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Heads Up!

Be on the lookout for an article on Sylvia Plath by Carl Rollyson, forthcoming this weekend on BiblioBuffet. The article title and direct link will be placed here once it's up... UPDATE: Rollyson's article "Revisionist Biography" is now online.

Rollyson is working on a biography of Plath scheduled to be published in 2013, around the time of the 50th anniversary of her death. You can learn more at Carl's website.
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  1. PHD25 March, 2011 09:47

    Hi Peter

    Interesting info on Carl Rollyson. Do we know if there are any other major biographies to be released on the 50th anniversary? These milestones tend to see a slew of activity.

    PHD

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  2. Melanie Smith25 March, 2011 18:01

    His Marilyn Monroe piece on said website was interesting. I have the book, Fragments, that he was discussing and several Monroe biographies and he made some exciting and perceptive observations. That said I have not read any of his Monroe books.

    Hope his Plath piece rings true and vibrantly.

    Thanks for this info Peter.

    ReplyDelete
  3. magiciansgirl27 March, 2011 21:42

    Thanks for this Peter, I'm looking forward to Carl's book. I remember from the Plath Symposium many moons ago that Sarah Churchwell was going to write a book about Marilyn Monroe and Sylvia Plath - do you recall this? Seems like it never was written although she may have written an article or essay on the subject. kim

    ReplyDelete
  4. Peter K Steinberg28 March, 2011 08:54

    kimberpaloozashastarificana,

    Yes, I do recall this but haven't been able to find anything online about it. Perhaps I can email her. She was supposed to speak at the Oxford Symposium, too, but I believe fell under the weather.

    I look forward to reading Carl's piece today or tomorrow!

    pks

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous28 March, 2011 09:05

    Hmm, I for one don't have high hopes of Rollyson's biography of Plath after reading his article published at the weekend. In spite of its complaints that other biographers "have misconstrued Plath", Rollyson'a article is more than a little mythologizing itself, with such HEAT magazine-oriented statements as "Sylvia Plath is the Marilyn Monroe of modern literature" or Aurelia Plath raised her daughter "as a primordial child of time, a woman who wrote for the ages" and with its frequent references to Greek mythology, and celebrities.

    What did others think?
    ~VC

    PS: Many thanks, Peter, for the heads-up!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous13 April, 2011 16:04

    I think I agree with ~VC on this one. If the biography is littered with references to his other female subjects, Rollyson will cheat his readers out of what they come to read about: Plath. He does speak in grand ways and really fear a sort of hybrid book that crosses Alexander and Hayman. Let's hope his biography is better written than this article!

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