The Bell Jar audiobook

There are many who have read The Bell Jar and absolutely loved it. I am gladly considering myself one of them. I was a little caught of guard when I read a few reviews of The Bell Jar comparing it to The Catcher in the Rye stating how it's the female version of it. I liked Catcher but I know there are many people who didn't and upon hearing that may be similar to Catcher not have the desire to read it. I assure you, The Bell Jar is a book all on it's own and should not be compared to any other book... even as a compliment.When I first started reading the book I was a little put off, feeling it was an extremely pretensious novel. Her descriptions were crisp and precise, often using words that one rarely hears spoken or even read. I went into the novel knowing that Plath was a poet and felt that at first the book was just another form of her poetry and her showing off her writing abilities. But that only remained within the first two pages, because after that I became absorbed. The writing that I was a little sketchy about at first helped me visualize the setting and get to know the characters. And though Plath never really described many characters as to their personality, I began to feel I knew them all intimately.Strangely enough, if you remember in my last review, what bothered me most about The Good Earth did not bother me in The Bell Jar. Because the Esther, the character we are following, is slowly descending into madness, time no longer matters. There are a few times I was confused about the timeline, but it did not upset me. The book really spoke to me because of my own personal experiences with depression and suicide. It spoke to me as a woman and my views on sex and the confusion I'm sure most other girls out there face. It's amazing that this book was written and published over 30 years ago, really, when a new woman was coming out into the world. I have a feeling that this book helped women realize that they're not alone, and brought things to light that most people have commonly shoved aside; women and men. But what else is amazing is how relevant these topics still are today. Specifically with suicide, and specifically about the virtue and pureness of women compared to men.So I guess that is why The Bell Jar is often compared to The Catcher in the Rye, with it's discussions and writings of often controversial titles. Setting off a new generation of writers, styles, and people. Another book also came to mind as I was reading, and that was The Perks of Being a Wallflower. There are moments when I could make a few direct comparisons between the two. With Esther slowly seperating herself from socialization and sinking deeper into her own thoughts and depression. Analyzing things that go on around her and her surroundings. Very reminscent of Perks.If you feel you're suffering from depression, madness, confusion about topics pertaining to society and sex, or just looking for a good read, The Bell Jar is definetly the book for you. I also advise, if you're seriously suffering from depression, to get help for yourself. There is no shame in it, and getting help is better than ending your life. Even if you need to go on medication, DO NOT feel ashamed, especially if it's going to help you even more.

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”Phenomenal. Please read it. It's impeccable. Note: it definitely shows it's age with some racist descriptions of things which was a bummer and reminded me how lucky we are to live in 2020

“To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream.”It had been a number of years since I last read Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. What I’d remembered most was how well Plath had established the mood for this story by weaving the electrocutions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg with the mental breakdown of her heroine, Esther Greenwood. But the story is definitely about Esther, her ambition, and her own feelings of inadequacy, even though (viewed from the outside) Esther would be seen as a success. What is amazing about this writing is its immersive quality; you feel Esther’s restrictive choices and alienation from her world because you ultimately realize the world she has been striving for was never in her grasp. The repeated questions (after she is being treated for her depression) about who will marry her now only reinforce the notion that for the intelligent and talented Esther Greenwood, there had never been a good way to extricate herself from a trap that she had always seen coming. Very compelling narrative!

My dad went mad in the early seventies when my mom filed for divorce and took up with another man after 12 yrs of marriage. He ended up in a place called Glenn Eden here in Michigan and went through a dozen or more electric shock treatments, I remember visiting him through a window from outside the place. He eventually recovered and remarried, led a normal life, but this book was kind of frightening to me, remembering that time, the atmosphere of such a place, and the stigma of mental illness.I myself suffer and am on meds, but never have I felt suicidal, I just don’t understand that frame of mind. Esther (Sylvia), I identified with her on some of her feelings, she was quite humorous, and I am sure that in the 50’s, it was very hard to live with such terrible depression. The writing was so good, I was feeling her. Hard to read knowing what eventually happened to her, but I’m glad I finally did read it. I’m sure many of us at times feel we are stuck under the bell jar.

