Rough Magic: A Biography of Sylvia Plath

"Rough Magic" by Paul Alexander is a pure and objective account of the life of Sylvia Plath. It begins with her family history; a brief overview of her grandparents and parents, and follows with her childhood, including the tragic, influential death of her father when she was a young girl. Her years as a growing adolescent and emerging writer are retold with clarity and insight into the events which went on. Topics of focus include her intense, dramatic need for academic success and her longing to always remain a socially accepted person, two things which were embedded into Sylvia as a young child. The biography goes into great detail about the romantic relationships she experienced, with everything from a stolen kiss from a not-so-secret admirer during her teen-years, to the sad and turbulent end to her marriage to Ted Hughes. In the end, you'll put this book down with a greater sense of compassion for Sylvia and a better understanding of who she really was: a loving mother and writer who tried, through her precious poetry and prose and the safety and security of a loving family, to shake the demons that followed her throughout her life, a life she considered "blessed." And you'll probably laugh a little and cry a little, and you'll miss her, because she was the type of person that you miss. And hopefully, you'll take a step back and realize that we ourselves are blessed, in just "knowing" her; that, in the story of her life and in her work, there are whispers-- graciously spoken and lovingly heard, left for us to understand and to keep.

In the early 1980s as an Undergrad English major, I did a lot of writing about Plath's work, particularly the Ariel poems. Bits and pieces of Plath's life story were slowly emerging via the campus library, and I could not stop myself from being drawn to learning about the woman who penned the most fascinating poetry I'd ever read. While her poems seemed to out-guess, out-think, and transcend every type of interpretation wrought from them, the dippy "Sivvy" of the partly published journals and meager "Letters Home" was a glaring disappointment to me. I decided her poetry was clever manipulation stemming from some type of pathological vengeance. For many reasons, I put aside the part of me in which I store Plath's incredible and stunning poetry,for twenty years. I had read about Ted Hughes' "Birthday Letters", and years later the suicide of Nicholas Hughes, but they didn't rekindle my interest in Plath. Frankly, I didn't have the strength for it. I haven't read "Birthday Letters" or anything written by Hughes, other than introductions to Plath's collections. In spite of how very well I knew Plath's work, all the real-life drama enacted by Plath's surviving relatives evaded me, and I'm glad. On February 11th this year the memories of the poetry began to haunt me. I allowed myself to realize just how much of it I memorized and how often it sneakily permeated by own points of view. It took me some time to find my yellowed, mildewed copy of Ariel buried in my garage, but in the meantime I'd searched for Plath works for my Kindle. All this "new" information! All this intrigue and mystery! I had no idea. I had seen Plath's talent as a remarkable accident that fell upon an ordinary woman who got sick of getting out of bed every morning. Learning that Ariel has been "restored" caused in me a visceral reaction, though I'm not sure why. Thanks to the publication of the "complete" journals, and biographies such as Rough Magic, I am shaken by how wrong I was about Plath, the writer. Alexander does a wonderful job of showing the chronology of the writings with events in Plath's life. His viewpoint attempts to be Plath's, and, because of this, it can seem outrageously unfair to Hughes. However, since Plath's mind produced her writing, her point-of-view as expressed through her letters and journals is very interesting, and it adds even more levels of interpretation/meaning for me. In order to avoid seeing Plath as having several "screws loose" I had to remind myself just how long ago she lived. Her poetry transcends time so completely it makes it easy to forget that Plath lived during the aftermath of WWII, in the Cold War era, among suspicions about Brasilia, and the atrocities of Concentration Camps were being exposed. The world as Plath had been programmed to understand it, was turned inside out, in a very bad way. Things like Facebook and "texting" could not be imagined, so perhaps Plath's interest in Ouija boards and 1950s-style Western astrology isn't really indicative of naivete or mental illness. If she truly believed she communed with the ghost of Yeats, and if there is any truth to the claims that she succumbed to Hughes' hypnosis of her (this book even suggests Hughes' hypnosis may have caused her suicide...)it's possible to fathom that a mind like hers' was undeniably curious. After reading her journals, and this biography, I feel a longing. Of course, I wish I could have known Plath when she was alive. She was far, far more remarkable than I could have guessed, and I realize I "sold short" on her because I was so very far behind her in wisdom. Alexander explores how Plath's work seems to be timeless in its ability to inspire more levels of interpretation. He shows how her own living of her life was self-interpreted with levels of understanding and confusion most people are incapable of formulating. Alexander reminds readers that Plath had an extraordinarily high I.Q. so most people will never "catch up" to her no matter how long they live. The scope and meaning of Plath's work is, I think, still far beyond us. Alexander's compassionate take on Plath proves she is not a poet who appeals only to Goth adolescent girls, and thanks are owed to Plath's writings because they contributed to positive societal change. Maybe these days more Daddies think before they attack, maybe more husbands ponder the outcome of empty affairs, maybe lithium is representative of human innovation rather than failure and embarrassment. Not only is it acceptable to say "f.u." to 1950s social boundaries and collective lobotomizing, it's vital, for women and men. Plath's writing supports feminism, sure, but it goes far beyond being a voice for women's rights. Her's is the voice of oppression in a world where beauty is sought and glimpsed, but it's continually destroyed. Fifty years after her death Plath's work reminds us to search for amazement in every moment.

After reading the Bell Jar, Johnny Panic & the Bible of Dreams, and some of the journals of Sylvia Plath, it is fascinating to read the biography, since many of her characters and her stories are based on people she knew and events that occurred. The author carefully gathered numerous interviews and details to complete this great book. It was written so well that it was hard to put down.

I first heard of Sylvia Plath when I watched "Sylvia", a movie with Gwynneth Platrow, and was so taken by her story that I felt compelled to find out as much about her as pssible. Wow, what a tragic story of a young woman who did not realize her potential or that she was her own exceptional person. She never felt like she was good enough, always pushing for more to the point she would make herself sick. She saw dreamy, rose-colored romance in Ted Hughes, whether or not he was actually like that...I feel she saw him as almost a mythical-like image . Wow, then reality sets in. Her sad ending made me cry. She just didn't see herself like everyone else did. I couldn't put this book down, and have told countless friends about it. I am now reading "Lover of Unreason:Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath's Rival and Ted Hughes"....... To read about her "rival" is mind -blowing. What a love story, both books.

This is a detailed account of Sylvia Plath’s life and contains much information that I have not come across anywhere else. The reason I only gave it four stars is that it is absolutely littered with typing errors from start to finish to such an extent that it detracted my attention from the substance of the book.