The Bell Jar

Thoughts   The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Harper Perennial Modern Classics 2006 Foreword by Frances McCullough 1996 (orig pub’d in America 1971), 266 pages

I’m trying to recall when exactly I learned who Sylvia Plath was and what she was about.    I am inclined to fess up that I didn’t know a thing* about her until book-blogging;  specifically  learning about books I *should* have already read by now.   But I don’t know.   Perhaps, I knew the sensational stuff – - that she was a poet who killed herself young, as a mother of two little ones.   But I really can’t say;  it’s fuzzy.

I’ve had The Bell Jar on my to-be-read list for years (I’ve been blogging over 4 years already?   huh.)

I knew it was a novel and that she usually wrote poetry.    (Actually, she wrote children’s books, too.)   But I didn’t realize all that I would encounter in this short book.     It was everything I hazily imagined it would be (startling thoughts by a young woman when it was not the time (1950s) to expect startling thoughts by young women) and I thought it would showcase depression.   AND THAT IS ALL I KNEW.    So it was NOTHING like what I expected!

I read this in one day.  If I had realized how fast I would devour this, I would have read it a long time ago.

Or, perhaps, it was the perfect time for me to read?   Who can question when and why some books come into our life.    I am just glad that I didn’t read this during one of my darkest days of college when I hated school, hated my major, was devoid of hope and felt like the whole concept of what I was supposed to be doing was just a crock of s%&#.

Then again.   I think this book does has hope.   I thought the ending and/or the last line brilliant!    But, it’s knowing now that Plath didn’t hold on to her hopes to quite escape her bell jar that is frightening.

A big thank you to Frances McCullough for a fantastic Foreword and thank you to the publishers for including the bit about Plath in the back of the book.    These parts book-end the heart of the novel in such a wonderful manner.

I rarely read Forewords.   This one is perfect.

Five slices of pie.

* I had never heard of Virginia Woolf, either.    What were they teaching in my high school?!

* HIdeinWhitetoSkipLine

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