Word: plath
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Rough Magic is a gripping, exhaustively researched study of the ever-fascinating Sylvia Plath. Paul Alexander is the first biographer to write without the permission of the Hughes estate, and from this stem both the book's weakness and its strength. Had the book been dependent on the approval of the estate, Alexander would never have been able to make the convincing argument that Plath's stormy marriage had a direct, if not causal, relationship to her suicide. On the other hand, the Hughes estate would probably have excised many of Alexander's overly simplistic generalizations...
Admittedly, Plath's story lends itself to soap opera. In the first half of her short 30 years, Plath endured the rending death of her father; a trusting but also accusatory relationship with her mother; and numerous, and at times traumatic, experiences with love and sex. Her desire not just to write but also to publish, expressed at a young age, is startling in its intensity...
From the age of eight, when her first poem was printed in the Boston Herald, Plath began awaiting the mailman with baited breath, her talent perpetually on trial. Her persistence through 10 years of New Yorker rejection slips was finally rewarded. Soon after accepting two poems, the New Yorker offered her a first-reading contract...
Thereafter, the publishing world offered Plath both rejection slips and awards. Plath responded to these evaluations by alternating between bouts of depression and celebration...
...Plath's experiences at Smith College prior to her breakdown are unnervingly familiar to any active undergraduate-the stress and tension of academics, time-consuming extracurriculars, trouble balancing social life, concerns over money and scholarships. Alexander's theory that stress brought on sinusitis which then-he quotes a letter by Plath-"plunges me in manic depression" is only believable as a partial explanation...