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Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted
More than 50 years after her death, Sylvia Plath's poetry still has the power to disturb. This ground-breaking biography offers a comprehensive picture of her formative years before her marriage to Ted Hughes. Drawing on previously unavailable papers and exclusive interviews with friends and lovers, it charts her fierce ambition, her troubled relationship with her father, and her many love affairs and suicide attempts, to reveal the origins of a uniquely unsettling poetic voice.
448 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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About the author
Andrew Wilson
16 books112 followersAbout himself:
"I'm a journalist and author. My work has appeared in the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Daily Telegraph, the Observer, the Sunday Times, the Independent on Sunday, the Daily Mail, the New Statesman and the Evening Standard magazine."
Source: http://www.andrewwilsonauthor.co.uk/d...
"I'm a journalist and author. My work has appeared in the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Daily Telegraph, the Observer, the Sunday Times, the Independent on Sunday, the Daily Mail, the New Statesman and the Evening Standard magazine."
Source: http://www.andrewwilsonauthor.co.uk/d...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 140 reviews
May 6, 2015
I've just read this and her largely autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, both of which changed my opinion of Plath. I don't like her any better but I have a better understanding of who she was. She was without doubt a very talented writer. But as well as her desire to write, she was equally motivated in her life by her great bitterness at not having been born into the moneyed classes with the consequent entre to a glittering social life of foreign travel, shopping and rich young men. Her talent was recognised at an early age and rather than pursuing it with how she presented herself to the world, she appeared happy to look fey and neurasthenic and a bit strange for the sake of being strange. But then, perhaps that choice of style was to do with her age, wanting to stand out as teenagers often do, rather than with her madness.
Madness and it's treatment are always interesting, I think. Just how someone's thought processes change and the sometimes medieval-sounding ways doctors and other charlatans attempt to restore the troubled mind back to where it can function in a 'normal' world. It is especially interesting, to me, in authors and artists where the products of a very different mindset and frame of reference add another dimension to their work.
To me the best chronicler of her own madness was the New Zealand author Janet Frame. Plath wasn't spectacularly mad like Frame, but more deeply disordered in a quiet and depressive fashion. Her experiences in the mental hospital weren't as frighteningly horrible as Frame's either. Or perhaps they were, involving involuntary shock therapy, but the author, Andrew Wilson, is not a writer of the calibre of Frame.
I couldn't find anything in The Bell Jar that seemed a product of a disordered mind but maybe it is more apparent in her poems, which I haven't read, not much liking poetry these days. Maybe I should read it again in the light of this biography.
The book wasn't a bad read at all, I did like it, but Plath did not have an attractive personality (to me) and that influences me as much as the writing and content of the book. Perhaps it shouldn't, but it is hard to divorce the subject of a biography from the writing about it.
I may change my opinion of this book, and consequently this review, on thinking about The Bell Jar. But for now, 3.5 stars, rounded down because it wasn't quite a gripping 4-star book.
Madness and it's treatment are always interesting, I think. Just how someone's thought processes change and the sometimes medieval-sounding ways doctors and other charlatans attempt to restore the troubled mind back to where it can function in a 'normal' world. It is especially interesting, to me, in authors and artists where the products of a very different mindset and frame of reference add another dimension to their work.
To me the best chronicler of her own madness was the New Zealand author Janet Frame. Plath wasn't spectacularly mad like Frame, but more deeply disordered in a quiet and depressive fashion. Her experiences in the mental hospital weren't as frighteningly horrible as Frame's either. Or perhaps they were, involving involuntary shock therapy, but the author, Andrew Wilson, is not a writer of the calibre of Frame.
I couldn't find anything in The Bell Jar that seemed a product of a disordered mind but maybe it is more apparent in her poems, which I haven't read, not much liking poetry these days. Maybe I should read it again in the light of this biography.
The book wasn't a bad read at all, I did like it, but Plath did not have an attractive personality (to me) and that influences me as much as the writing and content of the book. Perhaps it shouldn't, but it is hard to divorce the subject of a biography from the writing about it.
I may change my opinion of this book, and consequently this review, on thinking about The Bell Jar. But for now, 3.5 stars, rounded down because it wasn't quite a gripping 4-star book.
February 21, 2013
Damn this book is disappointing. It has a wonderful premise -- after all, Sylvia Plath met Ted Hughes in a famous collision in early 1956, when she was twenty-three, and the couple separated in the summer of 1962, after which Plath wrote most of the poems which made her famous, in a single autumn. As the jacket flap copy of this book says, "Before she met Ted....her father had died when she was only eight; she had....been unofficially engaged, had tried to commit suicide, and had written more than two hundred poems," as well as winning dozens of scholarships and awards, many for important publications.
Read the rest of my review at my bookblog.
Read the rest of my review at my bookblog.
February 13, 2013
First off, I must admit that I have been both a student and teacher of Plath's poetry since the 1970s, and I have read most biographies and a number of critical studies regarding her work. In fact, when I emigrated to Britain from the US, I actually moved a number of said books with me at a time when I was whittling down my overall collection to save on shipping. In other words, I'm a fan and a scholar of sorts.
When I first saw this book last weekend, I was intrigued. New books on Plath are to be expected this year, the 50th anniversary of both The Bell Jar's publication and Plath's suicide. However, what makes this one stand out from even some of the previous biographies is that this one focuses on Plath pre-Ted Hughes and doesn't spend a lot of time analysing their relationship, which, to some extend, is kind of refreshing.
Wilson has done his research. He has trawled through the collections at Smith College, the Lilly Library, Cambridge University and various other sources, many of which are private. Previous interviews completed by other journalists and biographers are referenced, as some of the sources, such as Aurelia Plath, are deceased. (Really, this is the time to get in those last interviews with Plath's contemporaries, considering their advanced ages. Has it really been 50 years? Did Eddie Cohen really die in 2008? *sigh*) However, he also has completed extensive new interviews with various people close to Plath (or even people who simply knew her) to try to write as complete an account as possible of her life up to meeting Hughes at the St. Botolph's launch party. (And, yes, I've had students analysing and writing about that particular Hughes poem.)
Basically, I give this book a very positive review because, although I thought I'd read and studied a lot about Plath's 'early' years, I learned new information this time around, which is quite pleasing. This book isn't merely another recount of the 1953 suicide attempt, and I recommend it.
