The Bell Jar

“before she goes to the mental hospital it's a romp about a young college girl who wants to be a writer in the big city for the first time.”

“Timeless, in that it fucked me up when I was 17 and fucked me up for entirely different reasons when I was 37. 5/5”

“When I think of performative male, the Bell Jar is the Bible. But you know what, maybe it deserves it place in the sacred halls and maybe I'm the churches disciple. This was recommended to me when I wanted to start being serious about reading more than one book every few years. I had just started becoming used to Boston after moving from California on somewhat of a whim a couple years earlier. Symbolically this may have been the perfect start to a journey of growth and pathfinding as Esther in her journey, struggles with the curse of possibility. How choice and commitment can drive someone to the very edge if you're unable to let go of expectation. And maybe how to hope in the eyes of the inevitable void. The coincidence of being somewhat fresh to Boston while following Plaths story here as well felt very special to me. Following a lost soul through the streets that I had been becoming more and more aware of. Then the incredible spark once I realized her targetted location was one I so frequently walked and explored and had become so special to me. Her childhood home still standing, being one I drive by nearly every day. Her father, buried nearby, an entomologist who studied bees (bees are my favorite animal). Maybe that's the most spiritually close I had felt to literature by that time, like a ghost guiding me through their footsteps. There's a lot I don't have in common with Esther/Slyvia. So although I did not have the absolute privilege of navigating the world in the 1950s as a woman seriously battling their mental health while being totally disregarded and tortured by the very people that were supposed to be helping (feels wrong writing anything after this 🚬). I do know what it means to be lost, while still finding the courage to see hope.”

“Embarrassed to admit that I got introduced via 10 Things I Hate About You but alas one treasure begat the other.”

“"The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath was a big first step in my feminist awakening. It's definitely more white-centric than many also amazing books by Black feminists, but this one was a personal starting point.”

“I found it relatable and reassuring to know that I wasn't the only one to feel a bit unfocused, untethered and worried a misstep might throw off the trajectory of my life. I can't say it resolved everything for me, but I guess I felt less alone in the struggle.”

“pg.240 rating: 4.5/5 “i saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. from the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. one fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was ee gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was europe and africa and south america, and another fig was constant in and socrates and attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs i couldn't quite make out. i saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because i couldn't make up my mind which of the figs i would choose. i wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as i sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.” (plath, p.77) i think there are certain books you read that fundamentally alter the way you perceive the world, and for me, nothing has ever come close to this passage (and this book (but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its flaws)). i don't think i'll ever be able to look at the idea of choice, possibility or even the passage of time in quite the same way again. there is something so utterly beautiful and devastating about the realization that a life full of possibilities can be just as paralyzing as one without any. that we can become so consumed by all the lives we could potentially live that we forget to actually live the one happening in front of us. and what makes this passage so affecting is that it captures a kind of grief we don't often acknowledge. the grief of all the people we will never become, all the futures we will never experience and all the versions of ourselves we must inevitably leave behind or let go. i think there is a particular sadness in recognizing that indecision is not the absence of a choice. that time continues to pass regardless of whether we're ready to make one. and there is something both terrifying and (strangely) liberating about understanding that we cannot preserve every possibility forever (even if we wanted to). to choose a life is, in some sense, to mourn the others but it is also the only way we ever really get to live one. seriously i adore this quote so much that it was in my convocation speech lol.”

“I fear she is the only person who has ever conveyed how I feel”

“It’s a classic for a reason!”

“Because it’s a classic for a reason”