The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: A review

The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's only published novel. It was originally published under a pseudonym in 1963 and only under the author's real name in Britain in 1967. She committed suicide about a month after that. Publication in the United States was delayed until 1971, at the request of her family. 

Since that time, it has attained the status of a classic and is often cited as one of the most influential feminist works of that period. But I had never read it. Time to remedy that oversight.

As all the reading world is most likely aware, the book is written in the form of a memoir of a young woman's descent into madness and is apparently based on Plath's own experience. I was mesmerized by it almost from the first page. It is unlike any other book I have ever read.

The story is told in simple, declarative sentences. The prose is both precise, crisp, and seems utterly dispassionate in its descriptions of the most harrowing personal experiences, including her traumatic loss of virginity and her experiences with electroshock therapy. 

Although the language sometimes seems dated and even borderline racist by today's standards, such as when the character Esther Greenwood describes herself as "yellow as a Chinaman" or "looking like a sick Indian," still it is always direct and to the point. There can be no ambiguity in its meaning. 

We get to know the characters in the novel mostly through their interactions with Esther. Those interactions tell us much about the attitudes toward women and sex during the period in which Plath wrote and, unfortunately, some of those paternalistic and misogynistic attitudes are still ascendant today.

Plath writes of Esther's confusion about sex as she enters young adulthood. Why, she wonders, should men to able to fully engage in sex for its own pleasure while only women must bear the burden of the consequences? It is surely a question that women have asked themselves since time immemorial. Of course, in the '60s that was beginning to change, but even that created some confusion and uncertainty. 

Esther found very little sympathy or understanding for her feelings of confusion. Her mother's generation and society at the time had very firm ideas about a woman's place. They should get married and become wives and mothers. Or if they wanted a career, they should take shorthand and learn to transcribe their male boss's exciting correspondence. Esther's mother continually urges her to study shorthand so that she will have something to fall back on when it comes time to find a job.

Esther, on the other hand, chooses to study English literature and wants to be a writer.

Her narration of her story is poetic in many ways, but it is utterly devoid of histrionics and is a straightforward and sincere exposition of her psychological wounds and her struggle against the demons that threatened to overwhelm her. Her words make her despair palpable. They make the reader wish to be able to reach back through the years and offer her sympathy and somehow reassure her that she isn't alone and that there is hope.  

Instead, we can only watch as Plath struggles to breathe "under the bell jar," as she describes her existence. She is sad. She is depressed. She feels empty. Perhaps it would be better to simply end it all rather than to continue the exhausting struggle.

It's fair to say that everyone has gone through dark periods in their life, but, fortunately, for most of us that darkness does not reach to the depths of clinical depression. At least our experience can give us some small inkling of the hopelessness and misery of those who do fall into those depths. And it should make all of us activists for improving our mental health system and making sure that those who need help are able to get it. 

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: January

Winter finally did arrive in my neighborhood this weekend. We've had nighttime temperatures in the 20s F and daytime temperatures have barely climbed out of the 30s. 

Meanwhile, many places around the country have had heavy snow, even blizzard conditions this week. Nothing like that here in the subtropical South, but we did get our share of rain.

Winter makes its own difficulties for us, of course, but it is actually a good thing for the garden. It gives the plants a chance to sleep. They can, as the poet says,

Keep warm by inner fires, and rest in peace.
Sleep on content, as sleeps the patient rose.

It can be a good thing for the gardener as well, giving us a chance to rest and to dream of the perfect garden we will have this year!

January

by Helen Hunt Jackson

O Winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire,
What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn
Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn
of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire
The streams than under ice. June could not hire
Her roses to forego the strength they learn
In sleeping on thy breast. No fires can burn
The bridges thou dost lay where men desire
In vain to build.
      O Heart, when Love's sun goes
To northward, and the sounds of singing cease,
Keep warm by inner fires, and rest in peace.
Sleep on content, as sleeps the patient rose. 
Walk boldly on the white untrodden snows,
The winter is the winter's own release.

This week in birds - #238

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

I photographed this Western Scrub Jay (not very well!) at Rocky Mountain National Park.

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Birds don't sweat, but one of the ways they have of cooling themselves is through their bills which lose heat. That's an advantage when the weather is hot; not so much when it is winter and it's cold. Deakin University research has shown that the bigger a bird's bill is the more time the bird spends snuggling it into its feathers in cold weather to preserve heat. 