When I first saw this book last weekend, I was intrigued. New books on Plath are to be expected this year, the 50th anniversary of both The Bell Jar's publication and Plath's suicide. However, what makes this one stand out from even some of the previous biographies is that this one focuses on Plath pre-Ted Hughes and doesn't spend a lot of time analysing their relationship, which, to some extend, is kind of refreshing.
Wilson has done his research. He has trawled through the collections at Smith College, the Lilly Library, Cambridge University and various other sources, many of which are private. Previous interviews completed by other journalists and biographers are referenced, as some of the sources, such as Aurelia Plath, are deceased. (Really, this is the time to get in those last interviews with Plath's contemporaries, considering their advanced ages. Has it really been 50 years? Did Eddie Cohen really die in 2008? *sigh*) However, he also has completed extensive new interviews with various people close to Plath (or even people who simply knew her) to try to write as complete an account as possible of her life up to meeting Hughes at the St. Botolph's launch party. (And, yes, I've had students analysing and writing about that particular Hughes poem.)
Basically, I give this book a very positive review because, although I thought I'd read and studied a lot about Plath's 'early' years, I learned new information this time around, which is quite pleasing. This book isn't merely another recount of the 1953 suicide attempt, and I recommend it.
March 6, 2014
BOTW R4BBC Blurb: On 25 February 1956, 23 year-old Sylvia Plath walked into a party and immediately spotted Ted Hughes. This encounter was recorded by Plath in her journal and has fed into the mythology of the Plath-Hughes relationship, which has arguably cast a long shadow over Plath's life and work.In this new biography of Plath's early life, which considers the years before the meeting with Hughes, Andrew Wilson explores the childhood and young womanhood of one of the twentieth century's most influential and best-loved poets. Plath's early years were complex, creative and high-achieving. Her father had died when she was only eight, she had watched her mother struggle to put her children through college, had dated a large number of men, had been unofficially engaged, had tried to commit suicide and had written over 200 poems.Drawing on exclusive interviews with friends and lovers who have never spoken openly about Plath before, and using previously unavailable archives and papers, this new book traces the early literary and emotional development of the author of 'The Bell Jar' (this week's Radio 4 Book at Bedtime).
Read by Hayley AtwellSylvia Plath is read by Sasha Pick, Eddie Cohen by Ben Crowe, Richard Sassoon by Will Howard and Aurelia Plath by Hannah WoodAbridged by Miranda DaviesProduced by Emma Harding.
12/02/2013 - two out of five episodes aired and I am finding it entirely pedestrian.
September 1, 2016
I shall begin this review by saying that I am an enormous admirer of Sylvia Plath's work. I was utterly spellbound by The Bell Jar and her poetry as a teenager, and never wanted her diaries and Letters Home to end. I have read a fair amount of biographical criticism relating to Plath, but interestingly, Mad Girl's Love Song is the only one which I have come across that deals solely with her early life; as Plath deemed it, 'the complex mosaic of my childhood'. A wealth of information has been contained here about her childhood, some from 'previously unavailable archives'. Wilson has chosen to draw on primary materials rather than other biographies; thus, any conclusions which he draws are essentially his own.
Wilson has linked almost every single one of Plath's childhood memories to one or more of her poems; here, he writes particularly intelligently. Throughout, his prose style is enjoyable. A strength in Mad Girl's Love Song lies in the psychological standpoint, which is both strong and fascinating. I loved reading about the effects which certain books had upon Plath, and the criticism of The Bell Jar, much of which I hadn't come across before. As always, I very much enjoyed the accounts of Plath's life in Cambridge, my home city.
I have a slight issue with the way in which Wilson categorically states that he will take no other Plath biographies into account. Surely to create a full picture of the author in his mind, he must have read at least a handful of her biographies in the past, and one surely cannot part with the conclusions of other experts so easily as he claims to do. In terms of Plath scholarship, I do not feel as though the book adds a great deal of new or previously unknown information. There are many anecdotes included within the pages of Mad Girl's Love Song which I have read before, which takes a certain freshness away from his endeavour.
Still, one cannot argue with the fact that the scope here is vast, and that Wilson has been respectful in his handling of the material. Ultimately, Plath was a fascinating woman, and no account of her could really be dull. I cannot help but compare it to my favourite Plath biography to date, Bitter Fame by Anne Stevenson, which I feel is incredibly thorough and invigorating, and also takes the whole of Plath's life into account. Whilst Wilson's approach is interesting, I do not feel as though the sheer depth of Plath has been reached. I must take issue with the afterword though; at only two pages long, I honestly feel as though the book would have been far better had Wilson not skipped over so many important details and 'neatly' summed up her suicide.
Wilson has linked almost every single one of Plath's childhood memories to one or more of her poems; here, he writes particularly intelligently. Throughout, his prose style is enjoyable. A strength in Mad Girl's Love Song lies in the psychological standpoint, which is both strong and fascinating. I loved reading about the effects which certain books had upon Plath, and the criticism of The Bell Jar, much of which I hadn't come across before. As always, I very much enjoyed the accounts of Plath's life in Cambridge, my home city.
I have a slight issue with the way in which Wilson categorically states that he will take no other Plath biographies into account. Surely to create a full picture of the author in his mind, he must have read at least a handful of her biographies in the past, and one surely cannot part with the conclusions of other experts so easily as he claims to do. In terms of Plath scholarship, I do not feel as though the book adds a great deal of new or previously unknown information. There are many anecdotes included within the pages of Mad Girl's Love Song which I have read before, which takes a certain freshness away from his endeavour.
Still, one cannot argue with the fact that the scope here is vast, and that Wilson has been respectful in his handling of the material. Ultimately, Plath was a fascinating woman, and no account of her could really be dull. I cannot help but compare it to my favourite Plath biography to date, Bitter Fame by Anne Stevenson, which I feel is incredibly thorough and invigorating, and also takes the whole of Plath's life into account. Whilst Wilson's approach is interesting, I do not feel as though the sheer depth of Plath has been reached. I must take issue with the afterword though; at only two pages long, I honestly feel as though the book would have been far better had Wilson not skipped over so many important details and 'neatly' summed up her suicide.
July 4, 2021
Although it's not one of my favorites of Sylvia Plath's biographys I've read it's was difficult giving it less then 3 stars. She was a very troubled and talented woman who has fascinated me for a while and I would probebly pick up anything I can get about her. Sadly I more easily come across books about her but not by her. Such a shame but her life was as intense and interesting as the few works I've read by her. As well as a tragic life she was deeply flawed, but who isn't to be honest?
