Rating: 
Summary: Poignant, beautiful, insanity.
Review: I read the journals about six months ago and at that time had never previously heard of Sylvia Plath. However, through the journals (which, may I add are displayed in all of their glory in the unabridged version)shed a little light onto her life and views; battling against the stereotypes of women at that time and being torn between being a poet and a housewife. She didn't see that a housewife could still be a successful author and poet-that came just years after her suicide.All in all, I would say that we get an insight into her mind in this although we will never know the reason as to why she decided to take her own life on that fateful February morning. She has even been canonied as "St. Sylvia" by some ardent fans, but even though I personally am mesmerised by this woman, you must remember when reading the journals that she was human, complete with flaws. If you do this then you will get the best from the book.
Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: It's about time that we got the nearly full story of what she really thought and felt. Although we will probably never see those missing journals which were written months prior to her death, still what remains is riveting. As for the person who mentioned how disturbing her entries are and how she comes across as a 'monster,' well, apparently some people have no appreciation for a) how complicated artistic people are; and b) how we ALL have these thoughts from time to time, whether we are artistic or not. We just don't take the time to write them down in journals for pedantic 'chicken soup' types to thoughtlessly analyze after we're dead. I do however, agree with the intelligent comment about the Euripedean relationship with that mother. Good use of Greek mythology. I think it was Camille Paglia who pegged the real source of Plath's anger when she described the redoubtable Aurelia Plath as someone who could castrate you from fifty paces. Hilarious and true. Poor Sylvia. I would be [angry] too with a mother like that. Thank you for these wonderful glimpses into the human condition. If Plath's a monster, then we all are.
Rating:
Summary: Finally
Review: It's not every journal she ever kept, but it's every journal that survived, and that's more than we've ever had. Fascinating look at the life and inner workings of one of our country's most gifted and tormented poets.
Rating: 
Summary: More Plath!!!
Review: Just in time for a public still haunted by Plath's life and death. These wonderful diaries clue you into the pain of a depressive, the struggle of the young writer, and the hope that a young woman had despite the oppressive confines of 50s society in America. To see more of Sylvia Plath's life is to recognize that many of the invisible obstacles standing in the way of happiness for millions of women are still in place in our society today-- that we all have phantoms, that they still lurk, quietly, in our own lives.
Rating:
Summary: More Plath!!!
Review: Just in time for a public still haunted by Plath's life and death. These wonderful diaries clue you into the pain of a depressive, the struggle of the young writer, and the hope that a young woman had despite the oppressive confines of 50s society in America. To see more of Sylvia Plath's life is to recognize that many of the invisible obstacles standing in the way of happiness for millions of women are still in place in our society today-- that we all have phantoms, that they still lurk, quietly, in our own lives.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful, Articulate, Eloquent
Review: Much has been made of Sylvia Plath's depression, angst and despair (conditions that plagued her for the duration of her life).
Yet, these journals and personal accounts also shed light on and reveal the joy and amazement she felt for life (particularly in her teenage years). This, more than anything, should be the reason you read this publication. That and the fact, she is quite easily the most articulate and eloquent writer of our times.
Rating:
Summary: What? Nothing to say, Ted?
Review: Oh, that's right, you're dead now, aren't you? Here, untainted by the interference of her unworthy ex, Ted Hughes, is an intense and revealing series of insights into the mind of this most brilliant woman. I came to these journals after reading five volumes of the diaries of Virginia Woolf, and some of the parallels are quite chilling. Whether Plath articulates it or not, the legacy of the Inquisition hangs over her as it has over so many women who are still trying to make sense of a world that is yet to be cleansed of the darker residues of patriarchy. At the time of her suicide in 1963, women had only had been able to vote, own property and inherit property from their fathers for a pitiful 45 years. Incredibly, the centennial of women suffrage will not be until 2018. But of course, that can't be an issue, can it? As for people who desperately manipulate threads of her words to 'prove' that she secretly wanted dependence, hinting that all women secretly crave dependence; consider that if women were naturally dependent on men, the patriarchy would never have needed to set up such a vast number of mechanisms to suppress them. Having read most of her poetry, including the final Ariel poems, and having worked through the journals - a draining experience at times - I still feel Plath's basic Life dilemma is captured in the following hybridized stanza (a merging of lines from two separate stanzas) from Lorelei:- Worse even than your maddening
Song, your silence. At the source
Of your ice-hearted calling... The siren's wail is something primal, something heart-stoppingly elemental. The carrier wave for the Great Song, the Oran Mor of the Celts. It even appears in a similar form in Siddhartha, in the river of a thousand voices, ultimately all converging to form Unity. Like any tortured soul, such as Virginia Woolf - plug in a name - the basic alienation and fear of meaninglessness clearly were there in Plath as with most humans, but her Lorelei references also suggested a fear of her own innate primal power. She had a glimpse of something that simply overloaded her circuits, perhaps like the Kundalini experience that led to the poet Shelley's drowning. Yes, there in those lines, we have the dilemma. Which is the more terrible, the Silence or the Song? The fear of nothingness or the crushing tidal wave of everydayness? The entire process of Life. She lived vicariously to some degree, placing far too much importance on her relationship with Ted Hughes. A roving, cheating husband, a man without honor, who was simply not worthy of her, or of any decent woman. Perhaps in her final bleak despair, she forgot that she had existed before him as Sylvia Plath and could have existed after him as Sylvia Plath. She misinterpreted the siren call of her Sisters. They were not calling her down to Death, but to reunification. Ted who? I rather fancy she was the better poet of the two, by a long sea mile.
Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: She was a very passionate woman with a razor-sharp mind and these diaries show it. Whoever said she was a monster doesn't know his backside from a hole in the ground. If she was a monster, then we're all monsters! It's called the human condition, honey. Look into it.
Rating:
Summary: A BEST FRIEND FOR YOUR BOOKSHELF
Review: The good thing about journals is that after you've read them you can dip in again at any page and get caught up in that day's events, action, dilemmas, reflections; once you become more familiar with the contents you can return to favourite passages for pleasure. It's almost like having a best friend on your bookshelf. The biggest barrier for anyone contemplating writing down their innermost thoughts is crossing that line of inhibition and saying what your really feel about the most intimate of things, without censoring yourself (with the fear of friends or family possibly reading your journal) or for feeling stupid or embarrassed about opening up on the page and seeing your thoughts in print.
Not many people could write a diary account of their life as honestly as Sylvia Plath. It amazes me how disciplined - and with so much devotion - she was able to 'jot down' day after day the beautifully written, perfect prose in her journals; and from such an early age as well, eighteen (she actually started keeping journals in childhood but this edition covers only her adult life). In her own unmistakable voice we see 'Sivvy' (as she liked to call herself) as the young, naive teenager on the threshold of life, dreaming of the romantic love affairs she longs for; the excited college student working on a New York magazine, an experience she later used for her only novel The Bell Jar; trips to Paris and her honeymoon in Spain; married life with Ted Hughes, the mother of his two children; and all the time living in the shadow of the black depression that would descend on her without any warning.
With Sylvia Plath's tragic suicide you can't help but think: what a waste of life, what a wasted talent. Perhaps it was because she knew her own psyche best - she was constantly trying to figure out her feelings on the pages of her journal - that she was in such a hurry to get everything down before the inevitable happened. Maybe she just burned herself out too soon. The final flurry of stunningly original poems that would later become the posthumous collection Ariel are testament to the short life she was able to pack into the pages of her hefty Journals.
The only thing that spoils this otherwise marvellous new edition of the Journals is editor Karen V. Kukil's decision to list the notes of identification of people and places at the back of the book instead of footnotes on the bottom of the pages; it's irritating and bothersome to have to continually flick back and forth and use two different bookmarks to keep your place.
Two other books can be read in conjunction with the Journals, and I highly recommend them both. Sylvia Plath's Letters Home - written mainly to her mother Aurelia Plath, who edited this volume of correspondence and also provides biographical content about her daughter's life in a lengthy introduction and accompanying side-notes to letters when needed for clarification. Birthday Letters is a beautiful collection of poems by Ted Hughes, written as letters of reminiscence about his life with Sylvia Plath in reply to her account of their marriage in the Journals.
Other related books I recommend are the biographies: Rough Magic by Paul Alexander, Anne Stevenson's Bitter Fame, and Sylvia Plath: A Beginner's Guide by Gina Wisker.
Rating:
Summary: A comprehensive and moving document
Review: This long awaited document can be considered a text book for all who are interested in the life, work, and process of the writer Sylvia Plath. Karen Kukil's efforts to include every last detail of Plath's journals, including drawings and poem fragments, are incredibly well executed. The end result is a moving and informative book.
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