The Journals of Sylvia Plath

Had one of the worst weeks ever .. Alan was made redundant last Monday and we have been panicking around revising his CV and making phone calls etc. I've had to brush up on my extremely rusty typing skills. In any case it has made us both feel a bit Eeyoreish and one of the side effects has been that I can't read a thing .. my mind is just not in it. Anyway, enough of my woes, I'm dreadfully behind with reviewing so I'll just write some thoughts down here ..

Synopsis: No other major contemporary American writer has inspired such intense curiosity about her life as Sylvia Plath. Now the intimate and eloquent personal diaries of the twentieth century's most important female poet reveal for the first time the true story behind "The Bell Jar" and her tragic suicide at thirty. They paint, as well, a revealing portrait of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose stature has seldom been equalled.

Review: Firstly, thank you frankie (from BCF) for bookswapping this with me .. I adored it. This book made me ashamed of my own pathetic adolescent scribblings in the same way that Anne Frank's diary made me throw all my childhood diaries away .. they didn't actually tell me anything, it was just a list of what I wore and what I ate and who I fancied and who said what to whom .. terrible.

Sylvia doesn't just write an account of her day to day life, she pours out all of her thoughts and feelings into her journals and reading them is like reading her very troubled, unquiet, but oh so vivid and vital mind. She really was an all or nothing sort of person, she was fiercely ambitious about her future as a published poet/author and every rejection letter received was like a dagger to her. I was touched by the little self help lists she included in her diary entires .. stuff like (early on) 'don't drink too much ... keep troubles to self ... don't criticize anybody to anybody else' and later 'immerse self in characters ... forget saleable stories, write to recreate a mood' .... All her joys seem short lived, clouds form and demons lurk in the wings, you feel that she never really knew what it was to have a mind at peace with itself. She writes just beautifully .. this piece about Ted enchanted me ... 'and he sets the sea of my life steady, flooding it with the deep rich color of his mind and his love and constant amaze at his perfect being; as if I had conjured, at last, a god from the slack tides, coming up with his spear shining, and the cockleshells and rare fish trailing in his wake, and he trailing the world: for my earth goddess, he the sun, the sea, the black complement power: yang to ying' .. so glorious but of course, with hindsight, you ache for her when you read it.

She writes with her heart and soul, it's very raw and intense, and as such it can make you feel sad and exhausted but ultimately it's enormously rewarding and enlightening .. it makes you long to know more and, of course, I want to read the edition that was not edited by Ted now (because the omissions here can frustrate a bit) but also I'd like to read his letters to see if they can provide balance.