REVIEW: The Bell Jar

Reviewer: Armored Werewolf

SPOILER ALERT
This review has a lot of spoilers.

The Review
Stories from the 1900s and before are for the most part good. Some of them however, don't hold up as well. We have to look at the 1960's where we find a special gem. Written by Sylvia Plath on January of 1963, The Bell Jar came to light. The reviews for it are for the most part good. This one however, isn't. If you look at it very carefully, there are a lot of problems in this.

First of all, the genre is all over the place. We go from a love story that would make Twilight cringe, to gross scenes full of vomiting that would make Family Guy's vomiting scenes look good. We even get a nice detail about how characters watched a baby being born. What the hell am I even reading?

But, let's give this a chance. From the beginning, we know almost nothing. Why is the character in New York City? Who is Doreen? Of course, we don't know until the further we get. To be fair, the backstory is alright. College girls taking a trip to New York and staying at a hotel. Scenes drag on, and it takes forever to find something interesting. Doreen and Esther constantly hit on other guys and an attempted rape happens. One lovely being named Marco appears and attacks Esther. By grabbing her arm so hard that bruises appear and even attempted rape. And, what happened? Esther kicks him with her heel and runs away. We went through 9 long chapters for that? That was by far the most interesting part.

Also, can someone explain why there are so many parts where Esther goes into detail about what someone is wearing? What's the point of telling us this? "I glanced down at my unfamiliar skirt and blouse. The skirt was a green dirndl with tiny black, white and electric-blue shapes swarming across it, and it stuck out like a lampshade." Ok then, thanks for telling us that.

About that love story I was talking about, oh boy. So, Esther fell in love with Buddy Willard, now she hates him. This guy is suffering tuberculosis and is inside a sanatorium (or sanatarium, yes there are multiple spellings for the exact same area). Anyways, so Esther and the father go to visit him. We get more gross details about what he looks like. Again, nice job making Family Guy's gross-out scenes look good. I honestly thought that something was wrong with the copy I have, but no. It was real, all of this was in the original as well.

Finally the ending, oh my lord the ending. We see her getting ready for an interview... the end. So she just walks into a room and it ends right there. Did she say anything? Did she live a new life? What happened? At first I thought the story was unfinished. But no, that's seriously how it ends. Did Sylvia Plath expect us to fill in the ending for ourselves?

I have looked at a number of crap before. Oedipus Rex, The Most Dangerous Game, The Odyssey, and Romeo and Juliet. But out of all them, I can safely say that The Bell Jar is the absolute worst book I have ever read. Now, if I ever have to talk about this abomination again, I might as well find the nearest bell jar, and bury it with this "story" in it.

The Movie
The book was punishment enough, let alone a movie adaptation. I might check it out sometime, but it might be more pain than usual. For now, goodnight.