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awhitehouse's review against another edition
4.5
so surprised by how readable this non fiction is! excellent book id like to read more of hers
gregory_glover's review
challenging
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
I recently had Plath’s The Bell Jar recommended to me. While reading about Plath (and, unavoidably, also about Hughes) and awaiting the arrival of the novel, I stumbled across this book by Malcolm. I had recently read her Still Pictures: On Photography and Memory and been impressed by her critical perceptiveness. Having made the decision to read more of her work, and embarrassed that I came to it only after her death, I jumped at the opportunity to combine the emerging interest in Plath and Malcolm by reading this first. I am still digesting what I’ve read, but my initial response is that Malcolm is a great literary critic and this treatment of biography as a genre is the best I have ever read. I have a few quibbles with some of her observations, but she makes me think. Her work is smart and informative, meticulous even, without being stiff and overly academic. I loved it. Just what cultural criticism should be.
cemoses's review
5.0
This is a very thought provocative book. A lot about it is about writing biography. Accurate biographies can be very hard to write especially when many of the people that knew the person are still alive and access to the papers are controlled by family. The family will often put stipulations on the authors who write the biographies.
In the case of Sylvia Plath much of her writings were controlled by her estranged husband Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath's mother who have not given writers unrestricted access to much of her work. Ted Hughes who is well known in his own right, has caused some difficulties for her biographers.
Of course, in his defense he has had to think about their children who very young when Sylvia Plath died. Also, he has been much criticized for possibly not doing enough to prevent Sylvia Plath's suicide. He had an affair with another woman just before she died.
Even though Janet Malcolm, admits she is biased in favor of Ted Hughes, the book does make it seem interesting the question of what went wrong for Sylvia Plath and the question of whether her suicide could have been prevented. The book make's Plath's death seem like Marilyn Monroe's death which occurred about the same time; both these women were talented but had their personal issues. The book did make me want to read a biography of Sylvia Plath.
Janet Malcolm admits she is biased in favor of the Hughes. She had met his sister several times. While I don't question Janet Malcolm's integrity, I think it might be hard for her to be totally objective. She had never met Sylvia Plath while Ted Hughes and his family might be able to help Janet Malcolm if she won their favor.
In the case of Sylvia Plath much of her writings were controlled by her estranged husband Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath's mother who have not given writers unrestricted access to much of her work. Ted Hughes who is well known in his own right, has caused some difficulties for her biographers.
Of course, in his defense he has had to think about their children who very young when Sylvia Plath died. Also, he has been much criticized for possibly not doing enough to prevent Sylvia Plath's suicide. He had an affair with another woman just before she died.
Even though Janet Malcolm, admits she is biased in favor of Ted Hughes, the book does make it seem interesting the question of what went wrong for Sylvia Plath and the question of whether her suicide could have been prevented. The book make's Plath's death seem like Marilyn Monroe's death which occurred about the same time; both these women were talented but had their personal issues. The book did make me want to read a biography of Sylvia Plath.
Janet Malcolm admits she is biased in favor of the Hughes. She had met his sister several times. While I don't question Janet Malcolm's integrity, I think it might be hard for her to be totally objective. She had never met Sylvia Plath while Ted Hughes and his family might be able to help Janet Malcolm if she won their favor.
dethklok1985's review against another edition
3.0
Certainly interesting narrative, but the ending was surprisingly bad.
missmim's review
5.0
The most even-handed of the bios on Plath and Hughes. Malcolm really tries to get the full story without taking sides. It's nice to see, since most Plath bios depict her as a simpering victim to Hughes' cruelty, which was most assuredly not the case.
tracyjwd's review
5.0
It’s important for me to note that this was a book we had to read for class but not expected to finish. I read it in its entirety because nobody writes like Malcom. Her work (of the books and New Yorker articles I’ve read) appears to be magic but requires true skill and craftsmanship in the English language and storytelling.
The story follows the drama and feuds which underwrite the Plath estate and forces us to reckon with the tension between who we think we are, who others think we are, and all the ways people can spin us into things that we are not (dead or alive), in favor
of creating characters for the public to criticize, sympathize with, or hate.
How Malcom makes the story of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, and all other characters that feature in the great story of “Who Was Sylvia Plath?”, a captivating read is a testament to her sheer genius.
For a literary/narrative journalism-investigative research-literary criticism piece with volumes of information and analysis of poems and people, I couldn’t put it down. It felt like reading a crime novel except everything was true and we knew upfront
who our victim was all along.
10/10
The story follows the drama and feuds which underwrite the Plath estate and forces us to reckon with the tension between who we think we are, who others think we are, and all the ways people can spin us into things that we are not (dead or alive), in favor
of creating characters for the public to criticize, sympathize with, or hate.
How Malcom makes the story of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, and all other characters that feature in the great story of “Who Was Sylvia Plath?”, a captivating read is a testament to her sheer genius.
For a literary/narrative journalism-investigative research-literary criticism piece with volumes of information and analysis of poems and people, I couldn’t put it down. It felt like reading a crime novel except everything was true and we knew upfront
who our victim was all along.
10/10
baileybb's review against another edition
5.0
Really excellent book, informative and easy to follow - finished it in a day. It goes through the existing accounts of Plath’s life with a critical eye and draws on new interviews with those that knew her to portray a reasonably rounded picture. Malcolm highlights the possible inaccuracies of biographical writing as she goes, as well as the back and forth between biographers and the Plath estate (which makes it an interesting read for anyone interested in this form of writing).