"i did not know that if you're mentally ill you're allowed to be mean and annoying. i wish i had done things differently.

i do get why this is a classic. some reasons it is, in order of niceness to not niceness:
-it is very beautifully written
-that fig paragraph is probably one of the best passages on what it is to be a mentally ill young woman ever brought into this world
-it is, in many ways, ahead of its time
-sylvia plath has the kind of compelling story that would have sealed her canonical fate whether she was talented or not.
-and:

this is often, as it was in my case, assigned reading for teenage girls, the people most likely to be willing to undergo the kind of self-centering it would take to think most of what's depicted in this book is an okay or acceptable way to be.

when i first read this, i liked it. i was 18, it should be noted, and a senior in high school fresh off the then-worst year of my life. (it has since been soundly defeated.) anyway, i didn't know classic fiction could be like this: written by a woman, fresh and relatable, about someone like me.

that wasn't my experience upon reread.

in the intervening years, i've read some of plath's poetry in other classes, and found it a little gaudy and self-indulgent for my taste. (you can yell at me if you want to but i don't think either of those are untrue. or even really insults.) so i always wondered if the bell jar would hold up if i read it again.

the answer: no, but not for any reason i expected!

this is racist and homophobic as f*ck. it's genuinely disturbing. this was written in the second half of the 20th century, in the midst of the civil rights movement. the march on washington took place in the same year as this book's publication. among legitimate intellectual and/or progressive circles of the time, this manner of thinking is grotesquely out of line.

it seems especially absurd in the face of plath's dogged dedication to the Rights Of Women. feminism is important, of course, but reading about how the greatest social issue in plath's eyes (or the eyes of plath's self-insert protagonist) was women being able to be writers and editors with as much ease as they could be secretaries (as opposed to the several editors and writers there were) is kind of insane. obviously employment access is crucial, but the lack of self-awareness is apparent, no?

this also has two of my least favorite clichéd traits of mental health depiction:
1) a protagonist that blames everyone else for their mental illness, and
2) Grand Gestures Of Depression.

baby, i wish my mental illness included me doing things like whimsically throwing shirts at the city of new york while my hair blew in the wind. it's usually a lot more of me laying in bed and watching tiktoks.

i guess that doesn't fit the seminal work criteria.

in short: i love unlikable protagonists. it's just that i hated this one.

bottom line: we all have an unpopular opinion, right? a beloved book we hate? let me have this one in peace.

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currently-reading updates

rereading this on the beach so i can be the edgiest girl there"