I’ve meant to read The Bell Jar for years, so when I saw it would fill a hole in my A Century of Books project, I got it from the library. I was also interested in it after reading the biographical fiction Euphoria, about Sylvia Plath and her husband, Ted Hughes.
In 1953, Esther Greenwood has earned an opportunity from a major fashion magazine, an internship with a group of other girls in New York. At first, she studiously applies herself to her assignments, but she becomes distracted by her fascination with Doreen, who seems more worldly than the other girls. She is tempted out by endless partying until Doreen gets a boyfriend and Esther has several unfortunate encounters with men.
She returns home from her internship suddenly adrift. She has not been accepted into a writing program, she doesn’t want to live with her mother, and none of the careers she can think of are appealing. Everything seems gray and uninteresting.
Of course, this is the story of Esther’s fall into mental illness, wrapped up in her inability to see a path for herself aside from marriage, which she clearly fears.
The novel is clearly based on Plath’s own experiences. It is clearly and vividly written and looks deep into the psyche.
What? Me Read? 
I was halfway through this before reading Euphoria but had set it aside for a long time; I need to go back and finish it!
I read it after. One informs the other, for sure.
After reading Euphoria I also thought I needed a Plath retrospective… and then I haven’t done it! Too easily distracted by the next book that crosses my radar
That happens.
So long since I read this that I only vaguely remember it now, but I seem to remember feeling that it didn’t have quite the same powerful effect on me as her poetry.
I have to admit that I haven’t read her poetry, although she was very popular when I was in school. (I am not a poetry reader.) I got more interested in her after reading Euphoria for the Literary Wives book club.
I don’t read poetry these days either but I went through a phase in my teens and twenties, and Plath’s poetry was some of the most powerful I ever came across.
Wow! Maybe I should look at it.