Durante más o menos la mitad de la novela, uno no entiende por qué es tan famosa. Parecen las aventurillas de una chica que, gracias a una beca, consigue pasar del Medio oeste a una universidad-residencia de señoritas bien de Nueva York, y las cosas que le pasan, básicamente relacionadas con los hombres y las fiestas. Pero, sin muchas explicaciones, al finalizar el curso la protagonista parece haber entrado en una depresión que rápidamente deriva en auténtica enfermedad mental, A partir de ahí la novela cambia y se me ha hecho mucho más sugestiva. Ella afirma sentirse como en una "campana de cristal" que impide toda comunicación efectiva con el exterior. Oye y entiende perfectamente lo que le dicen, y también habla con normalidad con los demás, pero, de algún modo, no consigue transmitir lo que de verdad siente a nadie. Le someten a una dura terapia de electroshock que le deja peor, pero luego cambia de psiquiatra y la nueva (el primero era un hombre) combina esta técnica con un trato más razonable y otros tratamientos para que, al final, la "campana" se levante y se quede como suspendida por encima de la protagonista, que puede así comunicarse verdaderamente con su entorno.

La novela es en gran medida autobiográfica y, por lo visto, lo de las terapias de choque causó mucho impacto en su momento, hacia mitad de los años 50, porque estaban muy de moda en Estados Unidos. Hoy no nos impresiona tanto, porque la autora no narra las sesiones, sino que apenas alude a ellas. También pasa por ser esta una novela feminista pero, más allá de algunos comentarios más o menos circunstancias y más o menos agudos tampoco me ha parecido que eso sea lo importante. Lo que más me ha gustado es el tratamiento de la enfermedad mental desde la propia enferma, que generalmente tampoco sabe muy bien qué demonios está pasando. ( )

well... you know... being a women innit ( )

Not what I was expecting at all! Way more fun (except of course for some parts) and exceptionally good. The novel is in two parts, the first is a bit like a very Americanised version of writers like Penelope Lively set in 1950's New York, and later Boston. Witty, droll, brilliant Esther begins her tale as an intern at a fashion magazine in New York, going out to fabulous dinners and parties. Esther observes the world and the people around her with cutting insight and takes it all as natural, its privilege doesn’t seem to occur to her. There is very little other than what seemed perfectly normal misgivings for such a brilliant mind in the first half of the novel, along with cutting insight into societal and corporate burdens on women. Men do not fare well in general, all of the strong characters and positive roles are women, though not all women fare well. The end of this NY period, some uncertainties, and a period of prolonged insomnia trigger a rapid and terrifying onset of mental illness; the decent of the bell jar. The second story, essentially the entire the second half of the novel, describes the illness, inept and barbaric ‘treatment’, and an incredibly fortunate rescue from these circumstances. Lobotomies and electroshock were the tools of the times, even a nurse Rached type character has a cameo. As our heroine slowly recovers you can feel her wit, sauciness and piecing intellect reemerging from the frozen fog. It is told by our narrator describing her past, so even in the darkest times is very calm and if anything told in a mildly curious tone, as though more amazed by what she went through rather than torn up by it. Just an amazing read from such a tragic shooting star. 4.5 ( )

Somehow, in all my time on the planet, I've kind of missed out on Sylvia Plath. I had no knowledge of her or her writing, and I decided it was probably time to change that.

The first two things I noticed about this short novel was that the story itself seemed to very anecdotal. Small, almost unimportant events and observations simply strung together, with no real through-story. The other was that the writing itself is gorgeous.

So this sits—for me, at least—almost in the same region as, say, Kerouac's ON THE ROAD in that the only specific story is the main character's experience.

Yet, for all of that, as the story gets darker and darker, the book is impossible to put down. And knowing that this was the last full novel she wrote, I found myself wondering what brilliant offerings Plath could have produced, if she'd had more time. ( )

2.5 Stars ( )