The Bell Jar in Bound Together

Dec 27, 2016 PattyMacDotComma rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: aa, bio-memoir, aa-col, fiction

5★
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story."

If you are inclined to bouts of depression, find another book. If you've lived with or are fond of someone followed by the Black Dog, this describes the intensity of the feelings (and the treatment) well.

Countless critics and reviewers have written about this sad 'memoir' (written as fiction and first published under a pseudonym) about depression, but it is also full of funny anecdotes and perfect insight into America ...more

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Jul 10, 2008 Chrissie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: medical, bio, 2014-read, philo-psychol, kindle, fiction, classics

This book is semi-autobiographical. Having finished the book I am left uneasy, bewildered, with more questions than answers. I am left with the feeling that I have traveled with the author along her own path toward suicide.... and it is for this reason one can expect neither answers nor solutions. This is a book that takes you on a journey, and the point isn't the end or the attainment of clear conclusions; one who commits suicide isn't one with answers. It is instead a window into another perso ...more

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Mar 13, 2010 Gaijinmama rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, classics

I have conflicting feelings about this book. On the one hand, it deserves its place as a classic if only for the author's keen sense of observation and way with words. She also had a sense of humor...Sylvia Plath, who knew!!

On the other hand, that's the tragedy. I was almost too pissed off to finish. What a horrible waste of a gifted writer who was actually an interesting person. I am left sad and angry, just absolutely furious that Plath lived at a time when a woman with her skills was not appr ...more

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May 08, 2009 Bucket rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, reviewed, life-and-death, women, psychology, literary, love, 1001-read-all-editions, bildungsroman, sex

This novel has been on my to-read list for an extremely long time and now that I've finally gotten around to reading it I, in some ways, wish I had read it 8-10 years ago and, in other ways, am glad I didn't read it when I was a young and obsessive college student myself. Not that I would have taken a page out of this book or anything, but I definitely would have had a strong emotional reaction. Reading it now, I feel personally beyond what Esther Greenwood is facing, and maybe that's a good thi This novel has been on my to-read list for an extremely long time and now that I've finally gotten around to reading it I, in some ways, wish I had read it 8-10 years ago and, in other ways, am glad I didn't read it when I was a young and obsessive college student myself. Not that I would have taken a page out of this book or anything, but I definitely would have had a strong emotional reaction. Reading it now, I feel personally beyond what Esther Greenwood is facing, and maybe that's a good thing.

As a look into the lives of young women of the 50s, this novel is fascinating. Esther's confusion about sex and love and her path in life are heartbreaking and very nearly destroy her. There is a moment where she sees her possible futures as ripe and beautiful figs on a tree. All she needs to do is choose one, but she can't. She doesn't want to choose between love and career, and as she considers her choice the figs begin to blacken and rot.

This is a beautiful microcosm of early feminism, and the way that freedom could trap women just as much as patriarchy because once a decision was made there would be no turning back. A career woman wouldn't marry or have children and a mother would have a lifelong role as housewife.

Esther's hangup with sex also says a lot about coming of age as a woman in the 50s. She wants to lose her virginity so it will stop hanging over her head, but she has no access to birth control and is plagued by the not yet outdated notion that by losing her purity she will be cast aside by men, her community, and the world at large.

Esther's confusion and fear and indecision plummet her into despair and the second half of the novel is a close look at the various mental health options in place in the 50s, from impersonal male psychiatrists and electric shock therapy, to low-quality state hospitals and high-quality private hospitals. It is at this point in the novel that the meaning of the "the bell jar" becomes clear. Esther, and by extension other young women of the time, feels confined under glass, breathing her own "sour air" and unable to free herself from her prison, though the ending does offer hope.

Themes: youth, women, sex, mental health, 50s, suicide, the college life ...more

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Apr 08, 2016 Pat rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I am revisiting some of my favorite classics listening to them in the car going back and forth to Athens for bridge. The Bell Jar is as good as I remember it - tragic, but GOOD! Maggie Gyllenhaal became Sylvia Plath to me in the first hour of the audiobook, and she was so realistic in her reading that I could feel Sylvia's anguish and frustration including the shock treatments she dreaded and had to endure. So glad I revisited this book. On to A Doll's House! ...more

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Jan 25, 2010 Angie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, autobiographical-fiction

It took me a while to really get into this book. In fact it took me until the last few chapters to really like this girl. The way it was written was a bit confusing and I felt the girl was a bit over dramatic. But then I found out this story was pretty much the author's real life and I felt kind of bad for her. Still it was only ok to me as a book. ...more

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