes out and wakes up in a hospital bed. In the hospital, Esther meets her new psychiatrist, Dr. Nolan. She likes Dr. Nolan a lot, she thinks of her as a mother figure.
Esther sees Joan, buddy's old girlfriend and collage acquaintance. Joan says that after reading about Esther's suicide attempts in the newspaper, it inspired her to try also. They become good friends, but later on Joan tells Esther that she likes her. Esther gets mad and Joan walks away. She tells Dr. Nolan that she wants to lose her virginity but is worried about pregnancy, Dr. Nolan sends her to another doctor to get a diaphragm. Esther now needs to pick whom to give it up to.
She loses it to a math professor named Irwin whom she met in the Harvard library. After, she starts bleeding and it will not stop. She goes to the emergency room and the doctor stops it. When she gets back to the mental institute she is staying at, she gets out before school starts again. She discovers that Joan is missing. Later, they found her; she hung herself in the woods.
Esther calls Irwin and demands that he pay for the medical bill of that night. He asked if he was ever going to see her again, she replies "Never," then hangs up. Now she feels free. Buddy came to visit and asks if she thought that buddy had anything to do with Joan's suicide. After the funeral she waits for her final interview with her doctors, she walks into the room.
This book was very poetically written. It also refers to a fig tree to represent the options she wants, but she is paralyzed with indecision and the figs fall of and die. A belle jar is a clear, glass jar that people use to display things, or acts like a vacuum when closed. It's called The Belle Jar because she feels as if there were a belle jar hovering above her about to drop and suffocate her. At the end of the book, she feels that it has been lifted but may come down again at any time.
This book reminded me of a movie I saw called Girl, Interrupted. It's similar because both are about a girl in an institute who deals with suicide and sex. How a girl went from living normally to having sex with a stranger, committing suicide, and living in a mental institute, when in fact they are not that psychotic. Sylvia Plath did a beautiful way of explaining in this book, I understood everything rather than sitting confused. I would recommend this book to anyone in eighth grade or higher, or they might not understand it. Probably someone who likes poetry would like this book.
Brilliance is in her Poetry
I opened the book and found it a quick read, but I noticed that something was missing. Then I figured it out. Sylvia Plath's brilliance is contained in her poetry. Her book does convey her message quite well (at least what most people consider the message to be) and it is fantastically well written and contains many of the contrasts and comparisons betweeen two seemingly very unrelated things, which distinguishes her work, but it lacks luster. It seems great upon first read, but when compared to her poetry, it is like a candle that is lit, but sputtering. I think her book is a more logical explanation of her madness, but it doesn't make her seem like she is mentally ill. She makes you feel like she is healthy and the rest of the world is sick. Kudos for putting us in her shoes. But aside from that, the rest of the story seems drab, despite the imagery. It didn't evoke many feelings in me. I think literature is meant to stir and inspire. But maybe she just wanted us to feel nothing at all, as if we were trapped under a bell jar and the only thing you can feel is the pain which is so persistant that eventually you become used to it and don't feel it anymore. I guess that's the reason I didn't like the book as well as I should have. She intended for us to feel nothing at all.
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