Claiming Sylvia Plath "is a study of five decades of Plath reception, of shifting hegemonic positions and issues addressed by the communities that have tried to make sense of her life and work" (4). The book aims "to demonstrate what may predictably happen when critics swear by a particular theory and end up with answers that support their chosen approach" (4). In writing about those who have written about Plath, Egeland places herself "outside the Plath institution" (6); however this is problematic as Egeland herself is as much a part of the "institution" as anyone that has ever written on Plath: critics, biographers, etc. Who is she to assign where she fits in and how dare she place herself outside of the "institution"? Especially given that she is the author of her own Plath biography (in Norwegian) as well as the author of at least one essay on Plath as well as a featured participant at a major international Plath conference (Oxford, 2007)! That Egeland has an interest in the "ethical questions" of writing about Plath gives me the absolute shivers: suggesting that by placing herself "outside the Plath institution" she has placed herself above everyone else. And this is dangerous territory. It is as though she were sitting there up in Norway-land with a lightning-bolt lance smiting Sylvia Plath scholars!
Egeland routinely criticizes authors for claiming to be the first to present Plath in a new light (most notably those writing on Plath's political interests and involvement). While not a novel thing to do, Egeland highlights narrative differences of the same events in biographies and discusses fictional coloring for the sake of story-telling. However, Egeland herself is not the first to point out that the genre of the Plath biography is problematic, nor is hers remotely the best writing on the topic. One does get the impression in Claiming Sylvia Plath that Egeland feels very passionately about Sylvia Plath: this is clear through the time it must have taken to accumulate and process all this information. The books back jacket claims that Claiming Sylvia Plath "suggests a host of possible answers" as to "why Sylvia Plath has been serviceable to so many and open to colonization." But these answers are hard to locate as the writing is so infected with pointing out the errors, misstatements, etc. that people have made over the decades. I saw no attempt to undertake or suggest a definitive way to read, review, criticize, biographize, and write about Sylvia Plath. That is because there is none. Plath's writing is literature. Literature is variable; as is the way we interpret it. It is subject to trends; theories being something like the next seasons colors in the fashion world. Egeland also fails to consider that through the years, people change their minds about impressions and opinions, especially when new information is revealed or published over time, or as archival material is made available.
The standards to which Egeland holds those who have written about Sylvia Plath (i.e. her peers) are both absurd and naïve. Some of the writing suggests Egeland is bored with her subject, such as this exemplary example from the chapter on "Critics": "The publication of Sylvia Plath's Collected Poems in 1981 gave critics an opportunity to reconsider her work and their own earlier reactions to it. Reviews once more covered the whole range" (my emphasis, 86). No duh. The book is littered with such banal and hollow-hearted statements.
Claiming Sylvia Plath is a foul effort at contributing to the literature about Sylvia Plath. The book is not such much about Sylvia Plath as it is about those have written about her. Egeland, as mentioned above the author of her own Norwegian language biography of Plath, takes on Critics, Feminists, Biographers, Psychologists, Friends, and those who "use and abuse" Plath. I, too, come somewhat under the gun in the "use and abuse" section, but feel I come out relatively unscathed. However, in the Biographers section, Egeland does not seem to hold herself to the same standard that she does Edward Butscher, Linda Wagner-Martin, Anne Stevenson, Paul Alexander, and Ronald Hayman. This is because she restricts her focus to English language works, but regardless it reeks of hypocrisy. Because her own biography of Plath is in her native tongue, we non-Norwegian speakers cannot therefore see how her own treatment of Plath is presumably better than those who have written about Plath's life in English.
Each chapter is set up with little chunks of text divided by subject or theme; this does make for easy reading and also allows one to skip around if particular area of study is not of interest. The notes are generally helpful though also frequently snotty. The reason to buy this book is the "Other Sources" in the Bibliography (the "Works by Sylvia Plath" section of the Bibliography is weak, as might be expected since the focus is less on Plath's creative and autobiographical writings than it is about the writing on Plath). However, it is good to a point. Stephen Tabor's bibliography is much better as it lists "everything" as it were, whereas Egeland only lists those articles to which she refers in the text. But it does update somewhat from Tabor. The section on the critics might have been better had she spent time focusing on the handful or so of reviews that appeared during Plath's lifetime (that Plath might have seen). Final verdict: For me, Claiming Sylvia Plath is a buzz kill. If you have to read it or are curious, check it out from your university library if they have it; but at circa $75 it might even be too pricey for them.
Lastly, the design of the book is awful. It is as heavy as a brick, is so tightly bound I probably developed tendinitis holding the pages open against the boards, and the dust wrapper flaps do not extend far enough, leading it to be constantly falling off the book. Furthermore, there is precious little space in the margin to comment on the text if one is prone to do so.