Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath

by Kate Moses

This is the story of a woman forging a new life for herself after her marriage has foundered, shutting up her beloved Devonshire house and making a home for her two young children in London, elated at completing the collection of poems she foresees will make her name. It is also the story of a woman struggling to maintain her mental equilibrium, to absorb the pain of her husband's betrayal and to resist her mother's engulfing love. It is the story of Sylvia Plath.

In this deeply felt novel, Kate Moses recreates Sylvia Plath's last months, weaving in the background of her life before she met Ted Hughes through to the disintegration of their relationship and the burst of creativity this triggered. It is inspired by Plath's original ordering and selection of the poems in Ariel, which begins with the word 'love' and ends with 'spring,' a mythic narrative of defiant survival quite different from the chronological version edited by Hughes. At Wintering's heart, though, lie the two weeks in December when Plath finds herself still alone and grief-stricken, despite all her determined hope. With exceptional empathy and lyrical grace, Moses captures her poignant, untenable and courageous struggle to confront not only her future as a woman, an artist and a mother, but the unbanished demons of her past.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Poetry, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Novels, Biographical Fiction

250 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this novel, beautifully imagining Sylvia Plath in her struggles with her time, her marriage, herself--depression, motherhood, perfectionism... I really felt this marriage to be true, and the novelist's understanding of her character unlocked some of the mysteries of Plath's choices and dilemmas. Gorgeously written, utterly persuasive. I actually teach point of view using scenes from this book as exemplars.

[Aniko Carmean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wintering, a novel of Sylvia Plath by Kate Moses, received glowing accolades from enough newspapers and reviewers to fill several pages at the front of the novel. Praise is heaped on the lucid intensity of the prose and the ability for Moses to give insight into the last several months of Plath's life. I'm going to be in the minority in not loving this book, mostly because I am of the opinion that if you want Plath, there is plenty about Plath by Plath. Between her journals, her letters home, and her collected poems, there is no shortage of access to the writer herself. Yes, Moses writes in a Plath-like voice, but that is the flaw: it is only like Plath, it is not actually Plath. If you want the real deal, go straight to the canon. There is no need for an intermediary, not even one as talented as Moses - especially when Moses takes what was written in legitimate first-person and puts it at a third person remove.

Wintering's format is taken directly from Plath's intended layout for Ariel. Each chapter is named for one of the Ariel poems, and the content follows suit, tying together events from the poem, journals, and other sources. The format lends an interesting ebb and flow to the recounting of Plath's story. The details are shown in a fevered, stop-caption motion that disregards any sense of chronology and shatters the sense that this might be a conventional biography written from an unconventional perspective. The movement of the story through time keeps the reader unbalanced in a way that emphasizes the sense of imbalance Plath herself seems to have felt during the tumultuous and emotional time period.

I would have been smitten with this book if it had been written as straight fiction. There are many beautiful scenes that felt straight fiction written by Moses, and not Moses-imagining-herself-as-Plath. If you need one reason to pick up Wintering, Chapter Six: Barren Woman is it. The intensity of Assia's interest in acquiring Sylvia's life is breathtaking and unforgettable. The breakfast where Assia dresses like Sylvia and repeats a dream she knows will attract Ted is taut, storytelling perfection. Moses has an unparalleled talent for describing the emotional landscape of a shattered woman trying to rebuild herself. More than anything, I would love to read a story by Moses that isn't fictionalized biography. I bet that would be a book I could love without any reservation.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

After completing Sylvia Plath's final poetry collection, Ariel, in February, I wanted to know more about the woman. I discovered that I had this novel about her on my shelves. When I found a positive recommendation for it by Janet Fitch, it seemed a good place to start.

The novel covers mostly the last year of Plath's life with some backstory about earlier years. I found it to be breathtaking in writing style, almost as if Kate Moses were channeling Plath's poetry style into prose.

She covers many of the incidents in Plath's life that could have been the inspiration for the poems in Ariel. It was rewarding to read about those incidents, then turn to the poems and reread them. The chapter titles were also the poem titles. This was just what I wanted!

The Author's Note at the end of the novel convinced me that Kate Moses had done her Plath studies with diligence, consulting the major biographies as well as her journals. She gives the reader full disclosure on what was fact and what she imagined.

I also saw the 2003 movie, "Sylvia," starring Gwyneth Paltrow as Sylvia and a young Daniel Craig as Ted Hughes. Excellent acting, lovely cinematography but less satisfying than Kate Moses's novel.

Now on to an actual biography, after a short break. Spending too much time with Lady Lazarus is a bit hard on my own mental health.

