Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath

Rating:
Summary: Just a Little Too Bitter for My Tastes
Review: Anne Stevenson begins this book with a real dislike for Plath and her bi-polar or as she puts it "psychotic" fits. What she fails to see, (or maybe she just does not want to admit), that Ted Hughes is just as guilty of feeding Sylvia's jealousy, her unstable behavior. He never "puts his foot down" to Plath's behavior or insists that Sylvia seek help with her depression, etc. Instead he leaves Plath after starting an affair with a friend of both of theirs without any concern for leaving his children with a woman he knows is unstable. Plath is a brilliant poet, but she suffers from bouts of depression, aggression (she destroys the book Hughes is working on in a fit of jealousy), and is prone to paranoia.

The job of the biographer is to lay out the facts and let the reader see into the life of the subject of the book. Stevenson takes sides, mostly with Hughes' sister. The book comes off interesting (as Plath is an interesting subject), but tainted. Overall, it left a very bad taste on my palate for this author's work.

Rating:
Summary: Just a Little Too Bitter for My Tastes
Review: Anne Stevenson begins this book with a real dislike for Plath and her bi-polar or as she puts it "psychotic" fits. What she fails to see, (or maybe she just does not want to admit), that Ted Hughes is just as guilty of feeding Sylvia's jealousy, her unstable behavior. He never "puts his foot down" to Plath's behavior or insists that Sylvia seek help with her depression, etc. Instead he leaves Plath after starting an affair with a friend of both of theirs without any concern for leaving his children with a woman he knows is unstable. Plath is a brilliant poet, but she suffers from bouts of depression, aggression (she destroys the book Hughes is working on in a fit of jealousy), and is prone to paranoia.

The job of the biographer is to lay out the facts and let the reader see into the life of the subject of the book. Stevenson takes sides, mostly with Hughes' sister. The book comes off interesting (as Plath is an interesting subject), but tainted. Overall, it left a very bad taste on my palate for this author's work.

Rating:
Summary: The procession to Ariel
Review: I enjoyed this book-I wanted some background for when I started to read her journals. I found it was mildly descriptive and the climax was the writing of the Ariel poems. It moved quickly and lacked detail in certain areas. This book did not blame Ted, but I would have enjoyed hearing some of his story. After I finished this, I read some of his poems in Birthday Letters, which I highly reccommend. Since this is the only Plath bio I have read, I don't have the ability to rate this one, but only in my view of what a bio should contain. I look foward to reading the new unabridged journals now that I have a timeline established and details piqued in. After reading this, I realize that SP did exagerate and hurt those around her for the sake of her artistry.

Rating:
Summary: Completely unobjective
Review: It is curious that Stevenson claims hers to be the "objective" biography to correct "misunderstandings" about Sylvia Plath held by her followers ... never have I read a less objective piece of writing that attempted to pass as journalism. The book is riddled with negative adjectives for Plath at every turn ("brusque, mocking, scornful, contemptuous, fierce, snapping" - just in the course of half of one page), and every anecdote seems to be presented with the goal of depicting Plath as an emotionally stunted, deliriously ambitious, shallow American. True, all the major facts of her life are presented, given about an obligatory paragraph or so apiece, but given this kind of summary account, it is impossible for the reader to develop a sense of Plath as a whole person, an understanding of the imagery of her writing, in the same way that one does, for example, from reading Plath's unabridged journals or the excellent biography by Paul Alexander, "Rough Magic." In fact, Stevenson admits that she relies on information strictly from Hughes-based sources and certain passages from Plath's journals that reinforce her pereception of Plath as a gushing, phony American with a heart of black rot. Clearly Plath had her difficulties with various people. She had depressive tendencies and was probably not the most pleasant person to be around from time to time. But where Ted Hughes was not the epitome of evil, neither was she, and this biography does nothing to explore her humanity or the power of her poetry.

Rating:
Summary: You chow down on that paté, girl!
Review: Janet Malcolm's superb THE SILENT WOMAN makes this book a must-read for anyone interested in biographical studies. Stevenson's book famously (or infamously) was written with the cooperation of the Plath estate--that is, Plath's windower Ted Hughes and his fearsome sister Olwyn, the latter of whom was berserkly antipathetic to Plath's memory--, and the result is a biography curiously hostile and judgemental of its subject. For good measure, Stevenson included in the book the hilariously bitter memoir of Plath (fittingly entitled "Vessel of Wrath") by W.S. Merwin's wife Dido, who seems to have been angrily sitting around for twenty years waiting for nothing more than to uncork her fury regarding how Plath once wolfed down some foie gras she had prepared for guests "as if it were Aunt Dot's meatloaf." (The memoir seems to embody everything that American guests fearfully fantasize about foreign hosts judging their every innocent gesture as malicious, selfish, and outrageous.) The result is a fascinating portrait of how, as Malcolm explains in her book, bearing resentful witness against someone else harms the bearer more than the subject of the rant.

Rating:
Summary: A flawed biography.
Review: Stevenson's attempt to write a biography of Sylvia Plath was made more difficult because Plath's surviving husband Ted Hughes controlled the copyrights to Plath's work. (This may not be as difficult now because since Hughes's death, the copyrights presumably have been inherited by their children.) Thus, at the time this book was written, the coorperation of Hughes, and his sister who seemed in charge of making sure that Stevenson got things right, was essential. This led to charges that the biography was unbalanced in favor of Hughes. Some of the reviews were savage. Moreover, as a later book by Janet Malcolm demonstrated, Stevenson had a difficult time dealing with the Hughes.

Nevertheless, Stevenson provides useful information for those who only know Plath from "Ariel" and "Bell Jar." She shows the dual nature of Sylvia Plath -- on the one hand, the almost too-perfect young woman and on the other hand a deeply disturbed person with enormous rage. Sylvia Plath is probably one of those persons of whom the the definitive biography can never be written. However, Stevenson has made a very credible attempt.

