"I never feel so much myself as when I’m in a hot bath."

Sylvia Plath ruined baths for me - which is surprising because you'd think out of any household object she'd probably ruin ovens.

In The Bell Jar, the self-absorbed, potentially-autobiographical, protagonist nonchalantly claims that she can recall every bathtub she's ever been in. This absolutely torments me.

Each time I take a bath, I lie in that god-forsaken cream coloured tub and try to count backwards all the bathtubs I can remember being in.

This bath: the family house bath, comforting, echoey and shallow.
My last university house: steep and deep and just a bit dirty.
A hotel in Turkey: excellent acoustics for an album or two.
My first university house: undissolved epsom salts and lukewarm water.

Then it starts to get really difficult.

• Did that place have a bath or a shower?
• Do hot-tubs count?
• What if there was someone else in the bath with me?

I like to think that until the moment Esther Greenwood recalled all of her previous bathtubs, she had led a very sheltered life. Perhaps she'd only ever been in three baths - so actually, her recollection ability isn't that impressive.

The point is, The Bell Jar, is not a novel that leaves no lasting affect. When you finish a book, or a TV show or a particularly good film, sometimes you'll experience that sense of loss. What do I do with my life now?

But The Bell Jar has an incredibly unique effect. You don't feel a passing loss for the story or the characters, instead the bell jar itself begins to form around you. Whether it was there before, and you simply didn't see it, or whether it forms with every passing Plath sentence, The Bell Jar - novel and psychiatric condition - becomes more evident, and harder to get over cope with.

I couldn’t see the point of getting up. I had nothing to look forward to.

With lines like that, I was not the only lit student rendered mildly depressed and bedridden post-Plath.

Esther's bathtub speech comes very early into the novel, and, I believe, is a poignant moment in noticing her internal dislocation. She states that she feels more herself when she's in the tub. And she's right. I also never feel so much Esther Greenwood as when I'm in a hot bath.