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Loading... The Bell Jarby Sylvia Plath
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. You know, it's well-written and everything, but I don't know what the big deal is.Then again, I'm not 17. (  ) alissamarie | Oct 25, 2009 |  You know, it's well-written and everything, but I don't know what the big deal is.Then again, I'm not 17. ( ) alissamarie | Oct 25, 2009 | You know, it's well-written and everything, but I don't know what the big deal is.Then again, I'm not 17. ( ) alissamarie | Oct 25, 2009 | Honestly, this one just didn't grab me like I had hoped it would. Perhaps I was in too happy of a mood when I read it. I remember it reminding me of winter and shades of gray and scratchy, uncomfortable, thread-bare sweaters...but not much else. ( ) ChiaraBeth | Oct 10, 2009 | One of my big secrets in life is that I have never, ever read The Bell Jar. I don't know how I avoided it, but after awhile it became this weird embarrassing thing. I'd tell people and they'd look at me like I had 3 heads. Shelving some books a few days ago I found a copy and figured what the hell, time to get it over with. I'm only on the first few pages, but wow it's good! I will try not to stick my head in the oven after I finish.Edited to add: I cannot believe I didn't read this earlier. I loved all of the "Oh isn't that so 1950s" cultural bits. I loved the narrator's voice. I loveeeed the sparse but great language. So great, and much like the day I finally sat down and watched "Casablanca" - I can't stop thinking of how so many other books have been derivative of this one. (  ) jentifer | Aug 15, 2009 | 
 Her subject--the nervous breakdown and attempted suicide of a well-behaved, bright and successful college girl during the summer vacation of 1953--is hardly topical, and for careful, plain, dolorous prose style, which conveys the world of the heroine under the bell jar of madness with its "stifling distortions," offers few sentimental attractions. It is not a facile, entertaining or dramatic book; it has none of the sharp bitter humor and bite of her poems. It's not well shaped (it can be quite awkward); it offers no modish visionary thrills from the world of the insane, and though it has scenes of college life, the suburbs and the fashion magazine world of the 1950's for the most part it just hangs there dully and drags you down with its heroine; you don't believe she really recovers. Its vague, absorbent, melancholy pull lingers for weeks.
Amazon.com (ISBN 0061148512, Paperback)Plath was an excellent poet but is known to many for this largely autobiographical novel. The Bell Jar tells the story of a gifted young woman's mental breakdown beginning during a summer internship as a junior editor at a magazine in New York City in the early 1950s. The real Plath committed suicide in 1963 and left behind this scathingly sad, honest and perfectly-written book, which remains one of the best-told tales of a woman's descent into insanity.(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:19 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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