October 11, 2014
I have a bookshelf dedicated to my Plath studies. In addition to Plath's published works, the shelf holds works of her major influencers (Hughes, Roethke, Woolf), the works of contemporary poets Plath knew (Lowell, Sexton) and several biographies. MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG: SYLVIA PLATH AND LIFE BEFORE TED by Andrew Wilson is the latest addition to my collection. My interest in Plath borders on mystical fascination. I am attracted to the mystery of a human touching, conducting, and embodying the incandescence Plath channeled. I read her poetry, and taste the saffron and wine counterpart to Whitman's "tasteless water of Souls." In short: I read all about Plath because I want to understand. I want to understand even though I intuit that there can be no true "understanding" inspiration, but like any devoted mystic, I keep trying to reach that place beyond rational understanding, a kind of otherworldly participation. That’s why I picked up MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG, which promised a new perspective on Plath's life. Plus: the elusive Sassoon speaks! That alone was worth the price of admission.
Sheer titillation drew me through MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG, which was replete with breathy "confessions" from Plath's ex-lovers. Most of her exes offered plenty of non-medical opinions tinged with the salacious nature of a jilted Lothario's revisionism. Plath is pronounced: schizophrenic, manic, depressed, sexually repressed, pathologically perfectionist, and as having borderline personality disorder. The overall picture of Plath is unstable and entirely unlikeable. This is the nasty effluvia of long-festering romantic wounds, not a realistic picture of Plath as an individual. MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG traces the trajectory of a sexually repressed woman, who is reborn into a rapacious sexuality. If even half of the recounted jilts are true, Plath was unkind to the men in her life. She liked having a steady, husband-in-waiting even as she experimented with kinky math profs and the enigmatic Sassoon.
The only portion of the biography that rises above lurid post-mortem examination of Plath's sexual proclivities is the viewpoint provided by Eddie Cohen. Eddie is a thoughtful, well-spoken writer. His words, unlike the rest of what is presented from Plath's exes, were written when he was in a long-term (Platonic) relationship with Plath. There is an immediacy to Eddie's missives; they are not shaped by Plath's fame, nor are they tainted by decades of resentment against an inaccessible target (a dead woman). Eddie may have wanted Plath, but was enough of a friend to keep writing even after she was horrifically rude to him when he paid her a surprise visit. Eddie enjoyed his discourse with Plath because of who she was and who she could choose to become. He may have been Plath's best friend, and it is a shame that none of Plath's correspondence to Eddie was available for the book.
Plath had female friends… kind of. Wilson refers to them as Plath's "doubles." The women are pale, barely mentioned, and basically empty. Perhaps none of them knew her well, although a few are happy enough to dwell on Plath's "bad" behavior. MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG gives a picture of Plath as a woman who spent her time in the company of men, and had few and tenuous relationships with other women. This is not all that different from many of the other biographies or, indeed, Plath's own journals. She was a woman who felt her power and her potential in the company of men, and MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG is happy to produce the annotated F*ck-A-Log of Plath's every sexual encounter.
Wilson proposes that in addition to her voracious sexuality, Plath's economic insecurity, perfectionism, and lack of fixed identity precipitated her suicide. It's an interesting set of premises that are sadly lost in the static of WSD (Who Sylvia Did). Wilson never considers that the existence of a "fixed self" is not something that is whole and complete in a person under thirty. Trying on different personas is not inherently a sign of mental illness, but rather the way in which a girl learns what kind of woman she will be. It is a shame Plath never got to enjoy the fullness of self that comes with age. This sense of something incomplete, of something interrupted mid-thought: this is what MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG has in common with Plath.
Sheer titillation drew me through MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG, which was replete with breathy "confessions" from Plath's ex-lovers. Most of her exes offered plenty of non-medical opinions tinged with the salacious nature of a jilted Lothario's revisionism. Plath is pronounced: schizophrenic, manic, depressed, sexually repressed, pathologically perfectionist, and as having borderline personality disorder. The overall picture of Plath is unstable and entirely unlikeable. This is the nasty effluvia of long-festering romantic wounds, not a realistic picture of Plath as an individual. MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG traces the trajectory of a sexually repressed woman, who is reborn into a rapacious sexuality. If even half of the recounted jilts are true, Plath was unkind to the men in her life. She liked having a steady, husband-in-waiting even as she experimented with kinky math profs and the enigmatic Sassoon.
The only portion of the biography that rises above lurid post-mortem examination of Plath's sexual proclivities is the viewpoint provided by Eddie Cohen. Eddie is a thoughtful, well-spoken writer. His words, unlike the rest of what is presented from Plath's exes, were written when he was in a long-term (Platonic) relationship with Plath. There is an immediacy to Eddie's missives; they are not shaped by Plath's fame, nor are they tainted by decades of resentment against an inaccessible target (a dead woman). Eddie may have wanted Plath, but was enough of a friend to keep writing even after she was horrifically rude to him when he paid her a surprise visit. Eddie enjoyed his discourse with Plath because of who she was and who she could choose to become. He may have been Plath's best friend, and it is a shame that none of Plath's correspondence to Eddie was available for the book.
Plath had female friends… kind of. Wilson refers to them as Plath's "doubles." The women are pale, barely mentioned, and basically empty. Perhaps none of them knew her well, although a few are happy enough to dwell on Plath's "bad" behavior. MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG gives a picture of Plath as a woman who spent her time in the company of men, and had few and tenuous relationships with other women. This is not all that different from many of the other biographies or, indeed, Plath's own journals. She was a woman who felt her power and her potential in the company of men, and MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG is happy to produce the annotated F*ck-A-Log of Plath's every sexual encounter.
Wilson proposes that in addition to her voracious sexuality, Plath's economic insecurity, perfectionism, and lack of fixed identity precipitated her suicide. It's an interesting set of premises that are sadly lost in the static of WSD (Who Sylvia Did). Wilson never considers that the existence of a "fixed self" is not something that is whole and complete in a person under thirty. Trying on different personas is not inherently a sign of mental illness, but rather the way in which a girl learns what kind of woman she will be. It is a shame Plath never got to enjoy the fullness of self that comes with age. This sense of something incomplete, of something interrupted mid-thought: this is what MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG has in common with Plath.
February 21, 2013
Quite possibly the best Plath biography ever, without taking sides. Sylvia was, after all, only human, and some people loved her, some people hated her, and some really didn't understand her - we get testimonies from all camps in this book. Even the ever evasive Richard Sassoon makes an appearance!