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For those who may need the lesson, the Prairie Ecologist explains how science works and why it matters. There has been much misinformation purveyed by those who are anti-science and, unfortunately, it has been very effective in forming the opinions of many in the public.

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One of the ways that science works is that when the winters are warmer, ticks can stay active longer. The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Commission is studying the condition of the state's moose population which is in decline. It is believed that one of the reasons contributing to that decline is the increased pressure of the longer-active ticks. 

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Scientists reported this week that it took the eggs of some non-avian dinosaurs (like the duck-billed, for example) up to six months to hatch. 

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It turns out that hummingbirds, such as this Rufous, fluffed up against the cold in my backyard this week, see motion quite differently than other birds. That really is not surprising since these little guys zip around at 60 miles per hour much of the time. The world must look very slow to them.

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In 1962, Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring, was published. It is not an overstatement to say that many species of birds today owe their survival to this point to Carson and her book. It helped to change the way that we think about the environment and our impact on it. The New Yorker is currently featuring the book on its website. If you've never read it, here's your chance. The magazine divides it into three parts, Part I, Part II, and Part III, which are all currently available.  

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Republicans in charge of the legislative branch are determined to sell off America's public lands. They are changing House budgeting rules to make that easier to accomplish.  

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On their migration routes, birds always seem to be chasing spring, that time of the year when the Earth is bursting with life, including insects and fresh young buds. As the planet warms and spring arrives earlier and earlier, it becomes harder for the birds to adjust their routes and their time of flight in order to take advantage of the season.

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John Platt of "Extinction Countdown" has a list of conservation stories from 2016 that you might have missed.

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A new study links international trade and exports to the habitats and animals which are affected by their production. Conservationists hope that this information will better aid them in the protection of those habitats and animals. 

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Many songbirds have adjusted to thrive in suburban settings, but many others are not able to tolerate such close quarters with humanity, and, as the suburbs continue to expand, those birds can have difficulty finding appropriate habitats for breeding.

Dark-eyed Juncos, like this one that I photographed on a parking lot in Colorado, can live comfortably in suburban settings.

But Wilson's Warblers avoid them like the plague, although this one had no problem stopping by for water at my backyard fountain on its spring migration.

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Migrating birds face a multitude of challenges. Here is an explanation of some of the ones faced by shorebirds that follow the Atlantic Flyway.

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A warming climate brings both advantages and problems for some birds. For example, it allows Brants to successfully raise more young, but it puts the brooding females in greater danger of predation.

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Identifying gulls can be a frustrating enterprise at any time of year - at least for me. But Amar Ayyash of "Anything Larus" maintains that "'Tis the season for gull-watching." And all I can say is, "Good luck with that!"

At least I can identify the Laughing Gull which is the one most commonly seen in my area.

*~*~*~*

Britain had an unusually wet 2016, with heavy rains throughout most birds' breeding season. The inclement weather took its toll. Many birds found it difficult to successfully raise their young in such weather.  

The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang: A review

The Wangs vs. the World is Jade Chang's debut novel. I think she has a future in fiction-writing.

Chang tells us the story of a family whose financial security was ruined by the crash of 2008. They were a wealthy California family living the good life, never questioning the privileges which they enjoyed. Through a series of very bad decisions made by the patriarch of the family, Charles Wang, the family lost everything. Their palatial home, their cars, their bank accounts, the son's college career - all gone in the virtual blink of an eye.

It could be the story of any one of many families who suffered through that precarious period of the world's financial systems and came out the other side much poorer and perhaps wiser than they went in. But this is a very particular story of a particular family.

It is a family headed by immigrants. Charles and Barbra Wang are originally from Taiwan, where their own families of origin had been pushed by the Japanese or the Chinese Communists. Charles' parents had followed Chiang Kai-shek and he was born there. He had never set foot into China.

As a young man, Charles left his parents and migrated to America. He fell in love with a country which welcomed entrepreneurs and made it possible for them to make their fortunes. He proved adept in doing just that, but he never saw his parents alive again.

Not only did Charles make his fortune, he also married a beautiful woman, May Lee (Mei Li), a model. They had three children, two girls and a boy. Charles seemed to be living a charmed life. But just when everything seemed perfect, tragedy struck.

