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A review by princessrobotiv
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
4.0
3.5
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Interestingly, this is my first Plath "work;" therefore, I suspect I interacted with the text differently than others who have had exposure to the works of Plath and/or Hughes (and perhaps possess a strong bias towards one "side" of the Plath tragedy). My role as a reader was marked by a pretty flat neutrality, which somewhat counterintuitively did not reduce my enjoyment of the text; in fact, I think it in many ways enhanced it.
I struggle with rating this, however. Whenever you have a collection of this sort, specifically with personal reflective items such as journals or letters, there are multiple considerations that go beyond the raw content of the work. It would be simplistic to read Plath's journals looking for "likability" or sordid accounts of marital troubles and mental illness, and I think a reader searching for this content should expect to be disappointed. The journals are somewhat infamously missing many so-called "key" entries leading up to both of Plath's suicide attempts, and despite a growing preoccupation with motherhood prior to her pregnancy, they go frustratingly vague once she actually becomes pregnant with Frieda.
Notably, Plath also does not come off as what I would call a "likable" person, which is not to say that her struggles as an artist and a woman aren't still highly relatable to certain demographics. Neither is she what I would classify as an "unlikable" or especially offensive person. Much recent critique centers around the author as a moral individual and measures the value of an artist by their supposed "wokeness," and in this respect Plath certainly fails (and I've seen her "blacklisted" and readers of Plath attacked for this very failing). Her journals do not handle ethnicity well, or almost at all, and there are strains of anti-Semitism, ableism, racism, and even localized anti-feminism present in multiple entries.
Yet to summarily dismiss her would be to erase the significant value of her journals with respect to their candid representation of the woman artist in mid-century America and England, and especially the mentally ill woman artist.
Also of interest to me, specifically, was Plath's representation of academic life - not just as a student but later as a teacher, unable to "fit in" with her colleagues and despairing of the mental/physical drain of the profession:
The collection itself was structured well, though I question some placement of the photographs as well as the purpose of a few entries being pushed to the Appendix. As always, I wish there had been footnotes rather than endnotes, but alas.
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Would it be too childish of me to say: I want? But I do want: theater, light, color, paintings, wine and wonder. Yet not all these can do more than try to lure the soul from its den where it sulks in busy heaps of filth and obstinate clods of bloody pulp. I must find a core of fruitful seeds in me. I must stop identifying with the seasons, because this English winter will be the death of me.Well this took me forever, but I'm glad I persevered.
Interestingly, this is my first Plath "work;" therefore, I suspect I interacted with the text differently than others who have had exposure to the works of Plath and/or Hughes (and perhaps possess a strong bias towards one "side" of the Plath tragedy). My role as a reader was marked by a pretty flat neutrality, which somewhat counterintuitively did not reduce my enjoyment of the text; in fact, I think it in many ways enhanced it.
I struggle with rating this, however. Whenever you have a collection of this sort, specifically with personal reflective items such as journals or letters, there are multiple considerations that go beyond the raw content of the work. It would be simplistic to read Plath's journals looking for "likability" or sordid accounts of marital troubles and mental illness, and I think a reader searching for this content should expect to be disappointed. The journals are somewhat infamously missing many so-called "key" entries leading up to both of Plath's suicide attempts, and despite a growing preoccupation with motherhood prior to her pregnancy, they go frustratingly vague once she actually becomes pregnant with Frieda.
Notably, Plath also does not come off as what I would call a "likable" person, which is not to say that her struggles as an artist and a woman aren't still highly relatable to certain demographics. Neither is she what I would classify as an "unlikable" or especially offensive person. Much recent critique centers around the author as a moral individual and measures the value of an artist by their supposed "wokeness," and in this respect Plath certainly fails (and I've seen her "blacklisted" and readers of Plath attacked for this very failing). Her journals do not handle ethnicity well, or almost at all, and there are strains of anti-Semitism, ableism, racism, and even localized anti-feminism present in multiple entries.
Yet to summarily dismiss her would be to erase the significant value of her journals with respect to their candid representation of the woman artist in mid-century America and England, and especially the mentally ill woman artist.
Felt a joy yesterday, soon clouded.
I have a violence in me that is hot as death-blood. I can kill myself or--I know it now--even kill another.Because above all else, Plath's journals are impressively exhaustive accounts of the struggle of a largely unknown author striving to create something of significance and value while drowning in ebbing waves of doubt and self-disgust. Many of the entries existed more as writing exercises than true emotion-driven accounts of her life, and this is doubly true in the second half of the collection (after Plath marries Hughes and fully submerses herself in the artist identity).
Also of interest to me, specifically, was Plath's representation of academic life - not just as a student but later as a teacher, unable to "fit in" with her colleagues and despairing of the mental/physical drain of the profession:
I pick up my ms. of poetry and leaf through it, unable to invent, to create - all my projected nostalgia for my students can't shake the conviction that teaching is a smiling public-service vampire that drinks blood and brain without a thank you.The recurring strain of bitter, ungenerous competitiveness between Plath and her fellow authors was so interesting to read; it felt like a candid and authentic representation of the darker side of academia.
The collection itself was structured well, though I question some placement of the photographs as well as the purpose of a few entries being pushed to the Appendix. As always, I wish there had been footnotes rather than endnotes, but alas.