Shoots Anne Stevenson's book out of the water. If only we had a sequel with life after Ted... hear that, Mr Wilson?
Shoots Anne Stevenson's book out of the water. If only we had a sequel with life after Ted... hear that, Mr Wilson?
March 3, 2013
I've read many books on Plath, as part of my degree and after, and while this book is a fresh take on parts of her life not fully covered elsewhere, it is a bit of a disappointment. It is sloppilly written and edited (the quantity of typos in my Simon and Shuster edition were surprising for a quality hardback) and is fundamentally a superficial journalistic, rather than an in-depth academic, piece.
Wilson has apparently done his research in the Smith archives and elsewhere, but he has a tendency to report opinion as fact and make dramatic assertions without coroborating evidence.
This is an okay read if you've already read around the topic and can sort fact from soap-drama opinion, but if you're new to the story of Plath's life, you could well have trouble sorting evidenced fact from speculative fiction.
There was a good book waiting to be written on this period of Plath's development and its impact on her writing, but this isn't it.
Wilson has apparently done his research in the Smith archives and elsewhere, but he has a tendency to report opinion as fact and make dramatic assertions without coroborating evidence.
This is an okay read if you've already read around the topic and can sort fact from soap-drama opinion, but if you're new to the story of Plath's life, you could well have trouble sorting evidenced fact from speculative fiction.
There was a good book waiting to be written on this period of Plath's development and its impact on her writing, but this isn't it.
August 17, 2018
An interesting, detailed account on Sylvia Plath's life before she met her husband Ted. It is based on primary sources, such as Plath's letters and diaries and interviews of people that knew Plath. It is very well written but very heavy on psychological details which makes it sometimes very hard to get through. It is hard to see how much Plath struggled in her life but I thought that her mental health was a bit too heavily highlighted.
June 26, 2016
Life before Ted Hughes
There are many biographies of Plath, and they frequently take issue with each other. What makes this one different is that Wilson de-centres the more usual arc of her life and focuses on Sylvia’s life before she met Ted Hughes.
Taking her from childhood till she came to study at Cambridge where, of course, she met Hughes and married him within four months, this gives us a slightly different Plath. Wilson has interviewed many people who knew Sylvia in her school and student days, and has tried to work from her journals and letters rather than previous biographies. This gives a freshness to the narrative though, inevitably, biographical readings of Plath’s own fiction lead us into some familiar territory.
What we can know about Plath and her inner life is always partial and compromised, and it’s interesting to ponder what was unique to Plath in this story of adolescence and young womanhood in the repressive 1950s, and what was, in fact, the story of a generation. Precisely because she is Sylvia Plath there is an urge to make her experiences uniquely her own, and there is an inevitable hindsight, given her end, in reading back through her life: it all seems to point inevitably and teleologically to that kitchen in Primrose Hill when in reality, Plath could have had a very different life had she so chosen.
Plath herself comes over as a strange and compelling mix of arrogance and insecurity, an acutely narcissistic personality whose only subject of all her writings was herself. So this is a very good biography of a troubled woman which adds to the mythology – and it’s nice that that mythology can, for once, be Plath’s alone rather than one shared with Hughes.
There are many biographies of Plath, and they frequently take issue with each other. What makes this one different is that Wilson de-centres the more usual arc of her life and focuses on Sylvia’s life before she met Ted Hughes.
Taking her from childhood till she came to study at Cambridge where, of course, she met Hughes and married him within four months, this gives us a slightly different Plath. Wilson has interviewed many people who knew Sylvia in her school and student days, and has tried to work from her journals and letters rather than previous biographies. This gives a freshness to the narrative though, inevitably, biographical readings of Plath’s own fiction lead us into some familiar territory.
What we can know about Plath and her inner life is always partial and compromised, and it’s interesting to ponder what was unique to Plath in this story of adolescence and young womanhood in the repressive 1950s, and what was, in fact, the story of a generation. Precisely because she is Sylvia Plath there is an urge to make her experiences uniquely her own, and there is an inevitable hindsight, given her end, in reading back through her life: it all seems to point inevitably and teleologically to that kitchen in Primrose Hill when in reality, Plath could have had a very different life had she so chosen.
Plath herself comes over as a strange and compelling mix of arrogance and insecurity, an acutely narcissistic personality whose only subject of all her writings was herself. So this is a very good biography of a troubled woman which adds to the mythology – and it’s nice that that mythology can, for once, be Plath’s alone rather than one shared with Hughes.
March 19, 2013
In the 50 years since Sylvia Plath's suicide, her biographic legacy has been controlled by people who had much to lose by an honest interpretation of her life - namely her mother and her ex-husband. Now, however, with those parties dead, a more honest assessment of Plath, both as an artist and as a woman can be made.The first step in the process, perhaps, was the publication in 2000 of Plath's unabridged journals. But Andrew Wilson's look at her life up until her marriage to Ted Hughes is much, much more.
Drawing on her journals, letters and exhaustive interviews with her contemporaries from childhood through her college years, Wilson paints the portrait of a young woman who felt confined by the stultifying society of the 1950's as well as her smothering mother. The result was a that Plath was consumed with rage: against society, her self-sacrificing mother, her lack of money and social standing and a perpetual fear of not being good enough in her chosen vocation as a writer.
That she was talented, there is no doubt. Would I have liked to have been her friend? I doubt that too.
Drawing on her journals, letters and exhaustive interviews with her contemporaries from childhood through her college years, Wilson paints the portrait of a young woman who felt confined by the stultifying society of the 1950's as well as her smothering mother. The result was a that Plath was consumed with rage: against society, her self-sacrificing mother, her lack of money and social standing and a perpetual fear of not being good enough in her chosen vocation as a writer.
That she was talented, there is no doubt. Would I have liked to have been her friend? I doubt that too.
August 31, 2019
Plath'in Hughes'tan önceki hayatını, aşk hayatı, geçirdiği bunalımlar, krizler ve o dönemki şiirlerini anlatan bir biyografi. Plath hakkında çok şey öğrendim ancak yazarın -bana göre- yer yer yargılayıcı cümlelerinden rahatsız oldum. İyi bir araştırma. Plath'i seviyorsanız okumanızı öneririm. 3.5/5
June 10, 2020
Review TK
July 9, 2016
Sylvia Plath, 50 years on.
