The Bell Jar is an ambitious work, as I read before, but it’s not a perfect novel. There are some fissures that should prevent me from giving it a 5-star rating. Nevertheless, I changed my first rating from four to five stars; it is on my “favorites” shelf, another favorite axe, and it has rekindled my feelings for Plath. I am grateful for the story she shared. And for the fate she forged for her character. I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am. Despite the darkness in which this book is immersed, a sense of hope still lingers even after finishing this somber journey. Fig trees are on solid ground, awaiting for courage, a leap of faith, life-changing decisions – meaning, beauty, uniqueness. The silence, a limpid layer which allows to admire the now splendid azure sky, is no longer an ominous sign. As a small stone is thrown into a pond, causing violent ripples that soon vanish while the former serenity is restored, such silence is interrupted briefly by the sound of glass breaking. In the midst of too much consciousness, those small shivers are a vital part of the ritual for being born twice—patched, retreaded and approved for the road.

The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way. I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters. Working as an intern for a New York fashion magazine in the summer of 1953, Esther Greenwood is on the brink of her future. Yet she is also on the edge of a darkness that makes her world increasingly unreal. Esther’s vision of the world shimmers and shifts: day-to-day living in the sultry city, her crazed men-friends, the hot dinner dances . . . E non si può non cogliere l’agghiacciante parallelo con la vicenda dei Rosenberg giustiziati sulla sedia elettrica (riguarderò il film di Lumet). Esther non vuole sottostare alle regole, si sente un pesce fuor d’acqua (in questo, certo, ricorda Holden), continua a ribellarsi alle scelte rigide e definitive (vedi il matrimonio, il promesso sposo) che le vengono imposte dall’ambiente. It does not give too much away to say that The Bell Jar is about Esther’s declining mental health. The strength of The Bell Jar, though, is partially derived from the fact that Esther, narrating in the first-person, never comes out and says, “then I went crazy.” Instead, Plath – through Esther – provides a precise, detailed, chilling presentation of Esther’s loss of sanity by describing everything with matter-of-factness. Her psychotic “breaks” are not identified as such. Rather, Esther depicts both the real and the unreal in the exact same manner, so that there is a blurring between the two.The writing is remarkably unemotional and I don't mean that as a bad thing. Esther's (or Plath's?) commentary dwells entirely on thoughts and perceptions, never feelings. Depression is so often mistaken as a form of sadness. This woman, however, is not sad. She is empty. She is a shell. She contemplates killing herself with a kind of ease that's unnerving. It's impossible to read The Bell Jar and not be affected, knowing what happened to Plath. I mean, it's everywhere. She is everywhere. All of Esther's musings are Plath's own. It's eerie. There's hardly any comfort even when Esther is freed from the bell jar; on the contrary, it's a brutal reminder that this book is ultimately, part fiction. in the intervening years, i've read some of plath's poetry in other classes, and found it a little gaudy and self-indulgent for my taste. (you can yell at me if you want to but i don't think either of those are untrue. or even really insults.) so i always wondered if the bell jar would hold up if i read it again. Esther vorrebbe poter provare tutto, non essere ingabbiata, e Plath sceglie un’immagine molto bella per esemplificare: l’albero di fichi, dove ogni frutto rappresenta una vita diversa, e il desiderio di avere tutti i frutti paralizza Esther fino a che i fichi marciscono e cadono per terra.

I saw the years of my life spaced along a road in the form of telephone poles, threaded together by wires. I counted one, two, three...nineteen telephone poles, and then the wires dangled into space, and try as I would, I couldn’t see a single pole beyond the nineteenth." Not just with the book itself, but with how many people decided to ignore the racism taking place in it. The Bell Jar tells the story of a young woman’s breakdown and recovery, but it is also a devastating critique of a paternalistic psychiatric system that regarded ambition in women as neurotic. The male psychiatrists who treat Esther have little understanding of the gendered pressures that have contributed to her breakdown: the dismissive and condescending Dr. Gordon responds to Esther’s serious need for therapeutic help with a wistful memory of pretty girls stationed at her college during the war. (Plath’s critique of psychiatry was timely: in 1953, there were 559,000 psychiatric inpatients in American mental hospitals—an all-time high.) I spent a good deal of time reflecting on Esther...the heroine in this modern classic. She is a fascinating study in female narcissism that mistakes herself for being misunderstood, special and superior to men, lesbians and those of other social classes and ethnicities. She is raised by a working class widowed mother whom Esther feels a great deal of disdain and hostility towards. Esther, however, continually struggles for her independence, dealing with her suppressed libido and I suspect significant lesbian tendencies of her own. None of this is unusual in late adolescent females who consider themselves both world weary and special.

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Years ago, as a young defense attorney, I worked the mental health beat, representing indigent clients contesting their civil commitments. Quite unexpectedly, I found it one of the more fascinating and rewarding things I’ve ever done. It was a job you could never plan for, and which could be funny, heartbreaking, and terrifying, all in the space of a few rapidly oscillating minutes in a confined space.