started reading: April 25, 2012
ended reading: May 3, 2012
have tried reading the bell jar two times
the first time got me through the middle then felt confused and scared
failed the second time out of preoccupation with acads and other "less depressing" books
a person in the internet who i regard highly for his honest and eloquent writing said that the book was shit depressing
i don't feel the same way when i finished reading the book
monica said that it wouldn't plant compounding ideas in my head
so i officially read it in the mrt, in buses, in jeepneys, in the office
to kill time
i like the bell jar so much, therefore feel honest and trustworthy right now
i like plath's words
felt like reading the bell jar was an excavation of plath's thoughts
right before she succumbed to suicide
here are some passages that i am interested in:
"People were made of nothing so much as dust, and I couldn't see that doctoring all that dust was a bit better than writing poems people would remember and repeat to themselves when they were unhappy or sick and couldn't sleep."
"I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadown under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth."
"But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defenceless that i couldn't do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somwhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get at."
"...I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air."
couldn't bring myself to distinguish between fascination and obsession
because i am truly fascinated with this book,
with its presentation of a wholly different world i felt like anyone could grasp
to claim his at whatever cost, anytime
laura told me that it's okay to be fascinated with the mind, with this book
but never outdo your curiosity, she said
told her that i wouldn't, over bento boxes and cheeseburgers last friday
and i began to wonder what the basis of electroshock treatment was
and how it feels like to be suffused with your own sour air in a glass bell jar
