The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath

The Bell Jar follows the crack-up of Sylvia Plath during her college years. Though it's not entirely true to life, it is semi-autobiographical. There are letters from Plath's mother discouraging the publishing of the novel, saying that it could stand to hurt some people that are only thinly disguised within the novel.

The title refers to a sensation that Esther Greenwood increasingly feels - that she's become captive within herself, breathing air within a bell jar that's descended upon her. After a few close encounters with death, she finds help and manages to lift that jar (notably with the help of electroconvulsive therapy, which I've learned is still used for treatment-resistant cases). But the ending is bittersweet - you never know when that glass cage might come back down.

This book actually came onto my books to read list when I realized that a quote I really like came from it. It was used in the TV series Master of None, which is where I first heard it. I thought it was from The Kite Runner for the longest time, but it turns out the two fig trees have nothing to do with each other. Here's the quote:

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'm not a frequent reader of poetry, but Plath has a way with words without needing to pull out the flowery ones. Maybe I'll pick up a collection of hers sometime.