Plath Again!

[handsomefortune]

i thought episode one was enjoyable, and sylvia plath frequently made me laugh.

don't forget that it was Lowell who "gave her permission to give us permission".

that's a highly contentious theory ferneyhoughgeliebte.

the volume concludes as if the work is pointing to the biography was the first event that moved the emphasis from The Poetry to The Person). But there's so little discussion of this - instead, it's all reduced to Gwynneth Paltrow proportions.

sylvia - the moooovie.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

don't forget that it was Lowell who "gave her permission to give us permission".

that's a highly contentious theory ferneyhoughgeliebte.

Go on, then; content it!

You are, of course, quite right: but I think the expression that it was Plath who gave us "permission" is itself highly suspect*. And Lowell's influence on the generation of poets following his work of the '40s and '50s can't be underestimated. (Which claim is not meant as a "value judgement": Plath and Lowell are distinct and astonishing figures each in their own right. Plath would have emerged as a poet with her own, unmistakable voice without Lowell; but I think he made the road at least a little easier for her.)

And don't get me started on the obscenity that is the Paltrow film. Oh; too late! That an actress who made so much of her public grieving over her father's recent death should come to terms with that grief by riding rough shod over the equally raw grief of Frieda Hughes ... "Badly done, Gwynneth. Badly done."

EDIT: * = I know what 8thOb means; I think I would have put it that Plath showed us how superbly the dam could be broken.

[amateur51]

I'm enjoying the current Book At Bedtime reading of The Bell Jar because it's making me laugh - I read it many years ago & I don't recall laughing at the time.

[Flosshilde]

Can anybody explain the journalistic obsession with Sylvia Plath?

It's the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Bell Jar.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Bell Jar.

And yesterday was the 50th anniversary of her suicide.

[marthe]

SP is forever young in my mind, though, were she still alive, she would be nearly the age of my mother! I've just found my rather battered copy of The Bell Jar and will reread in honor of this anniversary.

[handsomefortune]

on this occasion i wont 'content it'...! but i might've 'contexted it' ferneyhoughgeliebte...!

except that you are obviously doing really well in recommending sp to ferret fancy. plus you are bangontopic to boot... so i shalln't nitpick, and instead hope that ferretfancy reads sp (as well as 'that bloke' robert lowell)!

[handsomefortune]

i was wondering how the narrator would manage the emotional development after the first 'fun' episode, but the segregation, time lapse between progs acts as a neat divide.

tonight's extract could go anywhere emotionally, which is ideal i guess.

though episode two has faded in my memory a bit, due to guffawing at susan calman's comedy which followed 'the bell jar' reading....(always a hazard).