11-16-2010, 04:35 AM
What was the book which changed your life, left you, in the words of James Ellroy, "reamed, steamed and drycleaned, tie-dyed, swept to the side, true-blued, tattooed and bah fongooed"? Which novel, poetry collection, "How To..." guide or manifestio, political treatise or philosophical tome, rewired your head and slapped your face with a live salmon? And why?
For me it was The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, in my opinion the greatest novel ever written about mental illness, perhaps because it came from the front line: Plath, whose death was described by her husband Ted Hughes as "complicated and inevitable," killed herself just one month after the book was published, and had attempted suicide before.
But her individual tragedy, whilst informing and inspiring it, isn't what makes this story so great. Blending a musical lyricism with gritty confessional fare, she creates a dense, detailed canvas, a sprawling landscape of personal hell, though tinged, ironically, with a slither of hope.
For me it was The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, in my opinion the greatest novel ever written about mental illness, perhaps because it came from the front line: Plath, whose death was described by her husband Ted Hughes as "complicated and inevitable," killed herself just one month after the book was published, and had attempted suicide before.
But her individual tragedy, whilst informing and inspiring it, isn't what makes this story so great. Blending a musical lyricism with gritty confessional fare, she creates a dense, detailed canvas, a sprawling landscape of personal hell, though tinged, ironically, with a slither of hope.
"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges." - Gene Wolfe