[Amy (literatiloves) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love biographical fiction. I really liked The Paris Wife and Loving Frank so I knew this would be right up my alley!
Wintering is a novel based on the last few months of Sylvia Plath's life with flashbacks to earlier times in her marriage to Ted Hughes. It is an emotional and depressing read (but emotional and depressing is my middle name) and it is beautifully written. I love how the book is set up. The chapters are named for the poems in Ariel in their original sequence and each chapter coincides with the events that are referred to in the poem. The format did make it a slower read for me. Part of the book is written in the "present" time frame then flashes back to previous times, so I would find myself having to look back to see where the chapter I was reading took place in relation to what I just read but I did appreciate the way that it was written.
The writing is so rich and descriptive, you really feel the emotions that she must have felt at such a dark time in her life. She was separated from her husband who was in a relationship with someone else, she was dealing with depression, living in London during one of the coldest winter in history with her two small children and her poetry was pouring out of her. You really feel the desperation that she must have felt. My only con would be that it was so descriptive that that bogged me down in parts, but I loved it and give it five stars. If you have any interest in Sylvia Plath, her poetry, or just love biographical fiction, I would recommend it.

[Noëlibrarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave this book the rare compliment of reading it twice -- once when it first came out, back in 2003. I have a frustrating relationship with Plath, to whom I'd like to give, alternately, a long hug and a hard slap. Apparently that's the way Ted felt about her, too.

As a child of a mother who made many attempts at suicide, and who finally died by accident when she was about Plath's age (when I was 2 1/2 and my sister was 5 1/2), I have always been struck by the extraordinary self-centeredness of young parents who choose suicide. I imagine Plath's children, who are older than me by about a decade, have searched all their lives for the answers to why they were not --worthy enough? --compelling enough? --loved enough? --to have a mother who chose to stay, to live, if only for them. Kate Moses has helped to shed some light on these terrible questions, and for that, I thank her.

[Lizzie (TwoFaceLizzie) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Obligée d'arrêter à ~60%, dix pages pour me raconter qu'elle trottait à cheval, c'est trop...

Si vous aimez les (très) longues descriptions, les temporalités décousues et Sylvia Plath, ce sera peut-être pour vous.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is a beautiful and poetic portrait of the last months of Sylvia Plath's life. It is heart breaking and joyful with hope and desperation at a constant ebb and flow. Kate Moses does a masterful job weaving the facts of Plath's life with the fictional intimate conversations, and interactions imagined between the known lines of Plath's fiery rise from the ashes of her broken marriage and the rapid fall of her star as her passion finally burned her out.

Fans of Plath should definitely pick up this novel, but anyone who has felt the lows of depression, the fevered passion of love or the struggle of the artist with their muse will also enjoy reading this book. Although it is a sad story to be told, the prose is vivid, visceral and truly beautiful, with Plath's trials and triumphs touching your heart at every turn. Moses does a good job being objective as to Plath and her husband 's Ted Hughes turbulent relationship. She leaves the reader with a full picture of this time in their lives with no "villain" despite Hughes' sexual affair which was ultimately responsible for their split and Plath's subsequent rush of inspiration which resulted in her collection of poetry titled Ariel. Plath's tragic curse is that her muse is her misery, the pain that makes life so crisp, so real leaves her soul lost with out its other half. Unfortunately Sylvia never see's the possibilities, the alternate ways of life she could pursue. Her inspiration a rising flame fed by the destruction of her former life, that creative spark burning bright before fading to black.
A beautiful tribute to Sylvia Plath told in an original style that I can't wait to see more of in the future. If this novel catches your eye, you won't be dissapointed!!!

[Miquel Tapias · Rating 2 out of 5]

Una decepció. Admiro l’obra de Sylvia Plath, tant la poesia com el relat “la campana de vidre”. Llegia aquesta obra esperant trobar quelcom del seu procés creatiu, la seva feble salut o les seves lectures i he trobat una Sylvia Plath massa quotidiana sense cap referència a la seva vida interior i poca a les seves crisis nervioses. Només cal destacar el retrat de la relació amb sa mare. A més a més una novel·la que es presenta com els últims dies de Sylvia Plath no pot cloure més i mig abans de la seva mort, és el meu parer.

[Ophelinha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really, really disliked this book.
I cannot even put my finger on why I hated it so much that it took me one month to finish reading it. I found the writing pedantic, a sad, lukewarm copy of Plath's lively, strong, powerful writing.
I also found the chronological disorder very poorly structured and very confusing. The long descriptions fail to capture the reader's eye, and are simply too much.
What is more, I couldn't find Plath – one of my favourite writers - among the pages of this novel, aiming at recreating the jigsaw of Sylvia's last months, before her tragic suicide.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who has studied Plath's life and work for a long time, I was intrigued by the notion of someone having taken on Plath, Hughes, and their friends and families as characters for a novel.

The chapters of Wintering are each titled after one of Plath's Ariel poems, in the original sequence Plath had planned for the book -- the manuscript was to begin with the word "love" and end with the word "spring." Wintering author Kate Moses has clearly done a lot of excellent research -- this is apparent even before you get to her notes at the back of the book. Readers who are familiar with Plath's life and work will find the characters' thoughts and the book's settings dressed with details from Plath's poems, journals, and letters -- the six jars of honey, the "lurid skins" of balloons that appear in an Ariel poem.

It is on this level that Wintering succeeds as "A Novel of Sylvia Plath." Kate Moses has immersed herself in the wealth of material that's out there, by and about Plath, and has produced a crystalline snowglobe world out of what had been chunks and fragments.

