Not my favorite bio of Sylvia Plath. There seemed to be a lot of hostility towards Plath's mother, which seems a tad unwarranted. The narrative didn't flow well, either, so it was tedious reading. ( )

I've read a whole lot of Plath biographies, but this was one of the better ones. Usually they want to focus *so much* on her relationship with Ted Hughes and I am notttttttt the biggest fan of Ted Hughes so I really don't want to hear a ton about all that. So I appreciated that this book was specifically on her life *before* that. I haven't read any bios of her in several years so I did feel like I was learning some stuff (which I probably had just forgotten). But yeh, I'd recommend this one. ( )

Sylvia Plath is a literary icon known for her confessional poetry, her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, her tumultuous relationship with her husband and fellow poet Ted Hughes, and her tragic suicide at the age of 30. In this new biography of the poet, released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of her death, Andrew Wilson tells the story of Sylvia Plath’s early life.

Before she met Ted at the age of 23, Plath led a complex, creative life full of the highest highs and lowest lows. Her father died when she was eight, and she had a complicated relationship with her mother. Intensely bright (she had an IQ of 160) and fiercely ambitious, she faced mental illness and instability from an early age. She knew the pain of rejection and the thrill of acceptance from frequently submitting her stories and poems to national magazines.

This biography centers upon what Wilson considers to be the main obstacles that shaped Plath’s life, mind, and writing:

- Her father’s death: Lacking a father figure, Sylvia sought to fill his void with a constant stream of men. However, she had a habit of projecting her fantasies onto the men she dated, creating high hopes and visions of her beaus that had little bearing on the reality of their personalities.
- Her mother’s lack of money: Aurelia Plath raised Sylvia and her brother Warren on a single salary, and money was often tight. Sylvia was frustrated by the way her financial situation limited her; instead of focusing on her classes and her writing during college, she was under constant financial strain and had to work to aid her mother.
- The hypocrisy of society regarding gender roles: Coming of age in the 1940s and ’50s, Plath was subject to a sexual double standard. Although it was socially acceptable for men to have sexual relations, women were expected to be chaste until marriage. Women of Plath’s generation were also expected to marry right out of college, crank out babies, and become homemakers. Sylvia, on the other hand, wanted more than a life of caring for children; she wanted to work and create and travel the world. She felt angered by the double standard and stifled by the expectations.

Mad Girl’s Love Song seems to be well researched. Wilson draws his information from Plath’s diaries, exclusive interviews with friends and lovers, letters to and from people who knew her well, and previously unavailable archives. He also colors the facts with quotes from her poetry and episodes from her stories, essays, and novel.

This is a fascinating look at Sylvia Plath’s early life, but it doesn’t paint a flattering portrait of her. She is portrayed as manic, manipulative, narcissistic, and blind to the needs of others. She is described as having had a fractured, unstable personality and an identity that was “about as sturdy as a soap bubble.” It definitely plays up the mental illness she constantly battled, from her manic highs to her depressive lows.

Although this book made it hard for me to really like the character of Sylvia Plath, it was a very interesting read about a complex woman, and I certainly learned a lot about the her life, her struggles, and the factors that shaped her writing. I would highly recommend this book to readers who are interested in Plath’s life and want to learn more about the iconic writer.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review on Books Speak Volumes, a book blog. ( )

I found this biography of Sylvia Plath interesting, but a bit of a slog to get through, if I'm honest. I haven't read The Bell Jar (although I might, after I recover from the real account of her life), and only knew the barest facts about Plath to start with - poetry, Ted Hughes, suicide - yet I was intrigued by the similarities between Plath and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, whom I did enjoy reading about. On the surface, they were similar personalities, although Zelda's instability was somehow more creditable - Hughes overpowered Plath's memory like F. Scott Fitzgerald stifled his wife's creativity - but Plath's 'life before Ted' comes across like the pretentious attention-seeking of a spoiled debutante. Sylvia was neither, of course, and she was a very talented, original poet, but her collection of boyfriends and obsession with psychoanalysis wore very thin very quickly. I could sort of empathise with her perfectionist streak, and love her bitchy 'recycling' of real life acquaintances and events in her short stories, only I don't wonder that the rogue's gallery of lovers and friends interviewed by Andrew Wilson were either scared of Sylvia or just down right didn't like her. I would lay the blame for Plath's warped imagination with 1950s America, however, not her devoted mother Aurelia or the death of her father. Being brought up in a neo-Victorian straitjacket, where girls went to college only to grab a better grade of husband, would send any intelligent woman over the edge, I should think! ( )

I've just read this and her largely autobiographical novel, [b:The Bell Jar|6514|The Bell Jar|Sylvia Plath|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348869734s/6514.jpg|1385044], both of which changed my opinion of Plath. I don't like her any better but I have a better understanding of who she was. She was without doubt a very talented writer. But she was equally motivated in her life by her great bitterness at not having been born into the moneyed classes with the consequent entre to a glittering social life of foreign travel, shopping and rich young men. Her talent was recognised at an early age and rather than pursuing it with how she presented herself to the world, she appeared happy to look fey and neurasthenic and a bit strange for the sake of being strange. But then, perhaps that was to do with her age, wanting to stand out, rather than with her madness.

Madness and it's treatment are always interesting, I think. Just how someone's thought processes change and the sometimes medieval-sounding ways doctors and other charlatans attempt to restore the troubled mind back to where it can function in a 'normal' world. It is especially interesting, to me, in authors and artists where the products of a very different mindset and frame of reference add another dimension to their work.

To me the best chronicler of her own madness was the New Zealand author [a:Janet Frame|50302|Janet Frame|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1218239647p2/50302.jpg]. Plath wasn't spectacularly mad like Frame, but more deeply disordered in a quiet and depressive fashion. Her experiences in the mental hospital weren't as frighteningly horrible as Frame's either. Or perhaps they were, involving involuntary shock therapy, but the author, Andrew Wilson, is not a writer of the calibre of Frame.

I couldn't find anything in [b:The Bell Jar|6514|The Bell Jar|Sylvia Plath|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348869734s/6514.jpg|1385044] that seemed a product of a disordered mind but maybe it is more apparent in her poems, which I haven't read, not much liking poetry these days. Maybe I should read it again in the light of this biography.

I liked the book, it wasn't a bad read at all, but Plath did not have an attractive personality (to me) and that influences me as much as the writing and content of the book. Perhaps it shouldn't, but it is hard to divorce the subject of a biography from the writing about it.

I may change my opinion of this book, and consequently this review, on thinking about [b:The Bell Jar|6514|The Bell Jar|Sylvia Plath|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348869734s/6514.jpg|1385044] and reviewing that. But for now, 3.5 stars, rounded down because it wasn't quite a gripping 4-star story. ( )