With this new biography I think she can be laid to rest, her suicide no longer a haunting mystery, for me anyway.
Was she mad? Unquestionably, but what drove her mad? Some are the clues examined in her life before Ted, come to light. She was an 'angry young woman' a scholarship student who needed to carve out a living so as not to be a burden to her widowed mother. With no father, she dated hundreds of men searching for something she never had. She was jealous, bitter and envious of well off girls around her, and often used people as characters for her stories - a vampiric tendency others noted. Nobody really knew the inner turmoil she concealed beneath a sunny exterior, but cracks soon began to show. Why did she marry Ted? To make another man she was dating jealous. It could not last, no relationship really did. And yet she was a genius wordsmith, casting spells with words.
How do we know all this? Thanks to her mother, every detail of her life, letters, journal entries, account books were preserved in archives and libraries. Plaths complex narcissistic personality and obsessive introspection created what in effect was her own fame. She gloried in herself, and wanted the world to know it. Today, she would have been tweeting and facebooking and blogging, probably having a huge following, and casting snide comments on everyone around her.
If this biography is to be believed...and its actually a very good biography with interviews from people who thought they knew her. What people knew of her was a fragmented persona she cultivated that was different each time. Lady Lazarus indeed.
With this new biography I think she can be laid to rest, her suicide no longer a haunting mystery, for me anyway.
Was she mad? Unquestionably, but what drove her mad? Some are the clues examined in her life before Ted, come to light. She was an 'angry young woman' a scholarship student who needed to carve out a living so as not to be a burden to her widowed mother. With no father, she dated hundreds of men searching for something she never had. She was jealous, bitter and envious of well off girls around her, and often used people as characters for her stories - a vampiric tendency others noted. Nobody really knew the inner turmoil she concealed beneath a sunny exterior, but cracks soon began to show. Why did she marry Ted? To make another man she was dating jealous. It could not last, no relationship really did. And yet she was a genius wordsmith, casting spells with words.
How do we know all this? Thanks to her mother, every detail of her life, letters, journal entries, account books were preserved in archives and libraries. Plaths complex narcissistic personality and obsessive introspection created what in effect was her own fame. She gloried in herself, and wanted the world to know it. Today, she would have been tweeting and facebooking and blogging, probably having a huge following, and casting snide comments on everyone around her.
If this biography is to be believed...and its actually a very good biography with interviews from people who thought they knew her. What people knew of her was a fragmented persona she cultivated that was different each time. Lady Lazarus indeed.
March 16, 2013
I found myself fascinated with this book - after all, so many biographies skim over a lot of Plath's life before she met Ted Hughes. But I did have some problems, mostly with the amount of speculation involved. A biographer's job involves making a story of someone's life, and a little speculation is probably okay. But Wilson speculates a lot about things that "might" have happened or "might" have been one way, and quotes others speculating just as much.
Worth the read if you're a fan of Plath or just fascinated with her, but I'd definitely recommend backing it up with some other biographies.
Worth the read if you're a fan of Plath or just fascinated with her, but I'd definitely recommend backing it up with some other biographies.
March 27, 2013
Maybe I just don't care for biographies the way I used to, but this felt like a regurgitating of facts I already knew combined with a parsing of unimportant details of Sylvia Plath's diaries and childhood experiences, drawing conclusions that seemed, ultimately, like guesses.
August 31, 2013
This one bogged down in its introduction. Despite an interest in the subject, I'm returning it to the library.
January 28, 2020
Some interesting tidbits, but a lot of unsubstantiated claims.
September 24, 2025
Reread in 2025: Very funny that, in the review below, I said that I "felt a second Plath phase coming on" and here I am now writing a PhD thesis on her lol. Having much more knowledge on Plath now than I did the first time I read this - and having also now read Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, which is as definitive a biography of Plath as we have for now - I am of the opinion that 'Mad Girl's Love Song' isn't perfect. It glosses over some things and spends a lot of time on other things that perhaps didn't need this level of focus. I do also feel you can tell which of Plath's former lovers Wilson actually spoke with and which he didn't - for example, Dick Norton felt weirdly underrepresented in this book to me given his large role in Plath's life. I also still had some issues with some of the conclusions Wilson drew, and I think he sort of rushed over the Cambridge portion of her life to avoid talking about Hughes even though she had several other formative experiences in Cambridge before and around Hughes. Overall, though, I still maintain that this is a good introduction to Plath.
Original review: I went through my obligatory Sylvia Plath phase aged 17, during which time I read her entire Wikipedia page (which is how most of my obsessions begin), her Selected Poems, and The Bell Jar in fairly quick succession. Since then, my interest has waned slightly, but it never entirely died out, and I've been meaning to read more of and about Plath for the longest time. Recently, when doing research about Zelda Fitzgerald, who resembles Plath in many many many ways, and representations of 'tragic' women writers in biographical fiction novels, I find myself falling down the Plath rabbit hole all over again because, much like Zelda, Plath has been widely mythologised and fictionalised since her death and this has in some ways altered her legacy. In the midst of all this, I decided that it was finally time for me to crack open one of my Plath biographies, if only to get my facts about her straight. This book in particular fascinated me because it sets out to explore Plath's life before she met and married Ted Hughes - the source of much of the myth-making and outrage and tragedy. I felt that, if I wanted to understand Sylvia Plath in her entirety and not just as a tragic poet, victim of mental illness, and oppressed wife, this was a good place to start. It turns out that I was correct, because I can't imagine that there are many better or more accessible introductions to Sylvia Plath than this one.
Wilson is nothing if not thorough when it comes to reconstructing Plath's life. He talks to many of the people that knew her (or their widows and widowers), includes excerpts from a great many letters, consults Plath's diaries, and leads up to a conclusion where Sylvia's decisions feel genuinely justified, if not correct. It's clear that a lot of effort and interest has gone into this biography, and as a result it produces an absolutely exemplary biography of Plath before Hughes. Also, whilst I haven't read enough about Plath to say for sure, I got the impression that Wilson was uncovering (or trying his best to uncover) some brand-new information here. For example, he acknowledges that Richard Sassoon - who he names Plath's 'great love' who she was involved with shortly before Hughes - has previously been a bit of a shadowy figure, but a fair bit of focus goes on him in here, making him a more tangible presence than he perhaps has been before. Even if that isn't necessarily the case, Wilson certainly gives more attention to these other figures in Plath's life than other biographers have due to the narrowness of his scope. Because of that, it becomes possible to see Plath through a different lens: you can see and understand her other influences and her sources of information, which went on to determine the person and the poet she became. There's more here than JUST the mentally ill Sylvia Plath and JUST the Sylvia Plath who was treated horribly by Ted Hughes, although both of those things do feature. I think what I'm trying to say here, in a long, roundabout way, is that this biography felt holistic to me, which is perhaps an odd thing to say considering that it completely ignores the last seven years of her life. It tries to understand WHY Sylvia Plath was how she was by looking at a variety of different factors - her parents, her financial situation, her status as a sexually frustrated woman coming of age in the 1950s, her friendships, her teaching, her previous relationships, her mental illness, AND her writing - rather than pointing the finger at one thing or another. That's something really commendable and, in my opinion, it adds a lot to the huge amounts of Plath scholarship already out there.