When the youngest child, Grace, was only two months old, her mother was killed in a helicopter crash at the Grand Canyon.

Back in Taiwan, Barbra, who had longed to marry Charles, heard about May Lee's death and immediately made plans to emigrate. Her plans came to fruition; she made it to California and married Charles.

At the time that we meet the Wangs, it is sixteen years later. The older daughter, Saina, has moved on to New York and had a successful few years as an artist but recently has suffered a setback when one of her shows was widely panned. The middle child, Andrew, who wants to be a stand-up comedian, is attending Arizona State. Grace, the youngest, is in high school and is the purveyor of a popular blog about fashion.

Once it is clear that the family is bankrupt, Charles' first thought is to get all his family back together again and so he piles his wife and younger daughter and all their remaining belongings into an old car he had previously given to their servant (she loans it to them for the trip) and they head out on a road trip to pick up Andrew in Phoenix and then go on to Helios, New York, to the farmhouse where Saina is now living. His second thought is to get back to China and claim his family's ancestral lands, lands that he has never seen.

We travel with the Wangs on that chaotic road trip as they learn about the country and about themselves. Somewhere crossing Texas, Charles meditates on this country which he once loved, the country which he feels has betrayed him.

America was a great deceptor. Land of Opportunity. Golden Mountain. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. But inside those pretty words, between the pretty coasts, was this: Miles and miles of narrow-minded know-nothings who wanted no more out of life than an excuse to cock their AK-47s and take arms against a sea of troubles. A Great Wall? Ha! This country could never build itself anything as epic as that. America wanted to think of itself as a creator, but all it could do was destroy - fortunes, families, lives. Even the railroads needed the Chinese to come and build them.

I suspect he speaks for many disillusioned immigrants in those thoughts. 

I found The Wangs vs. the World to be a very entertaining, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, and in many ways thought-provoking read. It's a book that brings a personal perspective to the catastrophic events of the 2008 financial crash. It is a saga that explores just what it is to be a part of a family and what it is to be a part of a country, a culture. As I said in the beginning, I think Jade Chang has a future as a writer.  

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

            

Throwback Thursday: Volcanoes and the little ice age

I've been battling a minor health issue for the past few days, so if you are a regular visitor here, you might have noticed my absence. Or not!

Just to ease back into blogging, here's a placeholder for you from five years ago. This blog started out as mostly my commentary on issues of the day before I folded in the two other blogs I was writing at the time, one about birds and one about gardening, and also decided to include reviews of the books that I read. At that point, it became truly eclectic and I could write about whatever was on my mind on any given day.

One thing that has been on my mind pretty constantly over many years is climate change because it affects all of the things that I care about. I've probably written more words on that subject than I have any other, and I was writing about it five years ago when a new study came out about the effect of erupting volcanoes on the climate.

This is a perilous time in the history of our country and the world, not least of all because the anti-science know-nothings will soon be in charge of all branches of our government, including most likely the court system. This does not bode well in the short term for us, the country, or the larger environment. But in the long term?

In the long term, as someone has wisely said, we'll all be dead, but Earth and physics will continue, because the truth is Nature doesn't give a damn whether we believe in science or not. Science exists. Human-aided climate change exists; the planet is heating up. Your opinion on the subject doesn't matter. Physics is inexorable.

