A review by carlageek
Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams: Short Stories, Prose and Diary Excerpts by Sylvia Plath

4.0

A pretty mixed selection of Plath's short prose, selected by Ted Hughes, on what basis I am not sure. Highlights include Plath's writings about her neighbors in England, written after her marriage to Hughes. In a kind of writing exercise that she sets for herself, Plath tries to capture the quirks and annoyances of the people she encounters, and the result is a pleasing personal anthropology. These become even more interesting when set beside some of the short stories that came out of the observations, providing a tantalizing glimpse into Plath's process. The book is arranged roughly in reverse chronological order, meaning that as you approach the end, you encounter short stories from the early 50s that are recapitulated a decade later The Bell Jar. Having had the rest of the collection to become familiar with Plath's life-to-fiction process, these take on an even more intimate tinge.