The Bell Jar

I finally finished reading the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath last weekend. I had to take a break so I could finish the Da Vinci Code, which was fascinating for its content but rather anticlimactic (sp?). Anyway, The Bell Jar was wonderful, however deeply disturbing. I read the whole thing without knowing exactly what a bell jar was which was stupid because things would have made a hell of a lot more sense if I did know. For those of you who don’t know a bell jar is “a cylindrical glass vessel with a rounded top and an open base, used to protect and display fragile objects or to establish a vacuum or a controlled atmosphere in scientific experiments.” Specifically, the book mentions fetus in bell jars when the main character, Esther, visits a hospital with her med-school student boyfriend. I think the title is supposed to be a metaphor, feelings of confinement and suffocation that Esther felt from having to endure all the societal pressures and conventional expectations (marriage, kids vs. career, becoming a poet) of her time. It was a great book! Her poetry is wonderful too. I’ve included one at the end of this entry. There’s supposed to be a movie out based on her life, staring Gwyneth Paltrow. Apparently, Plath’s daughter is very upset that they’ve made the movie and feels like they are trying to glamorize her suicide (which was highly unusual, she stuck her head in an oven and gased herself to death). I’ll watch it for Paltrow’s acting. Speaking of which I just heard that Paltrow and her Cold Play boyfriend just got hitched and are expecting a baby in the summer. Yay for them!

Mad Girl’s Love Song

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)”

~Sylvia Plath