The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

AUTHOR: Sylvia Plath

GENRE: Roman à clef

PUBLICATION DATE:

RATING: No idea!

How do you rate a book that you liked and didn't like too? A book that doesn't leave you even after you turn the last page, and yet a book that you don't think you can read again? A book that is as intellectually stimulating as it is emotionally exhausting? Honest answer: I don't know.

As Sylvia Plath's only published novel, The Bell Jar has been in my TBR since a long time. Especially as I'm not much into poetry, this book seemed to be a great way of knowing the troubled poet intimately. I'm glad that I waited all this time before attempting the book because I wouldn't have been able to appreciate the dark beauty of this painful story in my younger years.

Esther Greenwood, the leading character of this semi-autobiographical novel masquerading as a fictional bildungsroman, is an intelligent college student with dreams of becoming a poet. After being selected for a summer internship at a women's magazine, her mind slowly start unravelling and she struggles with her identity, her place in the world and the meaning of her life. The book unveils her slow, steady descent into the dark pit of mental chaos, where everyone and everything seems hopeless and the only solution seems to be an escape from life.

The bell jar is something we have all seen in our school labs, an inverted glass jar generally used to display some scientific object. For Esther, the bell jar symbolizes a kind of entrapment by her mental struggles. It's like her mind is enclosed by a bell jar. She can view the world from inside her jar, but she can't escape it. At the same time, people can view her through her bell jar but cannot touch her, and I don't mean touch in the physical sense. There is always a barrier between her and others, and she can't find a way out of this invisible cage.

Considering the fact that Sylvia Plath herself struggled with psychological ailments in her adult life, there is bound to be a big question mark over how much of this book is just fiction and how much is an indication of the ghosts in her mind. Add to this the fact that she finally succeeded in her attempt to commit suicide a month after this novel was published, and you become even more uncertain of the hazy boundary between fact and fiction. But no matter what the truth of the matter is, there is no denying the fact that Plath captures the pandemonium of a suffering mind perfectly. As a reader, I just felt helpless because I could see the path of self-destruction that the protagonist was on, but I couldn't do anything about it.

The Bell Jar is a book that has left me with deep thoughts and no answers. With the topic it covers, there is no way I can say that I "enjoyed" this book, and yet I couldn't help but continue reading it. I'm feeling as muddled as its protagonist because I'm at sixes and sevens about whether to recommend this book or not. So let me just leave this review without a rating, and without an open recommendation. It's a book not meant for everyone, but for those who do read it, it's a book that will not leave you easily.