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Sylvia Plath scholar Sally Bayley's The Private Life of the Diary

The author, Sally Bayley
Teaching and Research Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford and a Lecturer in English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, Dr. Sally Bayley, contributor to Eye Rhymes: Sylvia Plath's Art of the Visual, co-editor of Representing Sylvia Plath, and author of several other articles on Sylvia Plath, is in the process of seeing her most recent bookThe Private Life of the Diary: from Pepys to Tweets (Unbound Books) through to completion. As you might expect from Sally and a book of diary writing, the book features Sylvia Plath who was a dedicated diary writer and journalist for nearly 20 of her 30 years.

Here are some excerpts for you from the book; specially selected and published here with permission from the author and publisher:

"...Plath, on the other hand, wants to be a good witness of life; she wishes to see and tell things as they are, and so her adolescent journals, kept from the age of fifteen, are filled with carefully composed word-sketches of the world around her: the ‘big, beautiful world as it really is’. Plath’s eye is that of an artist-in-training, and her diary entries often read like a lesson in drawing from John Ruskin..."

"...Plath is a chatty diarist. Her tempo and register are rapid and colloquial; she is excited and at times she babbles. Comparing some of her novel drafts to a form of diary writing, she calls it ‘sentimental’ and ‘vain’, too one-sided. It is true that Plath’s diary-voice is repeatedly preoccupied with one subject: herself and her future and an overwhelming fear of compromise. Too many passages spin around mutually exclusive choices: either to sublimate her egotistical self and lead a life in service to others, or to choose to write, for her own sake..."



"...What Plath claims to lack she in fact shows in abundance: endless self-critical diagnoses that turn in upon themselves. The girl who wants to be God has created an uncanny critical persona, a divine being who reads over her shoulder and delivers a short-sighted reading of her self. Nothing seems very accurate or true. The facts of the matter are all submerged – to use one of Plath’s favourite verbs…"
Stills from Suzie Hanna's The Girl Who Would Be God

Unbound is a new independent crowd-sourced publisher and represents a new model of publishing. They "connect authors and readers. Authors present a pitch, you pledge, and when the goal is reached the book is written. It's really that simple." For those interested, and you really should be as the book sounds fascinating, there is a range of ways for you to acquire Sally's book. For just £10 you get a digital copy of the book; £20 will get you hardback copy to hold, covet and cherish, as well as the e-book edition, access to the "shed", and your name in the back of the book. For £35 you get everything that's come before which includes a signed edition. The £50 option trumps what's come before by the inclusion of a digital copy of Suzie Hanna's The Girl Who Would Be God, which was inspired by Plath's journals and created especially for the 2007 Sylvia Plath 75th Year Symposium at Oxford University. There are other options too, which really lets you control what you get. An important pledge level involves school workshops. Sally will take diary writing into schools as a means of helping teenagers find a writing and speaking voice that is not necessarily related to social media texting/blurting. See the books webpage for more information.

All links accessed 9 & 12 December 2014.

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