The Bell Jar

I loved the main character of this book. It was an enjoyable read, although sometimes tricky to follow. I think this is because it is about a character with significant mental health problems. I would recommend the book to others

Our group were gifted books from Faber and we loved talking about the book as a group. Below are some of our reviews:

Claire
The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. I’ve heard about this book but it has taken me until 57 to read it! Reading about Esther’s breakdown was hard but so relatable (especially after the struggles over the past couple of years due to Covid). It’s a jarring and realistic telling of the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche. A very powerful book. Thank you Faber for giving us the books to read. We had some interesting and deep discussions from this book.

Angela
Based on Plath's own experience of breakdown in college, The Bell Jar charts the deterioration of protagonist Esther Greenwood's mental stability while interning for a fast-paced fashion magazine one summer in New York City. Unfortunately, Esther is struggling to fight off a psychological darkness that eventually leads to a nervous breakdown. The breakdown that Esther Greenwood experiences in the novel is a portrayal of the breakdown that Plath suffered at age twenty. It is a powerful book that is beautifully written.

Becky
This is a disturbingly frightening journey through the mind of a young girl suffering from depression in the 1950's. The novel captures the effects of depression and the utter helplessness that can come from it. I truly felt like I was living this horror with her. Ester is 19 and it was powerful reading as her thoughts turn dark and she goes into a downward spiral. This is something I never would have read and I’m glad I did.

Kay
It was an interesting and fast read. I enjoyed the deep dive into women's mind and world. I didn’t know a lot about Sylvia Plath, but now I really want to read her other work.

I found this book interesting - I had heard of Sylvia Plath, but more for her poetry and her relationship with Ted Hughes than as a novelist. It must have been ground breaking back in 1953, when I'm sure menual health (and presumably mental health of women) wasnt spoken about in public at all. I liked some of the prose in the book, but overall I found it pretty depressing and it took me a long while to steel myself to finish it. I'm glad I've read it though!

Asva woman of a certain age who has always had her nose in a book it's odd I'd never read this one before; however, better late than never. I was aware of who Plath was, what happened to her. I think when younger I was put off, scared it would be difficult or too depressing. At 60+ I was afraid I'd left it too late to empathise with the perspective of young Esther, but it was a Book Club pick. Well, I loved it.

The writing is clear and precise, insightful and incisive. As I expected. What surprised me was the dark humour. Depressingly relevant too despite many advances secured by women since it was written. Plath describes Esther's struggles with mental health so you feel her slow breakdown, too painful at times, simply heartbreaking. I love how she brings in the electrocution of the Rosenbergs, foreshadowing, menacing and symbolic. Despite its heavy subject matter the tone is light and chatty, very readable- I finished it in one sitting. I liked Esther and the book is now one of my favourites.

What a book. I read it without knowing anything about either the book or the author and it wasn't what I expected at all. I'm not sure4 I can honestly say it was a pleasant surprise as it's not really the kind of book that comes into the category of "pleasant". It was however, quite brilliant. It almost has a naive, simplistic quality to it, despite the fact that the subject matter is anything but. Ultimately it is a very honest, but very sad book about depression and the way it can take over a person's life. Well worth a read.

It is mid-1950's when we are introduced to Ester Greenwood, a young highly successfull academic woman who gets a summer intership working at a prominent magazine in New York. She aspires to be an author and hopes that this will be her stepping stone into publishing. Instead of finding New York and her job to be exilerating and stimulating, she finds the lifestyle and culture to be frightening and finds herself to be disoriented and disillusioned. She struggles with the party culture in which she finds herself. After several extremely bad experiances she packs up and returns home to Boston hoping to find the scholarly environment she sought in a writing course taught by a world-famous author but instead is told by her mother that she was not accepted.
This thows her into an emotianl tail-spin.
Her whole identity is tied up in her academic success and without that she feels empty. None of the usual feminine opportunities available to her, marriage and motherhood, stenography, teaching, etc., are appealing. Thus begins her descent into depression with it's unending darkness. Her life becomes one dark experience after another.
Sylvia Plath describes this life as being in a Bell Jar, a scientific instrument that is a sealed glass dome out of which the air is sucked forming a vacuum inside. She saw her own life as being in a Bell Jar slowly sufficating to death. "The Bell Jar" is the author's semi-autobiographical description of her own battle with mental health. Sadly she committed suicide and never saw her only novel published. Indeed it was published in 1963 in England under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" but under the author's own name in 1967. However, it was not published in the United States until 1971.

I’ve had this book on my shelf for years and don’t think I’d read it before, so luckily it came up as a TBR for my book club. I enjoyed every page of it, and can understand why it’s considered a ‘modern classic’. Despite being written in 1963 it has a currency about it. The flat, unemotional and matter of fact writing style reflects the state of mind of the narrator, Esther, and there’s a poetic quality to many of her descriptions. She recounts her daily life and the events leading up to a sharp downturn in her mental health, and her subsequent treatment. The book is a real rollercoaster - some events and conversations are humorous, others completely heartbreaking, and all combine to give credible insight into the life of this young single woman in 1950s America. The Bell Jar is recognised as autobiographical (we might even call it autofiction now) and reading it with the knowledge of Sylvia Plath’s own struggles with depression and her tragic suicide makes it all the more poignant.

