Sylvia Plath inspires us all in various and wonderful ways. She is in many respects a form of comfort to us, which is something that Esther Greenwood expresses in The Bell Jar , about a bath: "There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them. Whenever I'm sad I'm going to die, or so nervous I can't sleep, or in love with somebody I won't be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: 'I'll go take a hot bath.'" We read and remember Sylvia Plath for many reasons, many of them deeply personal and private. But we commemorate her, too, in very public ways, as Anna of the long-standing Tumblr Loving Sylvia Plath , has been tracking, in the form of tattoos. (Anna's on Instagram with it too, as SylviaPlathInk .) The above bath quote is among Sylvia Plath's most famous. It often appears here and there and it is stripped of its context. But I think most people will know it is from her nove...
Bloodaxe Books published The Book of Mirrors by Frieda Hughes earlier this month, on 10 October, in the UK.
In how many poems does she bitch about people picking over the bones of her mother?
ReplyDeleteNice one! More than is necessary, that's for sure.
ReplyDeletepersonally I wouldn't choose a publisher with the horrific name Bloodaxe…
ReplyDeleteDear Catty
ReplyDeleteWhy shouldn't she after all this time!
It's a fascinating book and just as personal as her parents' poetry.
I think it's really interesting to look at the use of all the texts : Plath writing about their relationship,Ted Hughes writing on Plath's books, their relationship, specifically in BL, but also in a number of other books and poems, and now Frieda Hughes writing about both.
I thought the poem about the cut out signature poignant
I thought it also poignant that one book is dedicated to her mother ( and Olwyn) and the other section to her father
Bloodaxe certainly is a horrific name-it would be perfectly suitable for a publisher specializing in old Viking literature !
ReplyDeleteMust say Frieda Hughes' poetry makes my heart sink for all the wrong reasons. She's in an impossible position, this I know and I sympathize. But a lot of her poetry has Hughes' mannerisms-the violence, the guts-without the nuances and the passion and the (ultimate) striving-towards-light which makes Hughes' own poetry so wonderful.
And one gets the impression she has read her parents' work AND NO-ONE ELSE'S. I'm going to go as far as to say that her stuff would not have been published-at least, not 4 collections-were it not for the name.
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ReplyDeleteRehan, I am indeed going to read the book and I hope to be pleasantly surprised.I didn't want to sound dismissive.
ReplyDeleteBut I do think there certainly are more than smatterings of both in the poems of Frieda Hughes that I do know.
I also think that in one sense, Frieda Hughes never CAN be a poet in her own right. This is not her fault, it's simply the way things are. She is part of a mythology-again, not her fault-and it's a mythology that is impossible to shrug off when reading her poems. The problem is compounded by her writing ABOUT both Plath and Hughes. It makes the poetry more marketable-and let's remember, that's what publishers want, however good their literary judgement, etc-and it makes the poetry more marketable partly because, let's face it, people are nosy. We are a nosy species-I'm not exempting myself from that charge !
But I will read the book-fair point.
"In how many poems does she bitch about people picking over the bones of her mother?"
ReplyDeleteIn how many poems and essays and novels and articles and books does your mother get picked over?
Would you not feel slightly inclined to bitch about that?
Is it not a slightly morbid thing to concentrate exclusively on Plath's death as if that one thing along gave her entire life's work (or indeed her life) meaning?
ReplyDeleteFrieda Hughes can write anything she wants and with the dilettantes who don't know to much about writing or those who think they know too much about writing, the kind of writing nobody would spend a golden thread of lint on, perhaps investing in a brass plated trumpet and a flea circus would be a much better contribution to annoying people than trash talking Frieda Hughes.
Sylvia was a broken hearted woman and Ted was a veteran who crashed the gates of normalcy through thoughtful and bellowing prose.
Frieda, is the daughter of an American and a veteran, and you know what? She hasn't even started being polemic with her prose. Sadly, Sylvia had the terrible misfortune of people being terribly rude to her and my neighbor, Norman Mailer, would've said that rudeness slowly dissects the heart to the point the heart must depart ... forget about mood ... forget about the psyche ... for Frieda to be castigated by internet chumps, I suggest nice try ... but a daughter of a veteran may be much tougher to contend with than just the thoughtless remarks which only push buttons and have little substance to any relevancy of this documentary record of a family and their achievements and beloved contributions.
Stephen de Verges
While I think Frieda is overshadowed by the "idea" of her mother, I think her work has its own strength. Also, not to sound blunt, but do a quick search on how many dissertations, interpretations, and psychoanalytical theories are out there regarding Sylvia Plath and keep in mind that this isn't about an author for her. The ready assessment that Plath's suicide is what established the relevance of her writing means her daughter couldn't even find solace in that. She has every right to defend herself and whatever memory of her mother is still hers alone.
ReplyDelete