The Bell Jar tells us the story of Esther Greenwood, a woman from Boston who comes to live in New York City. Sylvia Plath wrote this novel under the pseudonym Victor Lucas. The author passed away one month after this book was published. The public was eager to find the similarities between Esther Greenwood and Ms. Plath at that time. Esther's depression and mental breakdown, electroconvulsive therapy, and suicide attempt are all shrewdly depicted by the author. There are multiple instances where the author sharply criticizes the patriarchal society in America at that time. The search for feminine independence is portrayed brilliantly with the help of the extraordinary narrative style. This is one of the best semi-autobiographical novels that I have read. “The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence."

“because wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.”― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar4.5 to 5 starsThis was a very powerful and only partially fictional tale from Sylvia Plath. Perhaps the genre should be called autobiographical fiction (is that already a thing?). Because of this, I was very glad that the book included a short biography of Plath at the end to compare her life experiences and her experiences with writing it to the final product. While now it might only seem somewhat shocking and controversial, at the time I am sure it was a book that people may have had to sneak so that others did not realize they were reading it.The first half focused a lot on the main character’s (Esther, and therefore Plath’s) experience with the questionable behavior of men in her life. I believe what she deals with is what would now be called “toxic masculinity”. The men she meets just treat her so very wrong and they don’t even realize it. It’s as if she is not even a person, just a personality-less flesh puppet to ply with drinks and “mansplain” things to. For those who watch the show Mad Men, I was reminded of the characters Peggy and Joan in the first few seasons who are trying to breakthrough to do the work the men do but are often talked down to as they are expected to be secretaries and housewives. I imagine if a traditional “manly man” in the 60s found his wife reading this he would have likely done something drastically inappropriate to her and thought nothing of it.The second half of the book deals with depression, mental decay, and suicide. I felt so bad for Esther. She had issues, she needed help, and the help she received was so wildly inappropriate, it was infuriating. I was reminded of stories and movies from and set in that time period (Rosemary Kennedy and Angelina Jolie’s character in the Movie Changeling to name a couple) where the answer to a woman experiencing mental struggles in the 50s and 60s might be to nonchalantly toss them into a sanatorium or have them lobotomized. Men who had the same issues were not treated the same, even some that were truly mentally disturbed, while a woman battling with what might have only been mild depression or manic behavior might find themselves locked away and receiving shock treatment. If this part of the book doesn’t get you riled up, I would be surprised!It should be very telling that Plath originally released this under a pseudonym because she was afraid of the response she would receive. If you have to hide reality behind a fake name and fictionalization, then I think that proves there is something very wrong with reality.The Bell Jar is a must read. Some of the content may be hard to swallow, but it is a very powerful statement that will help humanity learn from its mistakes and avoid repeating them.