The effect of volcanoes on the climate was an example of that. Their eruptions helped to cause a "little ice age" and drastically affected the course of human history. It was exactly the opposite effect of what is happening now - an anti-greenhouse effect.  It was in the news five years ago and here is what I wrote about it.

~~~

January 31, 2012

Volcanoes and the little ice age

Earth's climate and the cycles of warming and cooling that it goes through is one of the more fascinating subjects in earth science. It's a subject that has become fraught with passion in recent years as climatologists have repeatedly tried to warn us that humans are upsetting Earth's cycles and science deniers have done their best to shout them down. But looking back at the historical data is perhaps a little less controversial.

Scientists have recently been doing research on the period from the 1200s to the 1900s, a very cold time in the northern hemisphere that has come to be known as the "little ice age." There have been many theories over the years about what might have caused this prolonged cold period which, in many ways, shaped the culture of Northern Europe, Asia, and North America. At the time it was happening, some people blamed witches. The ignorant always find a scapegoat. But this new study may give a definitive answer to the question of why it happened. The answer, the scientists postulate, is volcanoes.

The researchers have found evidence that there was a 50-year period just before the beginning of the little ice age during which several volcanoes were very active. They repeatedly erupted, shooting ash and debris into the atmosphere where it reflected sunlight back out into space, thus the warming rays of the sun could not reach the planet and Earth cooled off. They believe this caused a chain reaction which redounded for centuries during which the northern hemisphere, in particular, shivered and seldom saw a real summer.

This is just the opposite of what is happening now as humans send pollutants into the atmosphere which create a barrier - a greenhouse cover - that traps heat back on Earth. And so the planet heats up.

Whether heating or cooling, the laws of physics apply. We cannot escape them. The prime causal factor may be volcanoes or human beings or asteroids, but however these factors present themselves, Nature's laws will prevail and Earth will again find an equilibrium. Whether there are any humans who survive to witness it is really irrelevant to Nature.

The Drop by Michael Connelly: A review

I decided to ring out my reading year of 2016 with an old friend, Detective Harry Bosch of the LAPD. I felt a bit of trepidation in doing so, because the last two Bosch mysteries that I had read had been rather disappointing, not up to Connelly's usual standard. I needn't have worried; the writer is back on form with The Drop.

This entry finds Detective Bosch back with the open-unsolved case unit of the LAPD, still with David Chu as his partner. Their relationship is abrasive at best, and Harry continues to be pretty much of a jerk in his attitude toward the younger detective, who seems to be trying really hard to please the old pro.

Harry has already retired once from LAPD and then returned, and now he is on the cusp of mandatory retirement. He has just received the news that his request for a deferment of that retirement has been granted. He has 39 months left before he has to turn in the badge and he is desperate for cases to solve within that time frame. On one day, he gets assigned two cases.

The first is a cold case of a young woman who was raped and murdered in 1989. New DNA evidence has linked the case to a convicted rapist, recently released after serving his sentence. The problem is that the suspect is now 29 years old and at the time of the murder would have been eight years old. It seems highly unlikely that an eight-year-old raped and murdered a nineteen-year-old woman, so what is the explanation? Is the DNA evidence wrong? If so, it may make suspect all of the evidence analyzed by the police lab, with enormous consequences for ongoing and past cases.

The second case is a hot one that is assigned to Bosch and Chu by special request from on high. The body of the son of former police commissioner, now city councilman, Irvin Irving, has been found on the pavement outside an LA hotel. The man had fallen from the balcony of his seventh floor room at the hotel, but did he jump, fall accidentally, or was he pushed? 

Irvin Irving is a long-time nemesis of Bosch's and yet, now, when it is a member of his family involved, he demands that Bosch be assigned to investigate because he knows that Harry will seek the truth, damn the consequences. 

Bosch hates what he terms "high jingo," meaning political influence in police investigations, but he has no choice but to accept the assignment to the Irving case, and so he and his partner set about working to solve two cases at once without short-changing either.

The dichotomy which Connelly shows between these two cases, the twenty-year-old cold case featuring a victim who has been forgotten and the current case of the death of a politically connected and influential businessman, creates a tension which the detectives must deal with as they pursue solutions to both mysteries. But we know Harry' philosophy: Everyone counts or nobody counts. There is never any doubt that he will throw himself heart and soul into finding the answers and bringing the bad guys to justice.

This was a tightly plotted tale, and Connelly moved the story along at a quick pace. It was everything that long-time fans of the series have come to expect in the best of the Harry Bosch police procedurals, which is something very good indeed.

Incidentally, the Irving death was one of the plots dramatized in season two of Amazon's Bosch TV series, but they changed the story almost beyond recognition for television. The TV episode was okay, but the book version was better and truer to the long-established relationship between Bosch and Irving.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: Burning the Old Year

Ring out the old, ring in the new. 2016 was a truly awful year in so many ways and, normally, one might look forward to better times in a new year, but, at this point, 2017 is not shaping up as an improvement over the old year. One doesn't want to give in to cynicism and pessimism, but...

So, we say good-bye to the old year. We mourn the absences of those we lost in that year, the spaces that they have left in our hearts. "So much of any year is flammable," temporary; "so little is a stone," permanent. 

Burn it down! Perhaps a brighter phoenix will rise from the ashes. Happy New Year!

Burning the Old Year

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn't,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn't do
crackle after the blazing dies.