The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

I bought this book after I realised that my library barely contained any books written by female authors. There was a hand-written staff review on a small sticker on the shelf where the book was standing. Something about the book being the author's only novel and that it was a beautiful read. Now that I'm finished with the book, I'd say that it is beautifully written, but it is by no means a beautiful read.

In a nutshell, the subject of the book is mental illness. The disease is presented to us through the eyes and mind of Esther Greenwood, a college student who is aspiring to become a writer. The novel begins with a healthy Esther experiencing work in what appears to be a publishing house, along with other selected students. Esther's observations about her surroundings are vivid, and she often takes the time to dissect the situations that capture her mind. This was interesting, because as a male reader (who appears to unintentionally prefer works by male authors), I experienced reading the mind of a woman for the first time!

Anyway, the narration is presented in a way that you can tell the author was a poet. The pace of the prose, whether it was to introduce a new character or a key fact, is presented in such a way that left me wondering how such a bitter and difficult subject can be treated so gently. By the time Esther is at her worst and having suicidal thoughts, I wondered when exactly she got to this stage and whether a single incident caused her downfall. Plath definitely followed the 'do but don't explain' rule with this book. Most of the book is about Esther describing her observations and actions without complaining about how she feels and why she feels the way she does. I interpreted this as a way of Plath telling us one of the most important often-misunderstood characterstics of depression, that there is no 'why' that explains depression. Sometimes, it just 'is'.

The book is a great read and I am glad that I came across it. It is not a light read and care should be taken if you decide to open it when you're not in the best of moods. On a final note, I was sad to read that the novel was a semi-autobiography, and that Sylvia Plath committed suicide herself a few years after the release of this book. It was even more heartbreaking to read that her son committed suicide last year after struggling with depression himself.