Customer Reviews

Death and Life of Sylvia Plath

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The main problem of writing a biography of Sylvia Plath is the roadblocks that are constantly being thrown out by her husband's controlling estates. Unlike other biographers, Hayman has managed to be honest and critical about who Plath is, and how she was treated by people around her, including her husband and his mistress. Hayman addresses critically and honestly Plath's husband controlling nature. He controlled her life when she was alive, but worse still he controlled her totally after she died. There are many crucial works and correspondences of Plath that were destroyed, or mysteriously disappeared (presumable by her husband). Hayman argues that these materials are extremely valuable to understand more Plath's life as suicide.

Ronald Hayman provides excellent insight into Sylvia Plath's life, effectively using much analysis of her poetry to tell her biography.

I liked how the book begins with the days before her suicide and then rolls into her life. It mirrors the title of "The Death and Life of Sylvia Plath". Her fame skyrocketed after her suicide, but there were so many events of her life that deserve attention.
The writing style is stifled, no real emotion, and gives the impression of being the author's doctoral thesis (I do not know if this is the case at all). It follows a very formulaic style to the point where as a reader, I was able to predict what he was going to say next.
It was a very good book nevertheless and I do recommend it.

This is one dark book,it definitely not for light reading. But, it does give us an insight into the life of a woman with amazing talent for writing. A person could make a movie from this book. There is depression,an unfaithful husband,her death and the later death of the consort of the husband, which both Sylvia Plath and the other woman died the same way.

********
the first time i read this book, my partner (of 14 inimitable years) had walked out on me, leaving me not only bereft, but w/ no forwarding address (in, of course, imitation of neal casady, in all that glory & stupidity), i was standing in a largely empty apartment in san francisco, ca, being stalked by not only someone harmless i had met at a service non-profit who stood, after i had had an operation, at my door, in the rain, as he cried & held a box of matzoh (my friend had to say, truthfully, i was in no shape to see him), but also much less harmfully, by my building manager, who not only stole my mail, but cut my telephone wires, moved my stuff around (i had to put a new & different lock on the door) & pointed a gun out the window at my friend chris.

the same friend who sent away the crying man o' matzoh, later sent me this book. she thought i would like it. i did.

it makes you HATE ted hughes. i am uncertain whether one would have had to have had a similar experience to that of sylvia plath to feel this way (i was hospitalized for "suicidal ideation," actually against my will, overnight during all this mess), so take that into account. however, i am not someone whose dreams would be so --academic-- for lack of a better word. i did not go to smith. my mother forced me into college & away from musicians. i did go to grad school, but, my heavenly stars, my heart would have not been broken had a major grad school turned down my summer school ap. i have no kids. but TED. i do have that.

so this book will make the blood of anyone who has ever been owned by a ted completely curdle. though it's more than that. i suppose it is that one can feel thru ronald hayman's very careful handling of his subject, how small things slowly merge themselves into becoming --all-- things. & then one looks at one's life, & then one looks at one's --ted-- &. so help me, at the last it all adds up into something insurmountable, something one simply does not want, something one is unable to --do-- any more. if i remember correctly, ronald hayman is the only biographer of sylvia plath able to convey the sense --& it is necessary to do this in a biography of sylvia plath-- of a grinding down to complete futility.

my only regret & continual lack of understanding is that she left her kids. i bless her for opening those windows. this was not a bad person. & the sorrow does, does, does, does, does multiply.

You are far better off reading Method and Madness, for a more intelligent and caring story about SP. Method and Madness is the definitive, though somewhat dated bio on Plath. Also enjoyed Lover of Unreason.