Book review by yours truly- everyone's favorite asshole hermit. I finished this one a long time ago and remembered "Oh yeah, didn't you create a blog for this, dumbass? Why not use it!"
So, alas, here it is. My review of this spectacularly depressing and emotionally taxing novel, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I have a selection of excerpts I will use for it. The things that stood out to me and made me pause to ponder. So maybe this is actually a massive dumping of my thoughts throughout this book instead of a review, but there is no other way I wish to go about it. If I care too much about seeming like a respectable and professional book reviewer like the shirt tucking, cold coffee sippers on Goodreads (I have the audacity to type, as it is now well past 4:00 p.m.and I am still sipping my cold coffee from 11:00 a.m.) , then I will never enjoy the underrated art of dissecting and fully digesting a book. And small things to enjoy are a crucial part of my existence. I refuse to be of the modern world, I already live in it and that is enough. If I cannot allow myself to enjoy sharing my thoughts on a book I read, I may as well be snorting cocaine off a dirty gas station bathroom counter like every other party loving young adult my age (I despise parties, more of a kickback individual), and what a paradoxical statement for me to make because if anyone were to ever pulled coke out in front of me, I would scream to the top of my Scot-Irish, Black ass lungs. To each their own, and I digress. Moral of this pre-thought dump, review hybrid rambling: I will enjoy the things that nourish my soul because if it is miserable boredom to be had with the absence of enjoyment, what is the point? I am NOT social, so it is either this or a quiet descent into madness while I simultaneously let my I.Q. drop from not reading books because ya girl is not trying to be in "da clerb" where everyone thinks they are all "fam"...F U C K my body is from this time but my soul is A N C I E N T and it R E M E M B E R S.
Sylvia Plath's merging of herself into the main character, Esther, is so haunting and made me beg the question if this was Plath's subconscious foreshadowing of the tragic taking of her own life. It made me wonder so often, even long after reading it, "Did you know it was foreshadowing all along? Or had your depression consumed you so quickly that by the time you could have noticed your own cries for help, it was too late...?"
This book will forever haunt me. It will be re-read time and time again.
"By nine in the morning, the fake, country-wet freshness that somehow seeped into overnight evaporated like the tail end of a sweet dream. Mirage-gray at the bottom of their granite canyons, the hot streets wavered in the sun, the car tops sizzled and glittered, and the dry, cindery dust blew into my eyes and down my throat." (Pg. 1)
Before Esther's character was even introduced I could relate. Her attention to the detail of her surroundings, the poetry in her comparison of the wetness of the land evaporating like the end of a dream. I knew exactly what she meant. That groggy feeling at the end of every dream, trying so quickly to grasp onto what you dreamed of to just have it slip away as you reintegrate into your waking state. I knew immediately Esther was depressed because of her tone in the beginning. I have this personal theory about people that are depressed, and it is that they pay attention to the little things and try to turn it into some sort of invisible, energetic medicine to heal and fill the void in the soul. Instead of thinking about how deeply of a pit there is inside of you, it is better to think about how a dream is like nature. Lone souls spend a lot of time in nature, which is apart of this soul medicine. I know this is probably not at all what Plath was trying to paint for her readers, for herself. But this is how my own soul reacted to that. The inner dialogue was familiar to me. It reminded me of a time I was going through an episode of my own and as I stared out the window of the car with my dull eyes, cars whipping by, thought to myself "Hm...we're all just ants on an anthill. Thriving until some asshole with a hose comes to drown us all again. But as small as the ant is, it is mighty. And there are more of them than there are their abusers. They just build again. And so will all of humanity, dancing in this cosmic cycle of destruction and salvaging peace again."
"Doreen had intuition. Everything she said was like a secret voice speaking straight out of my own bones." (Pg. 7)
Another quality I have noticed about people that experience the depths of sadness regularly- their ability to feel what is not seen. Esther failed to notice her own intuition as well. She could feel Doreen seeing into her. I relate to Doreen too in an odd way. Someone once told me "You are strange. Your eyes just look like they know things, and you always say perfectly what I feel and think but you do not know me". It is things like this that me think humans have a natural, second and unspoken language. The language of the soul. With just one look at Esther, I know and feel Doreen can see that pain because in silent moments if you listen closely enough, with every word not said, a sad person will tell you they are sad. In just one sentence, Plath showed me the connection between Esther and Doreen, and the rawness of emotion Esther felt towards being seen deeper than her skin- maybe somewhere inside her cells and DNA.
"I began to think Vodka was my drink at last. It didn't taste like anything, but it went straight down into my stomach like a sword swallower's sword and made me feel powerful and god like." (Pg. 12)
Why is it that the things that hurt people the most make them create the illusion within themselves that it is their power? I am surprised Esther didn't develop alcoholism the first time I read this. But I always wonder things about characters that the Authors don't reveal. Did Esther have drinks to soften the sharp sword of her pain in between the purgatory of pages, words, and sentences? My family has a long history of depression. And on both sides, I notice more people than not using it to run from themselves. One of my Uncle's is responsible for the fatal tragedy of his Sister's Son because he was mixing his Alcoholism with danger and stupidity. This cousin I never met had been long gone when I met that part of my family. I was 14 then, I am 27 now. And to this day that Uncle is even deeper into the pool of his vice. Because he won't face himself- he can't. And he won't, because he has so much ego, so much confidence, that he does not see the grave he is digging. I imagine Esther beyond the final words on the final page. In fact, she stepped out of that room of nightmares at the end and she became a sword swallower. She conquered a lot of fear and discovered that her power was more abundant than it was depleted. She made family with freaks, and together they healed and shared their stories to inspire people like them- people that are fighting wars inside themselves. To show them they can still feel human again, long after survived overdoses and psychiatric hospital and treatment.
"The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence, it was my own silence." (Pg. 18)
A line has never hit me harder in my entire life than this one. You know those moments when the light inside of you fizzles out after a long period of mental exhaustion? Your previous passions and love for every day life not igniting your flame like they once used to do and overall just feel like an empty shell, but one that still lives. It really isn't the silence around that is depressing. It is the one that turns into a void inside of you, swallowing up every sentence cause you've lost the desire to speak anything. Holy fuck, Sylvia Plath...an ironic, eye-opening shame that your recognition followed your demise. Reminds me of that little phrase people say, "Nobody cares until you're either Rich or Dead.
"I meditate in the bath. The water needs to be very hot, so hot you can barely stand putting your foot in it. Then you lower yourself, inch by inch, till the water's up to your neck." (Pg. 19)
"I never feel so much myself as when I'm in a hot bath." (Pg. 20)
"But I guess I feel about a hot bath the way those religious people feel about holy water." (Pg. 20)
As an adamant believer in the healing powers of a nice hot bath, I will say there is nothing like scalding hot water to burn your inner demons away. And in a weird way, it makes me feel like I'm in some sort of cosmic void- a womb of solitude if you will.
Overall, I probably enjoyed this depressing book a little too much- but what can I say. The best forms of art are the ones that make you feel. The ending felt like...oh, whats the phrase. Oh, yes...a fever dream. Maybe it is the way I read into things- but, once I finished there I laid there and thought of all the ways she might have turned out as she moved forward, beyond the final page. Who did Esther become? Or did she not prevail and fall to the depths? Did she stick herself in an oven like Plath? These are the questions that haunt me at night about book characters. Anyway- I really hope not. I hope Esther felt the kinder hand of life.
This has been in my drafts forever...I really thought I was going to be ambitious here and go through everything I highlighted in the book- but... aIas, laziness has kicked in and I am not going to do that now. Cheers!
