The Bell Jar in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Dec 05, 2013 Sarah rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, classics, american-fiction, young-adult-fiction

I thought I would like this book better. And I did enjoy reading it and wanted to follow the story. Pros: I appreciate the focus on mental health; we still have far too big a taboo around talking about mental health. The novel is also avowedly-feminist, and my favorite scenes in the book were often focused on various forms of physical and structural violence against women. The books's partly- (or mostly-?) autobiographical nature also made it compelling to read, even for a avid fan of fiction. B I thought I would like this book better. And I did enjoy reading it and wanted to follow the story. Pros: I appreciate the focus on mental health; we still have far too big a taboo around talking about mental health. The novel is also avowedly-feminist, and my favorite scenes in the book were often focused on various forms of physical and structural violence against women. The books's partly- (or mostly-?) autobiographical nature also made it compelling to read, even for a avid fan of fiction. But, cons: For a novel known for its focus on mental health, it was disappointing that the best scenes - with a few exceptions, like the scene in which Esther learns about her second round of ECT - focused on her identity as a woman (and that's coming from someone who strongly identifies with feminism). It was also disconcerting that by implication, the novel seems to link societal pressures on women with "madness" in some literary sense, and I'm not sure we need any more linkage of all things female with "hysteria." (Although I know that perhaps my reaction on this particular theme is ahistorical - but that's what makes literature classic, no? Continued relevance over time. If it ceases to be contextually-appropriate, it falls out of the canon, or at least that's what we hope happens.) Finally, even after narrating several very frightening incidents or relationships - not just the ECT, but also the attempted rape, as well as her relationships with both Buddy Willard and her mother - Esther's circumstances and voice still sound very privileged to me. Scholarships, New England, New York, internship at a prestigious magazine illustrate one aspect of this privilege, but the repeated, racist comments are hard to ignore. Given the time period, especially - the 1960s - it's hard to excuse that piece of it, and it made it difficult for me to empathize with Esther at a lot of points in the book. I'm not sure if knowing that the book is autobiographical should make me feel better or worse about some of these issues I have with it. ...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Lori rated it it was ok

Shelves: book-club, audio

I think I may have been skewed by my expectations of greatness, and possibly the impressively depressing narrator on the audio version. I found myself mostly despising the annoying and vacuous Esther for most of the book, only beginning to like her as she went crazy. Oh well.

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Aug 22, 2008 Krystal rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

I read The Bell Jar a few months ago and I was really frustrated with stylistic aspects of the book as I was reading it. However, it has been growing on me a bit with time. I think about it more than I usually think about books I recently read, and I think that has to count for something. Shall we say I'm ambivalent? ...more

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