Rating: 
Summary: Can't Get Enough Of Plath
Review: "From the moment I was born---I was doomed to sprout breasts and ovaries rather than penis and scrotum." -entry from SP journals-I thought I knew everything about Plath, but I was mistaken. This book paints a new an unexpected picture of her. Somebody fun, totally insecure (imagine SP being insecure), outrageously goal-oriented, quite child-like at times and sugar sweet. But her unbearable lonliness seeps in also and the depression and the loss of control. This is the SP that most of us think we know. "Whom can I talk to? Get advice from? No-one. A phychiatrist is the God of our age and I won't take advice, even if I want it. I'll kill myself. I am beyond help." -Jounal entry- The journals begin with entries from 1950-1953...
When SP was only 18-her insight, vocabulary, knowledge about the universe, and fluid sentences were evident...even then. In one of her journals she describes rain as she does many times in the book--- "listening to it spurting and drenching and all the different timbers of tone and syncopation-hard maetallic." A cleansing of one's mind? A small baptism for one who hates God? The washing of the soul? We shall never know. But look for all the metaphorical images of rain in her writings. Beautiful. Reading the journals-I felt deliciously naughty, as if I were invading somebody's private letters. And I felt a sense of sister-hood with SP for the first time...as she was experimenting and despartely trying to find the right date, man, soul-mate and equal. "I have at best three years in which to meet eligible people." She was only 18 or 19! Did she know she was going to kill herself then? In an entry about Ted Hughes (her husband) she writes...
"He is the perfect male counterpart to my own self."-journal entry- How wrong she was. What pissed me off was SP is continually irritated about the women's role in the 50's...
"Waking to a new world with no name, being born again, and not of woman." -journal entry- But then she turns around and writes this...
"I am at bottom, simple, credulous,feminine, and loving to be mastered." And this mastering she allowed Ted Hughes to do...And I hate her for it. Personal stuff aside. SP gives the reader superb advice and imformation about the writing life... " Write. You have seen a lot, felt deeply and your problems are universal enough to be made meaningful. Write." "I must write without glazing." "If writing is not an outlet-what is!" "Writing is a religious act." "The worse thing, worse than all of them, would be to live without writing." "I must write every morning, recapturing, embroidering." "Taste the phrases,tough,knotty, blazing with color and fury." "Writing, feeling the colors, words joining, moving patterns that please my ear, my eye." Etc...Etc...Etc... The journals are 700 pages of lessons, insight, what-not-to-do's,what-to-do's, and the fragmented story of a life.
Too short...Too brief. Too sad for most. "What horrifies me the most is the idea of being useless." -SP- "I feel helpless when I think of my writing being nothing." -SP- If I could talk to SP this moment, I would say, "You're a genius. A poet among poets. Brilliant. People love you. Your mother loves you. You're husband is a jerk. Leave him. Your children need you. You will probably win the Pulizer one day. Live. Live. Live. " But it probably wouldn't be enough. It was never enough for Plath.
Rating:
Summary: Can't Get Enough Of Plath
Review: "From the moment I was born---I was doomed to sprout breasts and ovaries rather than penis and scrotum." -entry from SP journals- I thought I knew everything about Plath, but I was mistaken. This book paints a new an unexpected picture of her. Somebody fun, totally insecure (imagine SP being insecure), outrageously goal-oriented, quite child-like at times and sugar sweet. But her unbearable lonliness seeps in also and the depression and the loss of control. This is the SP that most of us think we know. "Whom can I talk to? Get advice from? No-one. A phychiatrist is the God of our age and I won't take advice, even if I want it. I'll kill myself. I am beyond help." -Jounal entry- The journals begin with entries from 1950-1953...
When SP was only 18-her insight, vocabulary, knowledge about the universe, and fluid sentences were evident...even then. In one of her journals she describes rain as she does many times in the book--- "listening to it spurting and drenching and all the different timbers of tone and syncopation-hard maetallic." A cleansing of one's mind? A small baptism for one who hates God? The washing of the soul? We shall never know. But look for all the metaphorical images of rain in her writings. Beautiful. Reading the journals-I felt deliciously naughty, as if I were invading somebody's private letters. And I felt a sense of sister-hood with SP for the first time...as she was experimenting and despartely trying to find the right date, man, soul-mate and equal. "I have at best three years in which to meet eligible people." She was only 18 or 19! Did she know she was going to kill herself then? In an entry about Ted Hughes (her husband) she writes...