(Book 433 from 1001 books) - Victoria Lucas = The Bell Jar, Sylvia PlathThe Bell Jar is the only novel written by the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath. Originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963, the novel is semi-autobiographical, with the names of places and people changed. The book is often regarded as a roman a clef since the protagonist's descent into mental illness parallels Plath's own experiences with what may have been clinical depression or bipolar II disorder. Plath died by suicide a month after its first UK publication. The novel was published under Plath's name for the first time in 1967 and was not published in the United States until 1971, in accordance with the wishes of both Plath's husband, Ted Hughes, and her mother. The novel has been translated into nearly a dozen languages. The novel, though dark, is often read in high school English classes.عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «حباب شیشه»؛ «شیشه»؛ نویسنده: سیلویا پلات (نشر باغ)؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز سوم ماه سپتامبر سال 2006میلادیعنوان: شیشه؛ عنوان دیگر حباب شیشه؛ نویسنده: سیلویا پلات (پلت)؛ مترجم: گلی امامی؛ تهران، نیل، 1352؛ در 229ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، نقش و نگار، سال 1381؛ در 230ص؛ شابک 9646235581؛ با عنوان: حباب شیشه؛ تهران، باغ نو، 1384؛ در 225ص؛ شابک 9647425295؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده امریکا - سده 20مداستان دختری به نام «استر گرینوود» شیفته‌ ی پسری به نام «بادی» می‌شود؛ با گذشت زمان «استر» درمی‌یابد که او هیچ شباهتی به همسر ایده‌ آل او ندارد و ناگزیر از او جدا می‌شود؛ در این هنگام، «استر» به بیماری روانی دچار و دست به خودکشی می‌زند، حال آن که مادرش او را از مرگ نجات می‌دهد و «استر» در آسایشگاه روانی بستری می‌گردد و.....؛ «حباب شیشه» رمان شبه‌ زندگی‌نامه‌ ای اثر «سیلویا پلات» شاعر «آمریکایی» است، که در سال 1963میلادی منتشر شد، و تنها رمان ایشان به شمار می‌رود؛ «سیلویا پلات» این اثر را با نام مستعار «ویکتوریا لوکاس» منتشر، و یک ماه پس از آن خودکشی کردند؛ «حباب شیشه» شباهت بسیاری با زندگی واقعی «سیلویا پلات» دارد، و چنین به نظر می‌رسد که تنها اسامی شخصیت‌ها و مکان‌ها تغییر کرده‌ اند؛ «سیلویا پلات» در این شاهکار تحسین شده و جاودان، با چنان ظرافتی خوانشگر را به دنیای ذهنی در حال نابودی «استر» میبرد، که جنون و دیوانگی این شخصیت، کاملا ملموس و حتی منطقی و عقلانی جلوه میکند؛ رمان «حباب شیشه»، کاوشی ژرف، در تاریکترین و مخوفترین گوشه و کنارهای ذهن بشر است، و پیروزی شگرف و اثر کلاسیکی جاودان به شمار میآید، اثر به زبان‌های بسیاری ترجمه شده و با وجود درونمایه ی تیره‌ اش در دبیرستان‌های کشورهای انگلیسی‌ زبان به عنوان متن درسی استفاده می‌شود...؛از سیلویا پلات پنج دفتر شعر برجای مانده است: «بچه غول (1960میلادی)»؛ «کلوسوس و اشعار دیگر (1962میلادی)»؛ «آریل (1965میلادی)»؛ «گذر از آب (1971میلادی)»؛ «درختان زمستانی (1972میلادی)»؛ «مجموعه اشعار (1981میلادی)»؛ تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 07/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 16/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

i kept putting off this book, because i’m not really into classics, and i thought it would be super banal, but i was pleasantly surprised at how invested i became in esther’s story. i believe the bell jar’s cultural stronghold is well deserved, as it was truly ahead of its time. it contains excellent themes of gender roles, existentialism, and psychiatric treatment (particularly the barbaric and apathetic practices of the 1950s). it’s interesting to read early “feminist” works, since we’ve come such a long way that a book like this would seem rudimentary in the grand scheme of feminist lore. i found myself relating to this book quite a lot, and it made me extremely contemplative. the beginning is pretty boring, as well as the end, but the really deep stuff lies in the middle. like most classics, this book has a handful of racist moments, and i’m glad that we live in a world that now denounces ignorance in literature. the bell jar felt almost eerie to read because of the context in relation to the life and death of sylvia plath—the book is mostly autobiographical, and she killed herself just one month after its publication. this novel helped catalyze the larger conversation surrounding mental health and feminism, which in my opinion, makes it worthy of a read and of its praise.

This is a disturbingly frightening journey through the mind of a young girl suffering from depression in the 1950's. How far we have come in the last few decades in recognizing depression as a mental illness and treating it with much less radical techniques than electric shock. Ester Greenwood is 19 and her future is just starting to unfold. Yet, day by day, she is questioning herself: her capabilities, her confidence, who she is, and what does it mean. Her thoughts turn dark and helplessness envelopes her in a tight, downward spiral. Plath captures the emotional characterization of depression and the utter helplessness that accompanies it. I truly felt like I was living this horror with her. 4+ ★