Rating: 
Summary: A good gossip, that's all
Review: This book is just gossip about two famous(or infamous) poets.Janet Malcolm elicits gossip from various people who came into contact with Sylvia Plath in some way.Most of these people wrote about Plath or were her neighbors for a while.They were not close to Sylvia. When she met them,Janet tells us what clothes these people wore, and in some cases, how they dished up a meal. There is no reliable information given about either poet.Janet tells us that interesting biography can't be objective. But really, she can't be objective because she is unashamedly in the pro Ted Hughes camp. If Janet wished to learn something about Sylvia and Ted she could have asked an astrologer. Then she would have found out that Sylvia was a Scorpio, and in Chinese astrology she was a monkey.A Scorpio monkey is a strange character. She can be obsessive, extremely secretive and perversely wilful. Janet would have be informwd that Sylvia's Sun was square with Saturn. This indicates a strict superego controlling the instincts.This inner conflict would boil over at times into destructive behavior. Ted,a Leo, had eight squares in his chart, showing much inner conflict. His Venus was afflicted, indicating self-indulgence, an unloving nature, and erratic behavior in love matters.There is in-built tension between a Scorpio and a Leo. Unless both parties compromise, their strong wills clash and turn the relationship into a battlefield. Ted's Mars is square to Sylvia's Venus, causing a hostile attitude towards her.His Mars is in her fourth house of the home, so his hostility would appear there.An astrologer could have told Janet this, and more on what made these two poets tick.If you like gossip about famous people, you'll find it in this book
Rating: 
Summary: The Mystifying Art & Craft of Biography
Review: To prospective readers: This is not a biography of Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes. The title is somewhat misleading. Author Janet Malcolm was drawn to the subject because her former classmate Ann Stevenson was taking a terrible drubbing for her (Stevenson's) biography of Sylvia Plath "Bitter Fame."Malcolm went about interviewing Plath-Hughes sources, family and biographers. The world of biographers is a cruel and incestuous one, particularly if the subject still has living friends, enemies, and families. Stevenson, Malcolm believes, had no idea what she was getting into and was bombarded on all sides mainly because she was an outsider. I was predisposed to enjoy the book because of my pleasure in Malcolm's writing. I like her no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners style. She is surgically precise in her judgments. Some readers this may find her intolerably high-handed, and if so, will end up annoyed. Sylvia Plath is not an easy subject from any standpoint. Would she have had such fame if she had not killed herself at 32? If she had not been married to Ted Hughes? Will her poetry stand up? I think we are still too close to give definitive answers. I disagree that this book is strictly for biographers, academics or Plath-buffs. It has a strong appeal to the general reader who has some interest in poetry and expatriate American writers. I left the book with a better knowledge of the dynamics in which Plath spent her last years and strong sympathies for the enigmatic Mr. Hughes. Ms. Malcolm could have used more structure in the book; I found myself flipping back and forth among the pages. Also, some of the statements need attribution. However, in Malcolm's defense, I don't think she planned this as a scholarly work, but more impressions of the closed world of biographers. It is not overly long, and I read it in one satisfied sitting.
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