The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: Review

Author: Sylvia Plath

Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics

Pub. Date: 1963

Length: 320 Pages

Summary (from goodreads):

Esther Greenwood is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. In her acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that her insanity becomes palpably real, even rational—as accessible an experience as going to the movies. A deep penetration into the darkest and most harrowing corners of the human psyche, The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic.

My Thoughts:  I have to admit that the first time I read this book I didn't like it much at all and ended up never finishing it. I felt really bad for not liking it because my stepsister and stepmother had just finished it and completely fell in love with it. But that was two years ago and looking back I realize that I was probably too young to have read it in the first place and, in result, didn't understand much of it. When I reread it earlier this year (which was in last August, but since I was blogging at the time I never reviewed it till now), I could fully recognize just how fantastic it really is.

The Bell Jar is one of those books that really spoke to me. I'm sure everyone know this book deals with depression and has experienced feeling like the ones mentioned in this book at least once, if only for a moment or two; and that you'll be able to find something relate-able in it.

This really is such a lovely book and I hope you all will give it a chance some time or another. 

Mad Girl's Love Song 

by Sylvia Plath 

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; 

I lift my lids and all is born again. 

(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, 

And arbitrary blackness gallops in: 

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed 

And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane. 

(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade: 

Exit seraphim and Satan's men: 

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 

I fancied you'd return the way you said, 

But I grow old and I forget your name. 

(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

I should have loved a thunderbird instead; 

At least then spring comes they roar back again. 

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

♥