The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

“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.”

Aching and illuminating and everything a novel should be. The Bell Jar feels like your own little dialogue between Plath and the innermost parts of yourself. The confessional current that pours so fluently through The Bell Jar is intimate in a way that is unparalleled in its enlightenment and almost uncomfortable in its earnestness. 

So much of Sylvia Plath’s writing feels like having a conversation with her soul. Personally, the plot feels somewhat insignificant to me, and what really stayed in my thoughts throughout my many years of knowing this book is Esther’s (Sylvia’s) internal chronicles that we are allowed to observe and digest. Beautiful book, especially if you are a woman (and a writer). 

Don’t let your figs rot!

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again.”