Adventures in Reading: "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath

I wish books didn't make me feel so woozy.

This book was not always easy to get through. The writing is engaging and honest. The content is heavy. And toward the end there's a lot of blood, which caused some serious flashbacks and unwanted fainty feelings. Ugh.

However, I think the thing that I enjoy most about the book is its truth. Not only is the story itself fairly autobiographical, but the sense of suffocating in the open air, the internal disconnect, the fear of not being able to trust your own mind...these are things that real people struggle with every day. There were times when I was frustrated during this book, when I felt the hopelessness of Esther Greenwood and, like her, just wanted it to end. Whether this effect was intended by the author or not, I can't say. But looking back, I would say that the tension created by this feeling makes the novel even more believable and worthwhile in the end.

Despite her gradual breakdown, I love that Esther never sounds insane. As a narrator, she is trustworthy, and this is what allows the novel to function. I understand why this book is essentially a classic. It speaks to the place in all of us that is broken and unsure and searching.

And now, I'll leave you with my favorite passage:

"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 other 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, staring 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 wrinke and go black, and one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

Oh and also this part:

"I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart.

I am. I am. I am."

No time!

I have three books sitting on my couch. I want to read all of them. I'm also right in the middle of moving. Well, let's be honest: I'm right at the end of moving, which means my life is in a state complete chaos for the next four days.

So, I will continue to read "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath as often as I have time (aka, probably not again until Tuesday), and I will wait as patiently as possible to get to my other books as soon as this is all over.

I hate moving packing.

Motto

"If you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done."

That's my motto for 2011. My main areas of focus are really letting God control my life, and being financially independent. So far, I'm off to a good start.

Big step

I just submitted (and paid for) my application to graduate school. All that's left to do is finish editing my writing sample and send that in. Oh, and cross my fingers that my transcripts and letters of recommendation get in on time.

Feeling excited, relieved, nervous....

I'll keep you posted!

Advent Conspiracy

This is important!

**Update: This year, our church has raised over $21,000 for well building projects in Gondar, Ethopia. I believe that will be combined with money raised from a couple of other churches. So awesome! Plus, we got to see pictures of completed wells that we donated money toward over the last two years. Praise God.

Thought for the evening

We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.

GK Chesterton

Galatians 5:22-25 (The Message)

But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.



love. joy. peace. patience. kindness. goodness. faithfulness. gentleness. self-control.