"He is the perfect male counterpart to my own self."-journal entry- How wrong she was. What pissed me off was SP is continually irritated about the women's role in the 50's...
"Waking to a new world with no name, being born again, and not of woman." -journal entry- But then she turns around and writes this...
"I am at bottom, simple, credulous,feminine, and loving to be mastered." And this mastering she allowed Ted Hughes to do...And I hate her for it. Personal stuff aside. SP gives the reader superb advice and imformation about the writing life... " Write. You have seen a lot, felt deeply and your problems are universal enough to be made meaningful. Write." "I must write without glazing." "If writing is not an outlet-what is!" "Writing is a religious act." "The worse thing, worse than all of them, would be to live without writing." "I must write every morning, recapturing, embroidering." "Taste the phrases,tough,knotty, blazing with color and fury." "Writing, feeling the colors, words joining, moving patterns that please my ear, my eye." Etc...Etc...Etc... The journals are 700 pages of lessons, insight, what-not-to-do's,what-to-do's, and the fragmented story of a life.
Too short...Too brief. Too sad for most. "What horrifies me the most is the idea of being useless." -SP- "I feel helpless when I think of my writing being nothing." -SP- If I could talk to SP this moment, I would say, "You're a genius. A poet among poets. Brilliant. People love you. Your mother loves you. You're husband is a jerk. Leave him. Your children need you. You will probably win the Pulizer one day. Live. Live. Live. " But it probably wouldn't be enough. It was never enough for Plath.
Rating: 
Summary: Disturbingly Beautiful Writing; Horrible Layout & Editing
Review: Along with every other devout fan of Sylvia Plath, I was thrilled and excited to finally be able to read the words that she wrote in their true & beautiful form, untouched or manipulated by Ted Hughes or the rest of her family. And these journals lived up to my every expectation. In them, the pure beauty, slashed by such violence and utter genius, is projected in ethereal simplicity. It is everything that I anticipated, and more. However, I found Ms. Kukil's attempts to present Plath's words in their 'pure' form- grammer, spelling, and every other mistake intact- a big nuisance. The attempts on my part to interpret and find depth in Plath's words was impeded, at a certain extent, by her grammerical/spelling errors. I'm not admonishing Plath for making those errors (it is, after all, just her diary), but rather, Ms. Kukil for not correcting them. Another annoyance was the arrangement of the journal fragments- their being placed after the intact journals, instead of in between them in chronilogical order, required me to use two or three extra book marks so as to flip between several journal segments, and the notes at the end of the book. The notes posed another problem, as they were so numerous, and instead of being placed at the foot of the page on which they occured, were placed in their own section, in order of how they appear in the book, with no notation fo page/appearance. This makes coherent, random reading nearly impossible, as you have to go about locating which notes are where in the notes section, and each note only appears once. Also, the inclusion of Plath's worknotes/observations clutter the meat of her real entries, and should have also been left out. They have no relation to the rest of the work, and most of the time aren't even interpretable. Those problems aside, I definately recommend the reading of this book; I just wish the editor had done her job better.
Rating:
Summary: Profoundly Sad
Review: As I read the morbid journals of Sylvia Plath, I find that all of them have a beautiful intensity. Her words, which have a beautiful movement, are an extended description of her inner life. Her mind, illuminated always by poetry and prose, is moved by slight moments to rapture and despair. Even as she describes the raptures of being seventeen, her prose displays a profound melancholy, as though the fires of her nature foreshadow her darkest tendencies.
Rating:
Summary: Just as Good as the Original.