There were a couple of things about Mad Girl's Love Song which bothered me slightly, but, having not read any other Plath biographies, I'm going to refrain from criticising Wilson for any of them for now because I can't say for certain just how accurate/common his perspectives are. I guess I'm just going to have to do more reading in order to decide on that, which this book has certainly encouraged me to do. I feel a second Plath phase coming on, but this time I want to be a bit more informed and scholarly than I was before. I, like Wilson, want to take a more holistic approach to understanding this woman and her art rather than looking for easy answers. I feel, after reading Mad Girl's Love Song, like I want to get stuck in with further reading, and that's exactly how a good biography SHOULD make you feel. There are always more sides to a story and more questions and answers about a person's life than one writer can provide, so one biography should always lead onto another. I look forward to carrying on exploring this new obsession, and I'm very glad that Mad Girl's Love Song was the specific book that kickstarted it.
Original review: I went through my obligatory Sylvia Plath phase aged 17, during which time I read her entire Wikipedia page (which is how most of my obsessions begin), her Selected Poems, and The Bell Jar in fairly quick succession. Since then, my interest has waned slightly, but it never entirely died out, and I've been meaning to read more of and about Plath for the longest time. Recently, when doing research about Zelda Fitzgerald, who resembles Plath in many many many ways, and representations of 'tragic' women writers in biographical fiction novels, I find myself falling down the Plath rabbit hole all over again because, much like Zelda, Plath has been widely mythologised and fictionalised since her death and this has in some ways altered her legacy. In the midst of all this, I decided that it was finally time for me to crack open one of my Plath biographies, if only to get my facts about her straight. This book in particular fascinated me because it sets out to explore Plath's life before she met and married Ted Hughes - the source of much of the myth-making and outrage and tragedy. I felt that, if I wanted to understand Sylvia Plath in her entirety and not just as a tragic poet, victim of mental illness, and oppressed wife, this was a good place to start. It turns out that I was correct, because I can't imagine that there are many better or more accessible introductions to Sylvia Plath than this one.
Wilson is nothing if not thorough when it comes to reconstructing Plath's life. He talks to many of the people that knew her (or their widows and widowers), includes excerpts from a great many letters, consults Plath's diaries, and leads up to a conclusion where Sylvia's decisions feel genuinely justified, if not correct. It's clear that a lot of effort and interest has gone into this biography, and as a result it produces an absolutely exemplary biography of Plath before Hughes. Also, whilst I haven't read enough about Plath to say for sure, I got the impression that Wilson was uncovering (or trying his best to uncover) some brand-new information here. For example, he acknowledges that Richard Sassoon - who he names Plath's 'great love' who she was involved with shortly before Hughes - has previously been a bit of a shadowy figure, but a fair bit of focus goes on him in here, making him a more tangible presence than he perhaps has been before. Even if that isn't necessarily the case, Wilson certainly gives more attention to these other figures in Plath's life than other biographers have due to the narrowness of his scope. Because of that, it becomes possible to see Plath through a different lens: you can see and understand her other influences and her sources of information, which went on to determine the person and the poet she became. There's more here than JUST the mentally ill Sylvia Plath and JUST the Sylvia Plath who was treated horribly by Ted Hughes, although both of those things do feature. I think what I'm trying to say here, in a long, roundabout way, is that this biography felt holistic to me, which is perhaps an odd thing to say considering that it completely ignores the last seven years of her life. It tries to understand WHY Sylvia Plath was how she was by looking at a variety of different factors - her parents, her financial situation, her status as a sexually frustrated woman coming of age in the 1950s, her friendships, her teaching, her previous relationships, her mental illness, AND her writing - rather than pointing the finger at one thing or another. That's something really commendable and, in my opinion, it adds a lot to the huge amounts of Plath scholarship already out there.
There were a couple of things about Mad Girl's Love Song which bothered me slightly, but, having not read any other Plath biographies, I'm going to refrain from criticising Wilson for any of them for now because I can't say for certain just how accurate/common his perspectives are. I guess I'm just going to have to do more reading in order to decide on that, which this book has certainly encouraged me to do. I feel a second Plath phase coming on, but this time I want to be a bit more informed and scholarly than I was before. I, like Wilson, want to take a more holistic approach to understanding this woman and her art rather than looking for easy answers. I feel, after reading Mad Girl's Love Song, like I want to get stuck in with further reading, and that's exactly how a good biography SHOULD make you feel. There are always more sides to a story and more questions and answers about a person's life than one writer can provide, so one biography should always lead onto another. I look forward to carrying on exploring this new obsession, and I'm very glad that Mad Girl's Love Song was the specific book that kickstarted it.
July 29, 2024
give me anything plath and i’ll gobble it up - i love that this is before she met ted hughes and about her growing up, especially love that it has interviews with people from her life!
November 15, 2019
I’ve been reading this book in small pieces since April; you’re not always in the best frame of mine to reside within the head of a young Sylvia Plath. This book divorces Plath from the better known canon of her life: her tempestuous marriage to fellow poet Ted Hughes, the writing of Ariel, and the final few years of her life. But before Hughes, Plath was a brilliant prodigy, published from her childhood onward. There, also, we find seeds of what would come later with Plath’s burning brilliance contrasted by her deep depressions, her unquenchable thirst for achievement, a botched, traumatic bout of electroshock therapy, her first suicide attempt, and her anguished beating at the limits that her gender placed upon her.
