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The Bell Jar

by

Sylvia Plath

The Bell Jar
average rating is 4 out of 5

Psychological, Fiction, Classics

Richard Alex Jenkins

Don't worry about a thing.


You may not be going down a rabbit hole of madness by reading this book.


I don't know what I was expecting?


Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or The Great Gatsby.


Nails on blackboards.

Concrete walls with smashed up broom handles and puckered holes in them?

Screaming.

Ghosts.

BODIES?

Padded rooms, ruffled by scuffles with uncaring nurses and angry assistants.


Nope!

Not that.


If this is what mental illness feels like I'll have a double serving, please, with mashed potatoes thrown at the wall.


Clean up your own mess!

This is a nice book.


No body horror or splattered veins spewing up the red rum in the bathroom.

No "honey, I'm home!"


I'll have another slice of lemon in my daiquiri, darling, chin-chin, fancy another nine holes before lunch at Tiffany's?


That's more like it.

You may not get it?

At all.


Subtlety is a vague veil of obscurity cast before the eyes as blinkered and hidden madness.


And that's the key, isn't it?

Mentally ill people don't know they're ill. Everyone else does, but not them. Riding a bicycle into town in a dressing gown with a tea-cozy perched on your head, it's perfectly normal. Choo-choo here comes the train through the teapot spout. Is that a mouth, or is that a nose? No, it's an ear!


I see a mad, stripey grin coming on.


The subtlety of the writing style.


Witnessing the world through the eyes of Esther Greenwood, a privileged girl who gets progressively crazier but doesn't even realize it.


No histrionics, no violence, no dunking babies head first into the toilet bowl.


If you're looking for shock-horror, I'll admit, I was, you won't find it here.


This is a semi-stream of consciousness told through the eyes of a young woman who literally goes out of her mind.


Four stars for an insightful read about mental health issues, which generated this creative review.


Get me outta here!

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