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Title: Not a Salinger clone.
Review: Robert Taubman of the New Statesman mistakenly said "The Bell Jar" was "the first feminine novel in a Salinger mood". On reading the books first third you'll find yourself agreeing. Plath takes us down a path, seeming to say, "Look ahead. This will lead us to the end." Then we're repeatedly taken off of that path, down apparent detours without meaning or relevance. This is a deception.By the time you reach the halfway point you'll see that what seems to be important is only a grounding place for what surrounds it. What seems to be rambling is actually what is important. Eventually we abandon the original path completely, and find that all of those supposed meaningless detours were the true path all along, that the story's real importance lies within them.
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