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Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath And Life Before Ted (2013)

by Andrew Wilson(Favorite Author)

3.74 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1476710317 (ISBN13: 9781476710310)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Scribner

review 1: I really liked this biography of Plath's early years. It was meticulously researched and, apart from a few typos, well written, pacy and enlightening. It's been a while since I read anything on or by Sylvia Plath, so some things I was reminded of, but most of it was new to me and I had no idea she'd had such a roll call of boyfriends before Ted! That was some tally for the mid-1950s.As for Plath herself, I was impressed by her determination and work ethic. Even by today's competitive standards she really knew how to put in hard graft and she deserved the scholarships she received. Similarly, I was blown away by her IQ and the impressive correspondence she kept up with numerous people. No one writes letters any more - and certainly not such searching ones. I had to keep rem... moreinding myself that I was reading the letters of a teenager or a 20-something - she was clearly an extremely bright woman with a ceaselessly inquisitive mind. I have a great deal of sympathy with her frustrations regarding the mores of the day - the expectation that as a woman she would use her amazing brain and work ethic for nothing more than supporting her family once she got married - and that marriage would swiftly follow her graduation. Also the expectation that as a woman she would remain a virgin until that time, while her male counterparts enjoyed all the advantages of being young and single. She was clearly a woman before her time. She was also conceited and snobbish, which makes her hard to like, but she came across as a fully formed human being in this book and it added greatly to my appreciation of her work.
review 2: Giving up on this.It's getting 2 stars because I recognize it's a perfectly adequate biography and that Sylvia Plath fans will find it of interest. Which I did up her high school and beyond years. It wasn't just the mind numbing procession of boyfriends as much as, to be honest, that she wasn't a very likeable person.Also unconvinced by any thing I've read in this of Andrew Wilson's central thesis that her poetry before Ted Hughes was of equal worth.I read The Bell Jar many years ago and a fair bit of her poetry all of which I liked well enough.I'll leave this book for others to enjoy. less

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