The Bell Jar

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I felt the book as a whole was a little boring. But there are a few things that were really close to my heart..

Given the fact that she lived in the mid 1900s, I feel amazed at her way of looking at things:

"I tried to imagine what it would be like if Constantin were my husband. It would mean getting up at seven and cooking him eggs and bacon and toast and coffee and dawdling about in my nightgown and curlers after he'd left for work to wash up the dirty plates and make the bed, and then when he came home after a lively, fascinating day he'd expect a big dinner, and I'd spend the evening washing up even more dirty plates till I fell into bed, utterly exhausted.

This seemed a dreary and wasted life for a girl with fifteen years of straight A's, but I knew that's what marriage was like, because cook and clean and wash was just what Buddy Willard's mother did from morning till night, and she was the wife of a university professor and had been a private school teacher herself."

This is exactly how i feel about life. And Ms. Plath had written this as early as 1963. that's amazing. Finally i feel i am not alone in this world with such feelings. I have company :)

A beautiful fact that could not have been put in better words:
"No matter how much you knelt and prayed, you still had to eat three meals a day and have a job and live in the world."

And then comes the ultimate truth:

"I also remembered Buddy Willard saying in a sinister, knowing way that after I had children I would feel differently, I wouldn't want to write poems any more. So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state."

These were bits of the book that made me think, "Really??!! I feel like I am reading my mind. Looks like someone read my mind and wrote it down for me to read"!!


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