Customer Reviews

Rough Magic

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Paul Alexander's "Rough Magic"is an outstandingly sensitive account of Sylvia Plath's life. The enormous amount of research by Alexander is highly impressive and clearly comes through in his amazing book. Since the author spent over five years interviewing over two hundred people who knew Plath and or Hughes as well as reading most if not all of the available archival documents concrned with his subject, it's small wonder that "Rough Magic" is such a great biography.

The description of her horrible ordeal in the chapter "Edge" should evoke sympathy and admiration for this highly talented woman who tried to cope against overwhelming odds of personal mental and physical sickness, harsh environment and separation from the man she loved.

The strength of this is the great number of personal stories from Aurelia's numerous talks with Alexander, and so many other close friends of the author which range over much of Syliva's lifetime.

I would strongly urge anyone who has even a modicum of interest in Sylvia Plath to beg, borrow, steal or even buy this book. It is one of the best biographies I have had the enormous pleasure and at times sadness in reading.

Paul Branscombe

Paul Alexander's Rough Magic allows the reader to fully understand and enter the psyche of Sylvia Plath from her blissful childhood to her more tumultuous adult years. What I found was very nice about this biography was that it included Sylvia's poetry in a chronological order. It was so helpful to have her poetry included after just reading what her life was like at the immediate time that she wrote that certain piece. Also, by having her writing placed in a chronological order, I found that I could really pick up on how she developed her writing and honed her skills over time.
It is very apparent that the work gone into the making of this book was so thorough and in depth. Mr. Alexander did a fabulous job piecing Sylvia's life together in one book. It seems like every relationship Sylvia ever had has been accounted for and analyzied in this book.
I recommend this book to anyone who would like a deeper understanding of Sylvia Plath's life and her continuous descent into depression.

At long last, a biography of Sylvia Plath written by someone who refused to bow to the editorial demands of Ted & Olwyn Hughes, who unfortunately controlled the late poet's estate at the time. Choosing freedom of speech over permission to quote Plath's work, Paul Alexander has produced an extraordinary biography that reveals the true Sylvia Plath as a girl, woman, wife, mother, and most important, author. With interviews from friends and family who had never before spoken about Plath for publication, this is a book that any scholar of Plath's life and work should not miss.

I read this book for a research paper I did in high school almost five years ago and still check it out of the library every once in a while. Alexander does a tremendous job showing the reader Plath as a person and a poet, up to those last terrible days preceding her death. He goes through real conversations, focuses a lot on Assia Wevill and Ted Hughes, and holds nothing back. I recommend this book without reservation; it is a way to feel like you knew Plath, who unfortunately we will never see or hear from again.

Thank you, Paul Alexander, for a complete and compassionate view of the life of the poet, artist, mother, wife--and sunbather!--Sylvia Plath. You put her heart, mind, and poetry (and how she arrived at that poetry) first, chapter after chapter, so that the reader could feel so very close to Sylvia. I read this book with a collection of Sylvia's poetry at hand, which made the read feel especially all-inclusive, and thorough. You did such a wonderful job of pinpointing the days on which Sylvia wrote certain poems, so that it was a pleasure to follow along and read those particular poems at the 'right time'. Sylvia grew up in print--having published her first poem at eight then continuing to publish poems year by year, until (well, and after) her death.
I found so many of the details revealed in this biography fascinating (for instance, Ted's interest in the occult and hypnosis) and Sylvia's desires for "signs" when she was lost in her life. I appreciated that she felt she had received a sign from William Butler Yeats, given his own meanderings into the supernatural.
If not for this book, I would not have been touched by her life. Many thanks for the years you must have put into bringing the book--and Sylvia--into existence. I am thankful that she gave so much of herself to the world, and that you've shown us a great deal of that Self, that heady poet and that very brave woman Sylvia Plath.

Paul Alexander wrote an ambitious book about the actor James Dean in which Dean is shown to have gotten ahead on his back, and liked doing so, while indulging in a passion for rough sex with just about anyone who took his fancy. Now Sylvia Plath is shown going the same route at about the same time, and for the first time her affair with the mysterious Richard Sassoon is given center stage and explored as perhaps the central love relationship in her life, which makes for a change from other biographies which dwell on Ted Hughes' inadequacies (or conversely on why Ted was so much a better man and poet than Sylvia was a human being), or on Sylvia's fear of Otto and her love hate thing she had with Aurelia.

Paul Alexander's National Enquirer-style reporting may turn some heads, and may startle gentler souls, and in fact did we really need to hear all this about Sylvia's sexual masochism and taste for spanking? When it comes to moving to England, the book goes kind of Lucifer Rising with its deep focus on Ted's zodiac mysticism and Sylvia's picking up ghostly reverberations and getting her poetry from out of the air, like Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy cover or a leftover chapter from Cold Comfort Farm. It's great.

Stumbling upon such a complete biography of Plath's life was a cause for celebration. This book explains Sylvia as a person, and a writer. You travel through her different relationships and then see her work grow out of her experiences. This is the most comprehensive and interesting biography I have ever found on Plath and I loved every page of it, though I felton occasion the author was quick to point out Ted Hughes's faults and gloss over Sylvia's. With a little more objectivity this biography could represent a well rounded view of Sylvia Plath in all her facets.

Just finished this Plath biography. It really gave me an understanding of what was behind her mental angish and emotional dependablities. It reaked of tragedy and sadness, often bringing tears to my eyes. Slyvia suffered such misfortune, from a cheating, ego-centric husband to arriving at her London flat with two small children and discovering the electric and phone had not been connected. I couldn't put this biography down, and appreciated the way her life was simply presented with little analysis and so clearly displayed what Slyvia must have been going through. Something I value in biographies.

"Rough Magic" by Paul Alexander is a pure and objective account of the life of Sylvia Plath. It begins with her family history; a brief overview of her grandparents and parents, and follows with her childhood, including the tragic, influential death of her father when she was a young girl. Her years as a growing adolescent and emerging writer are retold with clarity and insight into the events which went on. Topics of focus include her intense, dramatic need for academic success and her longing to always remain a socially accepted person, two things which were embedded into Sylvia as a young child. The biography goes into great detail about the romantic relationships she experienced, with everything from a stolen kiss from a not-so-secret admirer during her teen-years, to the sad and turbulent end to her marriage to Ted Hughes.

In the end, you'll put this book down with a greater sense of compassion for Sylvia and a better understanding of who she really was: a loving mother and writer who tried, through her precious poetry and prose and the safety and security of a loving family, to shake the demons that followed her throughout her life, a life she considered "blessed." And you'll probably laugh a little and cry a little, and you'll miss her, because she was the type of person that you miss. And hopefully, you'll take a step back and realize that we ourselves are blessed, in just "knowing" her; that, in the story of her life and in her work, there are whispers-- graciously spoken and lovingly heard, left for us to understand and to keep.

A fascinating exploration into the events that shaped the life and determined the untimely death of this doomed visionary of the women's movement. Without pulling punches or pillorying Ted Hughes, the author reveals the chasm and bitterness that engulfed the couple, and he provides sympathetic adulation to a woman way ahead of her time. If you are giving your teenage daughter "The Bell Jar" for the first time, this would also be an admirable companion piece for the Plath neophyte.