I am sure there are sufficient reviews of The Bell Jar anywhere someone decides to stick his nose. However, it deserves an entry here, perhaps not an intentional review, both because of the reaction the Franklin branch librarian gave me upon check out and because, despite that reaction, I loved this book.
I have wanted to read The Bell Jar for quite some time now simply because of a friend’s personal relationship with the book. So my second review of the book from the librarian: “Get ready. This is depressing,” wasn’t necessarily shocking, but it did question whether I would be able to finish.
Plath’s story follows a successful academic college girl to New York City to a prize winning job with a top fashion magazine as a Junior Editor. On the surface the book is about her descent into an all-consuming depression, which Plath describes as being enclosed in a bell jar: “black and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream.” While absolutely the book is about this depression, I did not find the book depressing, as the librarian forewarned. Maybe my opinion is skewed because I have just returned from a pretty negative year working in publishing in an east coast city, but I see Plath’s story as a comfortable and friendly way to discuss difficult and painful periods of a person’s life. Despite the subject matter, the prose is light, jovial and unassuming. This is not a depressing story, but this is an important story. And since it is easy to read, I recommend it especially to any young person, just trying to make his future.
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