THE BELL JAR

The only novel by troubled American poet Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar tells of a young woman's descent into madness and her emergence back to reality. It is frank, witty, earthy, scatological, yet remarkably poetic. Also autobiographical. The author ended her own life a month after the book's publication. Perhaps a bit angrier and certainly more mature than the first-person narrator, Frances McDormand, nonetheless, gives a fine, intermittently inspired reading--sensitive to both the author's language and the protagonist's inner life. However, the sound quality leaves much to be desired, and numerous technical glitches mar an otherwise superb performance. Y.R. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 97]