Comments on: Public Service Announcement: Read Sylvia Plath

By: Shakuntala

Shakuntala — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 01:33:03 +0000

Her only novel, The Bell Jar, is maybe my favorite book! I am too shallow for poetry and therefore have not read any of hers but maybe someday I will.

By: Public Service Announcement: Remember to Properly Secure Your Bicycle « Mission Mission

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:12:07 +0000

[...] Public Service Announcement: Read Sylvia Plath Explore posts in the same categories: Cycling [...]

By: Lois Battle

Lois Battle — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 20:52:04 +0000

Try Steinbeck’s son, Thomas Steinbeck for a wonderful romp through the history of California and its Chinese citizens. The Shadow of a Cypress was terrific.

By: Cranky Old Mission Guy

Cranky Old Mission Guy — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 17:38:57 +0000

I tried, but it was too depressing. Her diaries, of course, which were posthumously heavily edited by the husband who some say drove her to suicide. Maybe if I were a young, healthy, female English Lit major, with everything to live for, her musings would have something to say to me, as I dithered about with my youthful resentment against the way of all things…

As an antidote, I recommend the story “Writing Caliban” by Kathe Koja & Barry N. Malzberg, in the anthology Alternate Outlaws, edited by Mike Resnick, which proposes an alternate history in which Plath becomes the successful author of historical novels after engineering the murder of her philandering husband.

Great fun, I say! I am not entirely unsympathetic to her plight, and welcome a happy resolution.