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| The Bell Jar | 
 enlarge | Author: Sylvia Plath
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Category: Book
List Price: £5.99
Buy New: £1.65
You Save: £4.34 (72%)
New (24) from £1.65
Avg. Customer Rating:  79 reviews
Sales Rank: 1484
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 234
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.7
ISBN: 0571226167
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780571226160
ASIN: 0571226167
Publication Date: June 2, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW - ***Delivery usually * 2 - 3 * working days - From Aphrohead of SOUTHPORT, Lancs, UK *** . Priority Airmail used Worldwide on International orders. Thanks from all at Aphrohead.
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Plath was an excellent poet but is known to many for this largely autobiographical novel. The Bell Jar tells the story of a gifted young woman's mental breakdown beginning during a summer internship as a junior editor at a magazine in New York City in the early 1950s. The real Plath committed suicide in 1963 and left behind this scathingly sad, honest and perfectly- written book, which remains one of the best-told tales of a woman's descent into insanity.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 74 more reviews...
 degradation into depression September 15, 2008
Sadly this author knew what she was talking about, and sadly I can relate to the protagonist. She describes the thought process perfectly and at one point I didn't even notice the change. It's a wonderfully written book, I just love it. I don't know what to say about it other than I really liked it, it's the only thing of hers I have read and because of this I just might try to read some of her poems, even though I'm not a poem kind of person.
On another note if you know of anyone who is depressed it might be a good idea to read this book to understand the way they are thinking. It could help and even if it doesn't it still a good read.
The view from inside a breakdown June 29, 2008
I read this on the recommendation of my daughter who related to the semi autobiographical protagonist even 35 years later.
Although medical treatments have changed since the book was written, the frequency of such cases must surely have risen and this is as relevant a book as ever.
Esther Greenwood reperesents Sylvia Plath in the book; an intelligent, active woman who suddenly begins to find that life has lost its meaning and importance. From being constantly busy, she becomes totally demotivated, giving up further study in favour of lounging around her mother's house. After she attempts to kill herself with an overdose, her mother enlists medical help and Esther is eventually admitted to an asylum for treatment. This includes electric shock treatment and constant medication.
The treatment seems to have been sucessful to a degree as Ms Plath went on to write this book and numerous works of poetry. Unfortunately her eventual suicide, aged 31, suggests that all was not as it should have been and the ghosts were still lurking.
It put me in mind of Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen who also wrote of her time in a psychiatric ward in 1967. I was amazed to find, on further investigation, that she was in the same hospital as Sylvia Plath.
Recommended - a unique opportunity to understand the emotions and confusion of a breakdown.
Plath was a genius September 21, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Bell Jar is definitely Plath speaking from her own experiences, in 1950s America and the tigma of mental illness that she experienced and how her family and friends coped.
It charts the journey of her bi polar illness and is very heavy in places but a worthwhile reading in understanding her poetry and other works.
 Suicide as career move September 18, 2007
0 out of 10 found this review helpful
A reviewer below claims, as a 'fact', that "Plath's genius is not being taught in schools". Not only is it a fact that The Bell Jar is on the AQA A2 syllabus, I am teaching it in my school. I am dismayed that someone who can make such elementary errors of fact feels at liberty to disseminate their ill-informed opinions. Not only is Plath a vastly inferior poet to her husband, The Bell Jar is vastly inferior to The Iron Man.
 boring! August 28, 2007
3 out of 20 found this review helpful
I read this book after hearing great things about it. What a waste of time it was. The book is incredibly dull, it picks up slightly in the last half. But i was not impressed, dont waste your time with it
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