2026-07-21
I used to read one book every few days. With growing business of schedule, and other interests consuming more and more personal time, that number has dwindled down to one every few months. I took up The Bell Jar (by Sylvia Plath) to change that. I might not have succeeded much, considering it took me almost three months and several stretches of reading with long intervals to get through it. But I got to experience the wonderful prose of the author and the thoughtfulness behind it.
I think whatever I try to make up about the beauty and sheer intelligence of Plath's writing, will fall short. I could only dream of having written something remotely so artistic. Her words flow like a steady stream running down country hills. Not majestic like a river, not shallow like a puddle, but just the right volume to evoke the emotions inside you. This is the first book in a long time for which I had to sit down with my pencil. You can see patterns emerging in her writing. Her writing style weaving itself seamlessly through the narration of the protagonist, and none of it seems off. It felt satisfying to find them, mark them, like easter eggs.
Plath handles time jumps, a.k.a, switching between events in different times (sometimes without a chapter change even), by writing the same thing twice. She uses this as a great tool by first delivering the line, then explaining the context behind it, and then by following the natural course of the events of that context, she arrives at that line once again. This is simultaneously used for emphasizing the thought process of something Esther, the narrator and protagonist of the novel, had said.
For example, when Jay Cee askes Esther what she would like to do after graduation, Esther replies back, "I don't know". After that, we get a glimpse of what is running through Esther's mind, her metaphorical ways of thinking. And then to put us back into the conversation, instead of following it up with Jay Cee's reply, Plath eases us back with what we have already read once, and this time with the contextual weight behind those words. We get Esther's "I don't know" again, and then Jay Cee's reply. In someone else's hand, this might have felt repetitive. But Plath makes this only logical. Or maybe in Esther's words, "The poet made eating salad with your fingers seem to be the only natural and sensible thing to do".