"The Journals of Sylvia Plath" Foreward by Ted Hughes, 1982, Anchor Books

"A real self, as we know, is a rare thing....Most of us are never more than bundles of contradictory and complementary selves....When a real self finds language, and manages to speak, it is surely a dazzling event - as Ariel was."  - Ted Hughes

I held this in my hand at the bookstore.  It was my birthday and I buy a requisite tome each year, something I typically hold off on otherwise.  Even up to the queue I struggled with it.  It is a journal surely, but it is raw and unflinching.  I find myself needlessly embarrassed.  Plath and Hughes have passed on ages ago at this point.  With Hughes the most recent, in 1998.

Knowing of Plath's suicide and having seen the photograph as a clumsy, sad death in an oven.  Two children left behind.  A seemingly ignoble end.  However, Mr. Hughes exalts it with a terse, honest forward.   Plath had, in most respects, as he attests, allowed her true self out, which would become Ariel.  The outcome, in her death, can be either obvious or an awfully painful exercise of the human condition.  The journal is proof of an internal life, lived and relived.

So inspired by her energy, the crisp, knowing lines, I read a few excerpts before deciding on must having it.  I wanted to immediately fly to a corner of a library and spend the day poring over it.  Having read through most of it over the last few weeks, it is an easy book to recommend for anyone that is a fan of Plath, or of poetry, or of pain.

It is broken up into corresponding points of her adult life, although it does start with her life at Lookout Farm as an 18-year-old.  The naivete of this time is broken by the orchestration of an old pervert.  She captures each moment lucidly, acknowledging the people and critical points that led her down that unfortunate road.

The years generally fall from her maroon colored journals as: Smith College, 1950-55, Cambridge, 1955-57, Smith, 1957-58, Boston, 1958-59, and England, 1960-62.  Hughes leaves out the last weeks leading to her death, piquing interest of words spoken and words that he had to shield from the children.  There's heartbreak there and he admits that forgetfulness here is necessary.

Sylvia was born in 1932, attempted suicide in 1953, married Hughes in 1956, succeeded in her second attempt in 1963, while in England and her masterwork, Ariel, was published in 1965.  This title was released in 1982 and printed in paperback in '98.

There are pictures of the glowing young thing.  How I would have loved sitting with her for a few moments, with that electric smile.  She wore her hair short, she seemed a focused spirit in her writing, I bet she wore overly long sweater jackets.  I bet she smelled of light florals and light cigarettes.  She has slight cramps in her hand, as poets do, writing and rewriting, tapping typewriters and scribbling masturbatorily on long sheets.  Literary lights as she were uncommon.  I find myself staring at photographs of a facade, an unhonest image.  The words define, and there's exploration here in these pages.

"The Journals of Sylvia Plath" on Amazon.