In association with publishers Faber and Faber we selected five lucky reading groups to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Sylvia Plath’s modern classic, The Bell Jar. The groups have all been busy reading and John Horak, a member of the all-male Hertfordshire Book Group is our first champion to send in a review. John offers his own thoughts on whether The Bell Jar is still relevant in today’s society, 50 years after first publication.
John’s review
I started reading The Bell Jar sceptical – how can such iconic status be bestowed on a writer on the basis of one novel and a book or two of poetry?
In short the book deserves its reputation because the story is true and frightening, gripping, inspirational and as relevant today for women (and men) everywhere – even more so given the continued cultural, institutional and economic world-wide assault on the status of women.
Plath describes how Esther goes through a steady process of breakdown as the contradictions between her aspirations and her position as a woman become clear to her in her New York internship as a bright young person used to school and college success.
I found the book gripping because her ability with words and imagery is so effective in evoking a scene. Plath writes economically and vividly.
Esther and Doreen start the evening by setting off to a boring business ball, but on the way get picked up by Lenny Shepherd and some mates, land up at his apartment – ( “I wouldn’t have missed Lenny’s place for anything” ), – he spikes their drinks…
Later Doreen arrives back at Esther’s hotel room completely drunk after being drugged by Lenny. Esther has earlier narrowly escaped the same fate by ditching her partner and leaving Lenny’s apartment.
Esther’s demonstrates clear understanding of her own predicament – she knows Doreen is the exciting one, leading to new experiences which she craves, but she also knows that these are dangerous and destructive: “I will watch her and listen to what she said, but deep down I would have nothing at all to do with her.”
However her insight does not save her personal morale, and her feeling of self-worth deteriorates steadily in the face of the continual onslaught from all sides – Jay Cee, her boss at the “premier and intellectual” Ladies’ Day magazine is telling her to get three, preferably four languages so she can go straight to the Times, while her mum is telling her to do shorthand so she can service up and coming young male executives!
I say it is true and frightening for me because it captures exactly the puritanical and hypocritical morality and stereotypical gender expectations my sister I experienced as adolescents in the fifties and early sixties.
Plath describes the hypocrisy faced by Esther in a debate over several pages (pp 74 – 82), using Esther’s discovery of Buddy’s first sexual encounter with a waitress, her subsequent encounter with Eric who made it clear that sex was with whores, and that he would keep the woman he loved free of all that dirty business, the Reader’s Digest article by a married lawyer on ‘The Defence of Chastity’.
Esther makes the point that the debate “did not consider how the girl felt.” And she then meets Constantine, the first man to have intuition. At this point she is so confused she doesn’t make it with him.
The book is inspirational too. You don’t get easy ways out, happy endings or knights in shining armour.
You do get her break-down, her confused treatment by mental health professionals, the help given by a motley collection of strong and successful women, her own strength of character, and increasing ability to handle contradictions.
The madhouses Esther goes through are full of women who are casualties from Peyton Place, and Esther gets pretty mad herself, by somehow keeping enough sanity to climb out. This is mainly through the help or observation of women who themselves have learnt a way through the jungle: Philomena Guinea the Mill’s and Boon millionaire writer, spinster, her sponsor and who gets her signed in to her own mental hospital; Dr Nolan her psychiatrist at this mental hospital who is the first Esther can trust and is able to nurse her through in spite of a hiccup; Joan and Mrs Savage, two lesbians in the hospital who show how the trap they have had to negotiate back in normality has led them to ‘insanity’; Jay Cee and her baggy clothing (Merkel?) who pushes Esther beyond her limits.
What Esther begins to see is that these women, with their warts and all, have found a way through the contradictions. So she is able to get out of the hospital and do what is mostly on her mind: get a cap fitted, go and lay her first bloke on her terms and so equalize up with the Buddies, Lennies and Erics she has come across. Her description of doing exactly this is confident, sharp and funny: “I decided to practice my new , normal personality on this man… it was only after seeing Irwin’s study that I decided to seduce him”
Like all great literature, the lessons are based on down to earth experience. Careful, vivid, succinct writing about specific actions makes Plath’s book worth reading and passing on to my children fifty years after it was published.
They (all in their twenties, two girls and a boy) will find it just as relevant as we did – surely the test for any book.
Get involved
Have you been reading The Bell Jar with your reading group? We would love to hear your thoughts! Either comment below or email us.
Meet all the groups involved in our The Bell Jar at 50 project.