One of the great successes of this book is the way it forces sexism to show its true, dark face: not as a frustrating annoyance and an injustice, but a malevolent force that cruelly obliterates bright life. We see it as much in its effect on Plath as we do the glimpses of the women whom she associated at a time when women of their class were well-educated, but only with the purpose of attracting a good husband. One of the characters in The Bell Jar was based on a friend, Smith classmate, and eventual fellow patient at a mental hospital, a woman with ambitions of attending medical school that her parents snuffed out. Overcome by the sense that she was not in control of her own life, she coolly put her hand through a glass window. As for Plath, the strictures and expectations of her day ground on her and fractured her sense of self beyond repair. She grasped at once for what she wants, what would satisfy her true self, and what she was expected to be. She could never find a place where she felt settled; she could never achieve enough, and she searched manically for both with a heat and an intensity that frightens. She raged in her journals against the society around her that so repressed and divided her, inside of which she was trying to become something. She embraced the idea that “to be a woman and a writer is to be inherently self-destructive.” It is a breathlessly dark sensation to watch her fly down her path. And if you are yourself a writer and a woman, you can almost feel the same stranglehold she did.
While the meat of the book ends with her encountering Ted Hughes in England during her stay as a Fulbright Scholar, the afterword fast forwards to years later, to what is unjustly perhaps the best-known part of her short but flaming tale: the night of her suicide, which seems all but inevitable after we have swallowed the pill of her life. Its final lines are from Plath’s final poem, written a couple of days before her death. “The woman is perfected // Her dead // Body wears the smile of accomplishment”. The sense of loss is profound and echoing.
One of the great successes of this book is the way it forces sexism to show its true, dark face: not as a frustrating annoyance and an injustice, but a malevolent force that cruelly obliterates bright life. We see it as much in its effect on Plath as we do the glimpses of the women whom she associated at a time when women of their class were well-educated, but only with the purpose of attracting a good husband. One of the characters in The Bell Jar was based on a friend, Smith classmate, and eventual fellow patient at a mental hospital, a woman with ambitions of attending medical school that her parents snuffed out. Overcome by the sense that she was not in control of her own life, she coolly put her hand through a glass window. As for Plath, the strictures and expectations of her day ground on her and fractured her sense of self beyond repair. She grasped at once for what she wants, what would satisfy her true self, and what she was expected to be. She could never find a place where she felt settled; she could never achieve enough, and she searched manically for both with a heat and an intensity that frightens. She raged in her journals against the society around her that so repressed and divided her, inside of which she was trying to become something. She embraced the idea that “to be a woman and a writer is to be inherently self-destructive.” It is a breathlessly dark sensation to watch her fly down her path. And if you are yourself a writer and a woman, you can almost feel the same stranglehold she did.
While the meat of the book ends with her encountering Ted Hughes in England during her stay as a Fulbright Scholar, the afterword fast forwards to years later, to what is unjustly perhaps the best-known part of her short but flaming tale: the night of her suicide, which seems all but inevitable after we have swallowed the pill of her life. Its final lines are from Plath’s final poem, written a couple of days before her death. “The woman is perfected // Her dead // Body wears the smile of accomplishment”. The sense of loss is profound and echoing.
March 14, 2013
Plath's early life was fascinating and I think it would make for a for a great read regardless of how it's presented. Unfortunately, I think the author was ill-equipped to handle the later early-years' psychology and Plath's inner turmoil. He reverted to using "Lady Lazarus" and "Daddy" whenever he wanted to present "evidence" of her feelings about her father's death, using little of the primary source evidence he employed to describe other aspects of her life. He mentioned on several occasions how she hated her mother, but all the evidence he used presented a loving, protective (if tense and worried) relationship between the two. It was as if he took all previous ideas about Plath and her mother at face value without analyzing the evidence he himself was presenting.
The primary source material he used seemed extensive and I loved the long quotes he offered in which Plath's friends, family and encounters described her. It made the text much richer. However, when it came to Plath describing herself and her situation he glossed over what seemed to be a gold mine: both published and unpublished letters, plus Plath's journals. He more frequently quoted "The Bell Jar" than the journals and letters, which was very disappointing. I can read "The Bell Jar;" I don't have access to the letters and journals. The only quotes from Plath herself were mostly one-word quotations or three or four word phrases. Hearing more of Plath's voice beyond her poetry and stories would have added a dimension to the text.
One last annoyance was his taking up valuable page space to describe fairly common 1950's slang such as "parking" and "bird-dogging" as though his readers have never seen a movie or read a book from that era. He could have used that space to incorporate more direct quotes from his primary material.
I'm sure Wilson had a preponderance of material to sort through and he sifted through it to get a sustaining narrative admirably. The material he was given access to alone was impressive. However, he seemed to take bringing Plath's early life to the masses a step to far, making the book more pop culture/mass market than academic study. I think he could have found a better balance between the two to make an even more engaging, in-depth read.
The primary source material he used seemed extensive and I loved the long quotes he offered in which Plath's friends, family and encounters described her. It made the text much richer. However, when it came to Plath describing herself and her situation he glossed over what seemed to be a gold mine: both published and unpublished letters, plus Plath's journals. He more frequently quoted "The Bell Jar" than the journals and letters, which was very disappointing. I can read "The Bell Jar;" I don't have access to the letters and journals. The only quotes from Plath herself were mostly one-word quotations or three or four word phrases. Hearing more of Plath's voice beyond her poetry and stories would have added a dimension to the text.
One last annoyance was his taking up valuable page space to describe fairly common 1950's slang such as "parking" and "bird-dogging" as though his readers have never seen a movie or read a book from that era. He could have used that space to incorporate more direct quotes from his primary material.
I'm sure Wilson had a preponderance of material to sort through and he sifted through it to get a sustaining narrative admirably. The material he was given access to alone was impressive. However, he seemed to take bringing Plath's early life to the masses a step to far, making the book more pop culture/mass market than academic study. I think he could have found a better balance between the two to make an even more engaging, in-depth read.
March 25, 2013
Because of the publication of her journals and letters, much is already known about Sylvia Plath's brief life. Here, however, Andrew Wilson gives a different take on it. Mad Girl's Love Song, the title taken from one of Plath's unpublished poems, focuses solely on Sylvia's life before meeting Ted Hughes, and incorporates information that Plath's mother, Aurelia, edited out of Sylvia's published correspondence. Wilson also conducted interviews with many people who knew Sylvia Plath, so the idea is that there is some new information here that isn't in previous books.
Plath's life is really interesting. You can tell just from reading her letters how autobiographical The Bell Jar is, but Wilson goes into even more specific detail regarding the events that later made their way into the book. Wilson also gives an idea of how difficult it must have been to be around her. I wouldn't say the book is unflattering so much as it tries to give an impression of her that isn't colored by our reverence for the dead and/or a love of her work.
There are a few reasons I'm only giving three stars here. First off, it was a bit dry at times. Toward the end, I really enjoyed reading it but the beginning parts just didn't grab me. There also seemed to be some typos or maybe just weird phrasing; since this book just came out I'm assuming it's the first edition and those things will be fixed but I still found it distracting. Lastly, the author, toward the end of the book, started jumping in with his own voice, saying things like, "when I interviewed so-and-so," which I don't much care for as a device anyway but the fact that it wasn't employed until one of the last chapters seemed sloppy to me.
If you are at all interested in Plath's life, I would definitely recommend reading this book. It has extensive references and a large index, which you know I love. I just don't think it's as good as it could have been.
Plath's life is really interesting. You can tell just from reading her letters how autobiographical The Bell Jar is, but Wilson goes into even more specific detail regarding the events that later made their way into the book. Wilson also gives an idea of how difficult it must have been to be around her. I wouldn't say the book is unflattering so much as it tries to give an impression of her that isn't colored by our reverence for the dead and/or a love of her work.
There are a few reasons I'm only giving three stars here. First off, it was a bit dry at times. Toward the end, I really enjoyed reading it but the beginning parts just didn't grab me. There also seemed to be some typos or maybe just weird phrasing; since this book just came out I'm assuming it's the first edition and those things will be fixed but I still found it distracting. Lastly, the author, toward the end of the book, started jumping in with his own voice, saying things like, "when I interviewed so-and-so," which I don't much care for as a device anyway but the fact that it wasn't employed until one of the last chapters seemed sloppy to me.
If you are at all interested in Plath's life, I would definitely recommend reading this book. It has extensive references and a large index, which you know I love. I just don't think it's as good as it could have been.
April 22, 2013
I have always loved Plath's work - as a volatile sixteen-year-old girl who enjoyed The Bell Jar, but also as a college student studying Plath and Hughes as a case of melding, conflicting artistic personalities. Wilson's book - recommended by Brain Pickings - is compelling as it confines itself to Sylvia's life before meeting Ted Hughes. Wilson's research builds a portrait of Sylvia as tumultuous and performative, mapping her evolution through her many (many, many) romances. Unfortunately, Wilson leaps overzealously between Plath's life and her poetry, yanking the two together for quick statements on Plath's state of mind and her work. More glaringly, while Wilson concedes Plath's tendency to dramatize and shift the facts of her life in her correspondence, he continues using her accounts without appreciating her unreliability as a narrator. Would recommend for anyone interested in Plath, with the warning that 'Mad Girl's Love Song' is not an especially literary work so much as a patchwork account of Plath's love life.
October 10, 2013
(A gift from the wonderful Caroline - thank you!)
This book deserves a longer review (and hopefully I will come back to it later) as I have a good bit to say about it. Unfortunately, time is rather short right now, so... Quick thoughts:
- one obnoxious item - the author kept bringing up many many things that pointed towards her darker days to come. Sure, some of them did. Others, though, could have been read as normal parts of growing up for anyone. It often felt like he was reaching to make everything in her life lead to her death which was unfortunate.
- Since there are genuinely new sources of information, this book should be interesting even to those who have read other Plath biographies.
- It is a bit harsh towards Plath. Whether this is warranted or not is up to the reader to decide for themselves. I personally thought it was mostly fair to her in general.
- I would have liked to see more attention paid to her writing. The focus on it seemed to come and go and was especially thin towards the end.
This book deserves a longer review (and hopefully I will come back to it later) as I have a good bit to say about it. Unfortunately, time is rather short right now, so... Quick thoughts:
- one obnoxious item - the author kept bringing up many many things that pointed towards her darker days to come. Sure, some of them did. Others, though, could have been read as normal parts of growing up for anyone. It often felt like he was reaching to make everything in her life lead to her death which was unfortunate.
- Since there are genuinely new sources of information, this book should be interesting even to those who have read other Plath biographies.
- It is a bit harsh towards Plath. Whether this is warranted or not is up to the reader to decide for themselves. I personally thought it was mostly fair to her in general.
- I would have liked to see more attention paid to her writing. The focus on it seemed to come and go and was especially thin towards the end.
January 20, 2019
An informative, detailed and well written account of Plath's life up until she met Ted Hughes, drawing from letters, journal entries, and the testimonies of whose who knew her. Unfortunately at times Wilson makes sensationalist and stigmatising remarks about Plath. He calls into question whether she was ever really raped, given that she carried on dating the man she accused of raping her. He compares her 'essence' to that of a devil or demon or sorceress. He talks of thirteen year old Sylvia's 'highly sexualised nature' - because she draws a picture of a woman with swollen breasts. Wilson constantly casts Plath as a kind of destructive, manipulative, otherworldly force, and lots of terms such as schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder are thrown around. It's a shame because it is an informative biography.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 20, 2014
I enjoyed this biography right up to the very end. I felt like it blamed Hughes for Sylvia's death. Look the biographer may know more about the situation from the letters and the archives but at the end of the day they know the same amount about Hughes and Plath's relationship as I do: nothing. Those two know what went down in their relationship. Of course you have recollection from third party sources but serious it was their relationship. And seeing as it's a biographer's job to be impartial (It should be anyway) that last bit really upset me.
But for the most part this was a well written biography. I like that it focused on the early years. I really enjoyed it up until the end.
But for the most part this was a well written biography. I like that it focused on the early years. I really enjoyed it up until the end.
May 2, 2013
A biography about Plath's youth? The scholars must be clutching at straws. It isn't so.
Few of the Plath biographies are so relevant with such sharply refined context. This is one of the very best books written about Plath, sheds so much light on her adult life through her youth, and in ways I hadn't imagined.
Few of the Plath biographies are so relevant with such sharply refined context. This is one of the very best books written about Plath, sheds so much light on her adult life through her youth, and in ways I hadn't imagined.
April 14, 2019
Mad Girl's Love Song provides a richly detailed, interesting account of Plath's childhood and early adult experiences up to the point at which she decides to marry Ted Hughes. Wilson's writing is quickly paced and engaging. For anyone curious about the source of Plath's genius or who wants to analyze the origins of her tragedy, this book is a good place to begin.
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