Interesting look at life in 50's but extremely depressing. A constant feeling that Esther does not feel she fits into the life she is leading but does not have the strength to lead a different type of life or be truly happy.

Read this through my reading group, this is not my usual genre and not something I would have usually picked up.

This was an emotional and psychological account of a young womans struggle with poor mental health and depression. Set in the 1950's the semi autobiographical account of the protagonist Esther sees herself through others eyes, and how she struggles to understand her own interpretation of life.

I found this book to be (i don't want to say enjoyable, as the subject of poor Mental Health, is not enjoyable) so insightful i feel is more appropriate. I often felt whilst reading this that I was being taken on a journey through the author's mind and thought processes, it had humourous undertone in places, but also conflict, guilt, tragedy and loss.

I would recommend this book. After reading this I learnt a little more about the author and her struggles with depression, and her suicide.

I feel reading this book has made me more aware that everyone faces challenges in life, but often put up a facade.

I read this book through my book club, and it isn’t my usual type of book.

However, I enjoyed it. I didn’t know anything about Sylvia Plath prior to reading the book, so, on reading previous reviews after I finished it, I was quite surprised to read how disturbing some people found it. I hadn’t realised she went on to commit suicide later, so with the benefit of hindsight I can now see how that might be. I thought it was quite amusing in places, and it was a true reflection of how things were in the 1950s.

am always a bit wary of books hailed as modern masterpieces, so my heart sank when this was chosen as one of the set books at my book club. Now I've read it I can understand all the plaudits! This story is powerful and unremittingly bleak, and has a brevity of language that succinctly sets the scene and mood. Having read a little about the mental health struggles of the author, I was intensely moved by this book.

It is said The Bell Jar is an autobiographical reflection of the author’s life and on many levels it appears so. I enjoyed this book very much as it is a multi-layered, insightful and fascinating story. From wanting to be a writer, to spirally into depression, to undergoing shock treatment, and to worrying about her sexual experience, Sylvia Plath takes the reader on a roller coaster journey. Things start out upbeat for the main character Esther, but the book highlights the insidious nature of mental illness and the effect it has on the promising young life of the protagonist. Plath uses humour, deep personal insight, and reflection to illustrate the theme of mental health and its impact, including the horror of electroconvulsive treatment. In parts it is distressing to read, but well worth the effort.

Sylvia Plath suffered from clinical depression for most of her adult life. In her own words, this book was "an autobiographical apprentice work which I had to write in order to free myself from the past".

I am ashamed to say that I not only missed out on this book first time round, but I also knew very little about Sylvia Plath, the author. As it has become such an iconic book, almost a cult in its day, in order to do the book justice I decided that I should do a little research on the author before I started reading it and I am very glad that I did. It gave an extra layer of meaning to the book, changing it from a novel to a living, breathing, and very personal memoir. Sylvia Plath was renowned for her confessional poetry, she may even have been instrumental in bringing the genre to the fore. This book is an extension of that genre and is archetypal confessional prose. Although technically a novel, by Sylvia’s own admission it is an embellished version of various incidents in her life. The book definitely has the feel of an autobiography. In fact I don’t believe it could really be anything else - the observations, the raw emotions and the desperation are all too poignant to have come from anywhere other than personal experience.
It is extraordinary. I don’t think that this is the kind of book that I really want to admit to enjoying. Enjoyment is just not the right word, but it is a fantastic book. It is very moving, very tragic and very sad. It had such a profound effect on me that I had two very vivid nightmares while reading it, both of which were related to events in the book and both were terrifying. I learnt a lot about the misery and horror of depression, the sheer helplessness in the face of such a momentous and powerful condition and the ability it has to reduce the sufferer to an almost vacant state of being, from which death seems the only escape.
There were times when the book seemed like an elaborate suicide note. It felt almost as though, having written it and explained to her audience (family, friends and the public) the struggles that she had been dealing with for most of her short life, she now felt liberated and able to allow herself the freedom from life which she had been craving - she did actually end her own life shortly after the book was published. Having said that, it is difficult to tell what frame of mind the author was in at the time of writing. There are some uplifting and positive moments, but these become fewer as the book progresses.

I cannot think of anything I would change about this book. Even if I had reservations (which I don’t) I’m not sure if it would be right to voice them. This is the story of a very personal and very painful journey and I am in no position to criticise.

Would I recommend this book? Absolutely I would. With the caveat that it may not be everybody’s cup of tea and that some people may find it traumatic.

I found this book to be a honest and believable portrait of a young woman finding out that the world isn't quite as thrilling as she first thought.
The descent into depression of the main character is compelling yet sad to read.

I thought that The Bell Jar was a good book however wasn't written as well as I had anticipated. I think that Sylvia Plath is an over rated writer but I would reccomend this book to someone else.

A novel written by an American writer, wrote in the style of a semi-autobiographical piece.

I found it an interesting read and liked how she included her personal exoperiences, would definetley recommend to someone else. I thought it was very emotive which really drew me into the story and the characters.

This semi-autobiographical book is a great read. Plath's narrator battles with mental health issues and adjusting to life as a young woman in New York, beginning to push the boundaries of what is acceptable for a bright, talented and ambitious individual.
The narrator can be a little annoying at times because she is so self-interested, but it does reveal a person tormented by past events and the internal and external pressures on a younf woman in 1950s America.