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4.64 AVERAGE
4.64 AVERAGE
Devastating but humane and entirely essential it's the best biography I've ever read. So comprehensive & wonderfully eager to read 'through' the poetry I've a smart crop of fresh annotations in my collected. A small aside to say poor Nick who seems to have been neglected amid the favouritism that poured onto Frieda you deserved better dear.
It's the best portrait of a poet I've encountered too it's especially striking how entirely disciplined SP was & more so than just about any poet of the 20thc that comes to mind she never let herself slack. Her precision is well-known it is hypereminent but I think it's telling that probably eight or nine times Clark is forced to say x poem marks a major turning point in her poetic development, nothing would be the same hereafter.
It's an emotionally exhausting work it's charitable in perhaps unexpected ways I do find Red Comet a monumental work of scholarship beyond all reason of what biography has done.
What is so real as the cry of a child?
It's the best portrait of a poet I've encountered too it's especially striking how entirely disciplined SP was & more so than just about any poet of the 20thc that comes to mind she never let herself slack. Her precision is well-known it is hypereminent but I think it's telling that probably eight or nine times Clark is forced to say x poem marks a major turning point in her poetic development, nothing would be the same hereafter.
It's an emotionally exhausting work it's charitable in perhaps unexpected ways I do find Red Comet a monumental work of scholarship beyond all reason of what biography has done.
What is so real as the cry of a child?
Actually really well written & highly rec. I just don't care enough about Sylvia Plath to dedicate this much time on her life.
This book was stunning, breathtaking, dazzling, brilliant, marvelous, devastating, gorgeous, ravishing, remarkable, sensational, smashing, spectacular, striking, and just so damn good. (Thank you thersarus.com for those adjectives) Heather Clark is a true biographical master.
What I appreciated most about the book was Clark's respect for Plath & her story. I never got the sense that Clark had an obvious opinion about Plath that was guiding the book, there was no motive to shape her into the hysterical, mentally ill woman that she is so often portrayed as. Clark told the facts & that was it. She used interviews, Plath's personal journals, books, & other resources to craft this beautiful memoir about a woman that has made so many people, including myself, feel seen.
For being a 1000+ page book, I never wished for the ending to come. Actually, when it did end, I was sad. I felt like I had lost a friend. Clark tells the story of Plath's life in a way that feels like you are living it with her - even through all the heartache, happiness, and struggles. The pictures of her life in the book only add to this experience.
If you are Plath lover like I am, I can't recommend this book enough. And, if you are a person that only views her as the hysteric, mentally ill woman poet, then I urge you to read it even more. It made me appreciate her & the Bell Jar so much more. This experience made me happy, enraged, & broke my heart. I already have a fig tattoo from the Bell Jar, but this book made me want to get another dedicated to Plath. I will never stop talking about this book.
What I appreciated most about the book was Clark's respect for Plath & her story. I never got the sense that Clark had an obvious opinion about Plath that was guiding the book, there was no motive to shape her into the hysterical, mentally ill woman that she is so often portrayed as. Clark told the facts & that was it. She used interviews, Plath's personal journals, books, & other resources to craft this beautiful memoir about a woman that has made so many people, including myself, feel seen.
For being a 1000+ page book, I never wished for the ending to come. Actually, when it did end, I was sad. I felt like I had lost a friend. Clark tells the story of Plath's life in a way that feels like you are living it with her - even through all the heartache, happiness, and struggles. The pictures of her life in the book only add to this experience.
If you are Plath lover like I am, I can't recommend this book enough. And, if you are a person that only views her as the hysteric, mentally ill woman poet, then I urge you to read it even more. It made me appreciate her & the Bell Jar so much more. This experience made me happy, enraged, & broke my heart. I already have a fig tattoo from the Bell Jar, but this book made me want to get another dedicated to Plath. I will never stop talking about this book.
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
emotional
informative
medium-paced
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
I really connected with some of Plath's journal entries from college when a friend gifted me her collected diaries in school. I read The Bell Jar years ago as well. I only knew the vague outlines of her biography, so this book was fascinating. It was heartbreaking to read how conflicted she felt about career and motherhood, virginity and sex, all of these damning expectations the 50s and 60s placed on women. I stepped away from this book with a sense of how suffocating this time period was for ambitious women. How different could her life have been if she didn't have to deal with those strictures, and also had modern medicine's understanding about mental illness and treatments? I also found it sort of wild how many boys she was dating at once throughout her school days. Even when she was all but engaged to one boy or another, she was sure to go on many other dates with different boys. I was also struck by how she would repeatedly build up some upcoming adventure (like a vacation or new job) with huge expectations, then always be disappointed and dissatisfied with wherever she was.
“...if we could be clairvoyant and see the date of our own doom, the bloodclot in the vein of our existence - how differently we might proportion our time” -Sylvia Plath
A fascinating and exhaustively researched disquisition that sidesteps the mythos and fleshes out Sylvia Plath like never before. Doggedly in pursuit of the truth, Heather Clark paints a portrait of Plath that is unfiltered but respectful. In the end I came to see SP for what she truly was, a brilliant poet and writer battling both misogyny and mental illness while juggling the demands of motherhood and the devastating fallout of an unfaithful husband. This is eleven hundred pages of heart and heartbreak. 5 stars.
A fascinating and exhaustively researched disquisition that sidesteps the mythos and fleshes out Sylvia Plath like never before. Doggedly in pursuit of the truth, Heather Clark paints a portrait of Plath that is unfiltered but respectful. In the end I came to see SP for what she truly was, a brilliant poet and writer battling both misogyny and mental illness while juggling the demands of motherhood and the devastating fallout of an unfaithful husband. This is eleven hundred pages of heart and heartbreak. 5 stars.
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced