The Bell Jar

Name: The Bell Jar
Author: Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath

— 1963 —

“

Esther Greenwood's descent into depression, told with Plath's terrifying precision.

The record

Time
An eveningA season
262 pages, about 5 hours: four-fifths the length of a typical book on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climb
One reader calls the opening slow to start and quits at page 156; another calls the first half boring before the hospital section.
What it gives
Plot and actionIdeas to live by
In 10 reviews from critics and book blogs, 2 credit the plot and 5 credit the ideas or a change in how they live.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else does
Two book blogs set it beside The Catcher in the Rye; a 1971 New York Times review imagines Salinger’s Franny writing it.

on the opening
“the stunning first paragraph of the book”
Robert Scholes · The New York Times, 1971
on the fig passage
“I found so many of Esther’s thoughts uncomfortably relatable, especially the well-known ‘fig passage’”
five stars · a book blog
on Esther’s voice
“That girl’s inner dialogue was something else.”
Olivia Barbera · The Hill News, 2024
on Esther’s mind
“You really felt like you were in the mind of a mentally ill person”
a book blog

on the structure
“a pain to follow”
a book blog
on the depth
“an absence of weight and complexity sufficient to the subject”
Saul Maloff · The New Republic, 1971
on the humor
“an interestingly cold, unfriendly humor”
Elizabeth Hardwick · The New York Review of Books, 1971
on the pace
“It was very slow to get going”
a book blog