9.28.2008

The Bell Jar

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. The first, more sane half, I enjoyed. The second, post-breakdown half I wasn't as intrigued by, and I'm really not sure why. The character still interested me, and the story still intrigued me, I just didn't feel as motivated to keep reading. So three stars, instead of four.

That said, Plath's presentation is engaging and easy to read--at times very funny, at times devastating. The introduction to the novel points out comparisons made by reviewers of the time to Catcher in the Rye, and it makes sense--not only the content, but especially in tone. Esther is older than Holden and certainly more mature, but both novels involve the brokenness of the world in which the protagonist functions, as well as the protagonist's inability to integrate with the world. But Plath seems to emphasize the problems with the narrator--Esther is trapped in a bell jar while the world around continues on--while Salinger points the finger at the corrupt world. And of course the difference in the narrators' genders has huge implications as well, since the pressures of wife and motherhood are such a big part of Esther's life and breakdown.

It's an all right book, but I think it's more important given Plath's fate after publication than necessarily being a truly great novel on its own. It feels imcomplete to me (says the never-published-aspiring-novelist), and I would be curious to see what other novels she might have written had she not died. Click to buy as always.

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