The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath And Ted Hughes

Excelente

J'ai beaucoup aimé ce livre, j'avais lu d'autres biographies auparavant ,mais celle -ci reprend "Bitter Fame" avec des questionnementsJ'ai particulièrement apprécié les passages consacrés à ce qu'est être une femme écrivain.Peut-on allez jusqu'au plus profond de soi_même dans son écriture tout en vivant une vie "normale"?...

"The Silent Woman" is a fascinating examination of the many biographers who have latched onto the life and death of writer Sylvia Plath. Janet Malcolm explores their motives, methods and the impact of their work in terms of creating, sustaining or shattering our perceptions of the poet, who took her own life in 1963. Malcolm offers a focused, intelligent analysis of the challenges of biography, especially biography of a long-dead and controversial subject. She touches on important writerly issues: the reliability of witnesses; the ambiguity of source materials; the machinations of literary executors; the negotiations required for access to interview subjects or for reprint permissions; the ideological and financial motives of the writer; selective editing; exaggerations and mythmaking; self-aggrandizement and vindictiveness; integrity and restraint.At the same time, "The Silent Woman" walks us once again through the short, turbulent life of Plath, who was just beginning to make a name for herself at the time of her death and who has since risen to cult status. I found most moving some of Malcolm's observations about suicide, the silence it leaves and the rebuke it suggests for the deceased's survivors. She critiques the Plath v. Hughes battle lines, in which some partisans depict Plath as the victim of a faithless husband and anti-feminist repression while others view her husband, Ted Hughes (later, a Poet Laureate of England), as a man worn down by a mentally unstable wife. Hughes's role as the executor of Plath's literary estate and his destruction of her last diaries also come in for a close analysis."The Silent Woman" gave me additional perspective on Sylvia Plath while raising provocative questions about the nature of writing and biography. It's concise, well written, and I highly recommend it, especially to writers.

Anything written by Janet Malcolm is worth reading, of course, and this book is no exception. Malcolm gives insight into how a biography, though based on "facts," is never free of the biographer's bias. If you're interested in details about Sylvia Plath and her marriage to Ted Holmes, read this and then read all the other biographies. As with Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet, each book recounts the same "facts' but from a different perspective that opens new understanding of the actual events and complicated personalities of all the players.

After reading everything about everything on Plath, it was refreshing to finally come across something unique and different such as,"The Silent Woman." In fact, one needs to read this book before they read anything else about Plath--- so they are informed and do not waste their time on the many false, unauthorized trash out there. One could say that "The Silent Woman" is a kind of rich almanac into Plath's secret, exquisite, dark world--and the people who loved and despised her. It is not a biography--but more of a journey to find truth.I loved getting to know more about Olwlyn Hughes (typically English), and of course Ted Hughes. And "The Silent Woman" helps the reader to understand why they are as protective as they are about Plath. (I would not have taken a liking to Olwlyn and can understand why Plath disliked her.)"The main problem with S.P. biographers is they they fail...They can caricature and remake S.P. in the image of their foolish fantasies, and get away with it--they assume, in their brainless way, that it's perfectly O.K. to give me the same treatment--apparently forgetting that I'm still here" --TED HUGHESCome on people--have some common sense, some decency. How would you feel if your family displayed all their dirty laudry outside for all the world to see? And Plath has lots of dirty laudry--but don't we all? Suicide-adultry-mental illness-the list could go on forever.I like Janet Malcom--her writing style, her references to Mr.Frued, and her surprising insights. I like the way she created something new from all of the hundreds of the same. After all, Plath was much too complex to be a carbon copy of something else.Attention all Plath lovers---Read this book before you pick up anything else about Plath. The only exception would be "The Unbridged Journals of Sylvia Plath" -(superbly stunning) and directly from the horse's mouth. Now, this gem could be read before reading "The Silent Woman" beforehand!