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Best Books of the Year So Far
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Sylvia Plath is a literary icon known for her confessional poetry, her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, her tumultuous relationship with her husband and fellow poet Ted Hughes, and her tragic suicide at the age of 30. In this new biography of the poet, released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of her death, Andrew Wilson tells the story of Sylvia Plath's early life.
Before she met Ted at the age of 23, Plath led a complex, creative life full of the highest highs and lowest lows. Her father died when she was eight, and she had a complicated relationship with her mother. Intensely bright (she had an IQ of 160) and fiercely ambitious, she faced mental illness and instability from an early age. She knew the pain of rejection and the thrill of acceptance from frequently submitting her stories and poems to national magazines.
This biography centers upon what Wilson considers to be the main obstacles that shaped Plath's life, mind, and writing:
- Her father's death: Lacking a father figure, Sylvia sought to fill his void with a constant stream of men. However, she had a habit of projecting her fantasies onto the men she dated, creating high hopes and visions of her beaus that had little bearing on the reality of their personalities. - Her mother's lack of money: Aurelia Plath raised Sylvia and her brother Warren on a single salary, and money was often tight. Sylvia was frustrated by the way her financial situation limited her; instead of focusing on her classes and her writing during college, she was under constant financial strain and had to work to aid her mother. - The hypocrisy of society regarding gender roles: Coming of age in the 1940s and '50s, Plath was subject to a sexual double standard.Read more ›
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful
This review is titled "Ms. Mojo Risin'" because there is a fairly obvious parallel between Sylvia and Jim Morrison. Like Morrison, Sylvia Plath's true identity has been obscured by the mythical status surrounding her public persona. Anyone who studied Plath in college (or independently) has undoubtedly been subjected to legions of feminist scholars who projected their own beliefs (and neuroses in some cases) onto Sylvia and flaunted her work as a champion of their cause, focusing solely on Plath the feminist and ignoring any aspects of the famed writer that contradict those assertions. In many respects, Sylvia Plath is most certainly a feminist icon. Of course, anyone who has read The Bell Jar can tell you that she chafed against a woman's intended role in a male-dominated society; but too many are content to focus only on that particular aspect of Plath. The latter is just that: only one aspect of Sylvia Plath. Andrew Wilson does a splendid job detailing the many contradictory aspects of Sylvia herself that shines through in her work and in her private journals.
Plath the person has been largely obscured by her iconic status and it has been to her detriment. She was a very complex, driven, and intelligent person with a sense of self-awareness that was so acute, one might even call it scientifically detached at times. Wilson's biography wades through the myriad of misinformed and selectively highlighted aspects of her image and looks at Plath the girl and Plath the woman with both an empirical and subjective eye.
One review of this book states that Wilson acts as a psychological hack, flippantly diagnosing Sylvia's mental state. I fear that this assessment misses the point of Wilson's biography.Read more ›
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful
In terms of what we found out about Plath's early life, however, perhaps Hughes represented something more - a father-figure, a protector, or someone who could invest her life with a sense of stability. Born to an immigrant family in 1932, Sylvia Plath was profoundly affected by her father's early death, when she was only eight years old. Although her mother Aurelia labored tirelessly to bring up the family, Sylvia was plagued with depression, as well as sense of her own inadequacy - in spite of a glittering academic career festooned with awards.
This was the major issue behind Wilson's biography: how could such a brilliant woman, whose poems were endorsed by major journals such as the Atlantic Monthly, be affected by depressions so great that she frequently contemplated suicide? Plath's university career at Smith College was interrupted by a long spell at a mental institution; after six month she was pronounced 'cured,' but Wilson suggested that this was only superficial. Throughout her short life Plath endured similar bouts of depression; no one, it seemed, could help her deal with them.
The other major theme running through the biography was Plath's struggles with the constraints imposed on women in America in the early 1950s. Whereas men were allowed a limited amount of freedom of self-expression, it seemed that women had no opportunity to contemplate their sexualities; they were expected to conform to certain pre-determined roles as the submissive girlfriend (and subsequently the dutiful wife). Plath had her fair share of relationships, but never experienced any satisfaction until she met Yale graduate Richard Sassoon, whose bohemian lifestyle and uninhibited view of sex appealed to her.Read more ›
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This item: Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted
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