I generally refuse to accept as legitimate any editions of The Bell Jar besides the Bantham Books version that I read as a teen. (One exception being the cheesy movie version with the hand, ps. has anyone ever seen that movie? It is impossible to find.) The bastardized contemporary nonpocket-sized versions with "artsy" black and white photos of a girl in a frilly dress or wearing mary janes, just won't do. I am though, quite impressed with the images I was able to find of some of the early editions including the original with the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. I bought a (pocket-sized of course) copy on the street last weekend and I have been rereading it for the first time in ten years or so.
IT'S SO GOOD!
I know this is very TweEmo of me, but what can I say Tweemo is in fashion. (Have you even heard of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart).
Images accompanied by a few of my favorite quotes:
"I'm stupid about executions."
"I thought about crawling in between the bed sheets and trying to sleep, but that appealed to me about as much as stuffing a dirty, scrawled-over letter into a fresh, clean envelope."
"`I don't really know,' I heard myself say.... It sounded true, and I recognized it, the way you recognize some nondescript person that's been hanging around your door for ages and then suddenly comes up and introduces himself as your real father and looks exactly like you, so you know he really is your father, and the person you thought all your life was your father is a sham"
ps. remember in Reality Bites when Janeane Garofalo says to Winona Ryder "Man, you are IN The Bell Jar." BEST.