Rating:
Summary: Was Johnny Panic indeed Sylvia Plath?
Review: Still in the process of reading this book, I am enthralled and deeply intrigued to no end as I turn each page. For someone who has limited knowledge about Sylvia Plath, and having heard of her and the book "The Bell Jar", I find this autobiography VERY engaging and comprehensive without being overly inundated and complicated to read. I like the author's style of writing, she seems to be very learned on the subject of Sylvia Plath and looks as though she did extensive research on the subject which is much to be admired. She includes many passages from Sylvia's poems and does a remarkable job analizing some of the deeper meanings of her prose and poetry for the reader. In my oppinion this is a fantastic first autobiography to read about Syliva Plath. It inspires me to read on and further investigate Sylvia Plath and her life. I feel as though I am learning so much about a person who I have been fascinated with for quite some time. I treasure the time I am spending reading this autobiography. I think the author is in no way biased and one-sided revealing the soul of Sylvia Plath. I believe she has a good understanding of who Sylvia was, possessing a deep connection with her. I think the problem some of the other reviewers are having with this book is.........the truth hurts.

Rating:
Summary: If you're interested in Plath...
Review: The amount of secondary material on Sylvia Plath is enough to make anyone feel a bit queasy about her myth, and makes you question the motives of anyone who's adding to this morbid little industry. What is their agenda?
Undeniably, Plath fascinates, and not only because of the glassy, chill violence of her last poems. Ann Stevenson's biography does justice to both Plath as poet and as myth, though she tries to avoid salaciousness and does not ask questions that perhaps need answering. The thing is, Plath just becomes more and more mysterious the more you learn about her, and her death more bewildering and shocking. Does Stevenson subscribe to the chemically unstable theory? Or was Plath just an unstable personality? Stevenson never really delves into this murky but crucial territory.
The most interesting and poignant part of this biography is actually about Sylvia's early womanhood, in which Stevenson seems to have a particular feeling for her subject (perhaps because Sylvia's journals are available to her through these years). Stevenson seems to become more hesitant, more uncertain as she approaches adult Sylvia and her fabled Ariel poems, the Hughes marriage and suicide, preferring not to speculate too much on Plath's psychology and focus instead on Plath's poems, which is theoretically fine, but makes for less interesting biography because Stevenson does not write about the Ariel poems with particular insight. (She's competent enough and suitably admiring, but does not probe as deeply as is perhaps necessary.)

Still, this is a readable, if finally dissatisfying, biography. That said, it would be hard to write an entirely dull biography of Plath. I haven't read any of the other biographies available, but I can vouch that at least this one is balanced and scrupulous, if a bit over-cautious. My only other gripe would be
pictures, which are very shadowy and rarely show Sylvia herself.

Rating:
Summary: good bio on sylvia plath
Review: This is one of the better biographies of Sylvia Plath (as is the Wagner-Martin biography, though Stevenson is much more thorough). Supposedly Stevenson comes down on the side of Ted Hughes, but to me the biography seems objective and fair. Even in those biographies written to make Plath look like a victim, she still comes across as tempermental and difficult to live around. I think Stevenson's biography is fair, if at times a bit ponderous to read. I'd suggest Silent Woman as a companion piece (it's a biography of Stevenson's biography). Bitter Fame has three appendices--memoirs of Sylvia written by others--Lucas Myers, Dido Merwin, and Richard Murphy. You get a sense of dread as you approach Dido's little memoir. I'm sure Plath was difficult and I'm sure Dido has her reasons, but you get the impression that she wrote her memoir just to 'get back at' Plath. To show her up so to speak, even though its tone isn't much different then what else you'll find in the book. Anyway, regardless of what type of person Sylvia Plath was, difficult or not, you cannot deny her genius, which is far greater than those who she came in contact with or have written about her.

Rating:
Summary: Exhibit A
Review: To put my own bias up front: I think that Sylvia Plath is a middling versifier at best, who would have been relegated to the second rank of "confessional" poets, themselves a pretty dispensable group of scribblers, a long time ago had she been hit by a double-decker bus rather than gassing herself because her marriage had failed, the supremely petulant act that forever endeared her to professors of Women's Studies and other believers in the faith of Men Are Jerks. I also think, based on the preponderance of evidence, that Ted Hughes, while probably a philandering jerk, can't possibly have been as difficult to live with as his severely neurotic wife (Plath, I mean; he went on to marry an even more desperately screwed-up woman - proving, I guess, that he was what you'd call a slow learner) who was miserably unhappy long before she ever met him.

I only read this book because Janet Malcolm used it as Exhibit A in her definitive treatise on the impossibility of objective biography, "The Silent Woman". (Those interested may consult my trenchant review.) If she says it is the best available study of Plath's life, I'll take her word for it, but in this case it's not saying much. Whether it was because Olwyn Hughes (a pretty tall glass of buttermilk herself, it would seem) was jerking the marionette strings or whether Stevenson (one of those Americans who, like T.S. Eliot, hope that if they live in England long enough that people will forget their "vulgar" origins) simply came to find Plath as negligible a figure as I do (nothing else could explain her wholesale inclusion of Dido Merwin's malicious hatchet-job - a catty piece of under-the-hair-dryer gossip that any serious biographer would have treated with an entire box of kosher salt), this book feels flimsy and half-baked. From the day of its publication, Plath-ists have set up a banshee wail over its lack of reverence for the Sacred Harpy. (I'm surprised Andrea Dworkin or someone like that never issued a fatwa.) But the rest of us, particularly lovers of good biography, have our own cause for complaint.