Review: As the Journals host at BellaOnline, I first heard about this publication a year ago, and my interest was peaked. For years, I wondered, I speculated, what would happen to The Journals of Sylvia Plath once Ted Hughes passed away. For those familiar with the original publication of her journals, the foreward by Hughes (her estranged husband) mentioned that some of her journals which continued the story where the first published edition left off had been either "lost" or "destroyed" by him. Other parts of the journals had been edited. Now that he is no longer able to "hold back" the information, would their be a change to the content of the journals? Yes, but not in an important way. The Unabridged Journals gives us the same vision of life as the original publication, but with more details included. No, the "lost" or "destroyed" journals have not resurfaced, and most of the details Hughes left out were details about him -- Plath's obsession with her husband, that is. Nothing horrible was left out, painting him as a monster. Instead, her fixation with her husband, embarassing tidbits about her desires for him, are what he had edited out. For die-hard Plath fans, such as myself, this is a nice edition to a collection with some very facinating tidbits. However, if you're just using the journals for a paper or report, the original edition will do just fine.
Rating:
Summary: Moving
Review: Everything which Plath wrote in her journals has proceeded to appear profoundly sad; even as she writes of the raptures of her youth, lurking beneath the surface is a profound melancholy.
The journals are a moving account of this tormented poet's life as well as the nearness of her encounters with death and madness. Not merely autobiographical, it is as well a study of the process of the written word. Readers can refer to these journals as a source of artistic inspiration and deep portrayal of psychological pain.
Rating:
Summary: Learn about the construction of a poet, as well of poetry.
Review: Having recently become an avid reader of online journals, and never having been a particular fan of poetry, I was intimidated when I first began reading Plath's jounrals, unabridged, no less. I have no regrets! Apart from the obvious value to artists, writers, and poets everywhere, Plath's journals offer a unique window through the mind of a highly intelligent woman on gender relations and the times in which she lived. And one thing this book most certainly did was give me a far greater appreciation for poetry and wordplay as art. If you feel you can handle the sheer volume of the work, definately pick up a copy if for no other reason than to read from time to time to see a master of the art at work. I also agree with many of the other reviewers' comments about the format of the notes; as someone who wanted to read through chronologically and reference the notes fairly often, that aspect of presentation was disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: BEAUTIFUL
Review: Her writing is beautiful. She does show remarkable growth in thought after college, and as she reaches her suicide, her writing is unbelievably stunning. mike
Rating:
Summary: Astounding
Review: I find these journals to be completely phenomenal. I have never read Plath's journals before and I was drawn in immediately and have been completely riveted and fascinated throughout. She is simply an extraordinay, brilliant genius. However you want to reads these--as historical documents, as fiction, as psychologial case study--they are amazing. She is such an incredible writer that she makes everything interesting--even when she is being tiresome or self-centered or idealistic. These are profound documents from a brilliant woman and I have been extremely moved at the journey they document. I have found passages on writing (such as p.305) that are among the most beautiful I have ever read. Her comments on writing and art are probably the most fascinating to me, but the ongoing details of her daily life are also riveting. They give a rich, insider's view of what it was to be a girl and a woman in her time. The tiny details about clothes, cars, and food are so exact and telling you feel plunged into a time warp. I have been submerged, ensconced in her world--because she is such a fantastic, amazing writer. She recreates herself, her world, her interior and exterior life. Of course one could also pull back and do a lot of scholarly analyzing, but these journals also pull you in like a great thriller or novel. Everyone can draw their own conclusions about her psychology, there is a lot to interpret. Its all here.
I think these journals should be taught in every woman's writing classes; they are such invaluable documents about women, creativity, madness, sexuality, language. Its all here. I was extremely intrigued by how differently she related to poetry vs. prose and her problems with "plot."
Overall I was taken completely by surprise with how much I enjoyed and how deeply I experienced these journals, which I am sure I will return to again and again.
Rating:
Summary: sylvia's little demons
Review: i have always loved sylvia's poetry, and i just bought this book from my book club. i could not put it down. it was beautiful and terrible and heartbreaking to watch her unfold. it seems odd to me though that ted destroyed the journal that was current to within three days of her suicide. (and i was quite disappointed by the omission of them) my only problem with it was that i hated to see it end where it did...i felt gypped by the sudden stop.
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