The Bell Jar

The last book I read was Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar." It hit a little too close to home for me to be able to finish it in one sitting, despite how short it was compared to the 900-some page monster that is "2666" I read before it.

An excerpt:

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet. "

I suppose, keeping consistent with the contents of the three personal blogs I maintain, I should've posted this under "listen." But there's just too much here that screams my name that I can hardly tell I wasn't the author.


I've always wanted to be everything -- I wanted to be pretty, popular, loved, well-known. I wanted to be brilliant, clever, funny, generous. I wanted to change the world.

At this point in my life it feels as though I've stopped at a fork in the road and I just can't choose. I just don't want to choose. What if I choose wrong? What if I get lost on that path? What if it takes me away from the people I love most?

And while I am paralyzed here, fear, cold and wet, falls onto the doubt I stand on. From the corner of my eye I can glimpse solid ground. The land is dry there, lit by the sun. But the distance between this respite and I deepens with every shallow breath that teases the tightened mass that is my lungs. Drenched, I hardly notice the fear falling harder around me. It seeps into the uncertainty and turns into mud under my feet.

I feel myself sinking, but still I cannot choose.