The Bell Jar

I was just wondering about your opinions on this book, as I am studying it in Literature. It's by Sylvia Plath.

Hello,

What is your opinon on it? Is there a specific issue you would like to discuss?

I think "The Bell Jar" might be my favourite book ever
I'm not sure, I have a hard time deciding, but it's in the top, for sure

I read it about a year ago
Needless to say it had a huge effect on me
The way it's so personal, emotional, I just love the way it was written

I'm a huge Plath fan

Yes, anything specific you wanna discuss about it?

The Bell Jar is actually one which I added to the recommend best read list.
I love Plath's poetry and her semi-autobiographical(and only) book The Bell Jar.I first read this in one sitting about a year ago as I couldn't put it down.
It's a fine novel and darkly witty and disturbing.But I would surely recommend it, especially if one has read alot of Plath's poetry before.

In it Esther Greenwood reveals her account of a year spent in the "bell jar" and well you should go and read the book as I don't want to give the narrative away!

I especially like these pages.


From The Bell Jar-pages 52 & 53:


I thought it was a lovely story, especially the part about the fig-tree
in winter under the snow and then the fig-tree in spring with all the
green fruit.I felt sorry when I came to the last page.I wanted to crawl
through a fence, and go back to sleep under that big beautiful green
fig-tree.It seemed to me Buddy Willard and I were like that Jewish man
and that nun, although of course we weren't Jewish or Catholic but
Unitarian.We had met together under our owm imaginary fig-tree, and
what we had seen wasn't a bird coming out of an egg but a baby coming
out of a women, and something awful happened and we went our separate
ways.As I lay ther in my white hotel bed feeling lonely and weak, I thought
of Buddy Willard lying even lonelier and weaker than I was up in that sanatorium in the
Adirondacks, and I felt like a heel of the worst sort.
In his letters Buddy kept telling me how he was reading poems by a poet
who was also a doctor and how he'd found out about some famous dead
Russian short story writer who had been a doctor too, so maby doctors
and writers could get along fine after all.
Now this was a very different tune from what Buddy Willard had been
singing all the two years we were getting to know each other.I remembered
the day he smiled at me and said,
'Do you know what a poem is Esther?'
'No, what?' I said.
'A piece of dust.' And he looked so proud of having thought of this that I
just stared at his blond hair and his blue eyes and his white teeth-he had
very long, strong white teeth-and said 'I guess so.'
It was only in the middle of New York a whole year later that I finally
thought of an answer to that remark.I spent a lot of time having
imaginary conversations with Buddy Willard.He was a couple of years
older than I was and very scientific, so he could always prove things.
When I was with him I had to work to keep my head above water.
These conversations I had in my mind usually repeated the beginnings
of coversations I'd really had with Buddy, only they finished with me
answering him back sharply, instead of saying 'I guess so'.
Now, lying on my back in bed, I imagined Buddy saying,
'Do you know what a poem is, Esther?'
'No, what?' I would say.
'A piece of dust.'
Then just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would
say, 'So are the cadavers you cut up.So are the people you think
you're curing.They're dust as dust as dust.
I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of
those people put together.


*Also check pages 73(I love the branching fig tree description)
and pages 140-141 onwards.

I feel this book has touched me. Plath's narrative bleeds into my broken doppelgänger; I felt a strong connection with Esther and her fragile mind. 'The Bell Jar' has inspired me to write my own novel, called 'The Tin Helmet'. Ummm, ahh, hold on, hold on - my strong connection with Esther, has provoked me not only to write a novel, but to attempt my own suicide. It showed me the many ways I could do it. I feel a strong spiritual affiliation with Esther.

I like 'The Bell Jar'. But it was such a cliffhanger at the end! Did she get better or suffer deeper depression? Personally I think that she died. However, I also think that she lived ... on in my soul. ;) I often talk to her when I am alone. I believe that 'The Bell Jar' is a mirror of the life of Christ; as He struggles to deal with social issues.

Hi - I'm new to the forum!

Your posts have inspired me to reply. Well done for such a nice posts. Be Encouraged to Exercise and Excorcise your own creative musings ... urges ... emotions ... in poetry ... I myself am quite partial to the sonnet form! I think you should interpret Plath's message in your own way and follow your dreams!!! It is people like you all that make literature worth reviewing. I share the same passion for novels concerning minds under stress. I would like to you all to read 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'. It really touched me.