It's also interesting that the novel appears not to take sides. Plath and Hughes are human, each with strengths and flaws. Even Dido Merwin and Assia Wevill are fleshed out, rather than left as flat villains of the piece.

But herein lies what dissatisfied me about Wintering -- there doesn't seem to be any villain. Or, if a villain, per se, isn't necessary, there's no fire, no thrill, none of the crash and bang and intensity one gets from reading Plath's actual writing, whether it's her poems or journals. Apart from one scene in which a delirious Plath hears strange voices on the telephone and seems to see carrion birds in her house, there is no hint of her irrationality and demanding nature (aspects of her personality that have been under debate for decades, as to whether they really existed) or her intensity (which was an undeniable Plath trait).

Even though I was largely dissatisfied with the book (far too many of us Plath fans feel like we own her), there's no denying Kate Moses' achievement. Her creation is believable and incredibly detailed, especially the descriptions of life at Court Green (as idyllic and bucolic as I ever imagined it myself), the interactions of the Plath and Hughes characters (both as newlywed writers goading each other to produce, and as an estranged couple), and Plath's isolation during the winter in London, as she cares for her two young children.

I'm giving the book only three stars because, though I feel Plath fans will enjoy it, I can't imagine a casual reader picking it up and pushing all the way through to the end. As far as I'm concerned, a good biography of Plath is still much more interesting, especially with the mystery of "What was going through her head that day?" Though Moses has imagined that in a believable way, the mystery of not knowing is still more interesting.

The glory of Wintering is in the details -- details that have been picked up from primary source material: the poems, letters, and journals of Sylvia Plath.

[Ivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jako mučno, naporno, skokovito, bez neke jake motivacije da ti zadrži fokus.

[Shaz S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since I had no previous knowledge of Kate Moses's work, I picked up this book purely on the basis of my obsession with Sylvia Plath. The book is a fictional look at the last few months of SP's life. The narrative switches quite comfortably between first and third person narrative very often. Considering this is Kate Moses' first book, its quite impressive but its not an easy read. The titles of the chapters are from the poems of Ariel, her last collection of poems. The book starts with Sylvia moving to London with her two children from Ted Hughes's house in Devon. There are frequent flashbacks embedded throughout to inform the reader of her life before the separation. In London Sylvia is coping in her own obtuse ways with the hardships of being a single mother creating a new life, struggles of motherhood and the her own suffocating relationship with her mother. The emptiness, the ache, the sacrifices, everything that Sylvia felt is delivered so beautifully in this fictionalised tale that it almost becomes real. And the language just overwhelms you, in a brilliant way of course, The light in her words, the poetic flow, the stream of emotions writing, its beautiful almost to the point of tears. But this kind of excruciating verse-prose is not for everyone. This book demands resilience. and I am not ashamed to say that I finished the book even though it took me almost a month to complete.

The book is engrossing most of the time but there are a few chapter which drag on forever, are repetitive and annoying to the point that you almost have to force yourself to keep going. Another thing I didnt like in the book is the melodramatic portrayal of the way Sylvia handles her relationship with her husband, almost turning her into someone petty and mean. Or Maybe I have idolised SP to such an extent in my mind that I cannot see her as a normal human being handling things in very erring human ways. All in all this a beautiful tribute to a beautiful tortured-soul.

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't write reviews nearly as often as I should but this book compels me to write one. The novel is based on facts known about Plath, but what makes this book extraordinary is the beauty of the prose. Each chapter is named after a poem in Plath's final book Ariel. The chapter entitled "Ariel" was so beautiful I read it twice.

If you are at all interested in Plath and her work, I highly recommend this book. I loved it.

[Kate Stericker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I feel that Moses accomplished her artistic vision, I would not recommend this book to anyone not intimately familiar with the life and writings of Sylvia Plath. Because I approached this book as I would any other novel, I was frustrated by many of the features which were likely intended to appeal to Plath fans. For example, Moses' writing style (presumably modeled after Plath) is so lyrical that the book often seems like an extended prose poem, making it difficult to tell whether long sections are relevant to the plot or simply intended to sound poetic. Similarly, the fact that the narrative skips through a time period of only two years results in frequent jumps of two or three months backwards, contributing to a frustrating lack of narrative progress. If I had been able to recognize the allusions to Plath's work and appreciate the vivid imaginings of figures from her life, I'm sure I would have enjoyed this book more; as it is, Wintering is not for me.

[Johanna Hammarström · Rating 3 out of 5]

Övervintring av Kate Moses (Wintering - English review below)

Övervintring är en fiktiv roman om författaren och poeten Sylvia Plaths sista år i livet. Efter
Elin Cullheds "Eufori" fick jag mersmak på romaner om Plath och fick låna denna av en kollega.

Berättelsen börjar i lägenheten som kom att bli Plaths sista boning, "Yeats lägenhet".
Boken hoppar därefter mellan olika händelser i Plaths liv år 1962, stundtals med nedslag i andra årtal.
Det är en berättelse om en kvinna som kommer ur ett äktenskap och försöker gå vidare. En kvinna som blir bedragen av mannen hon litar på, har barn med och har levt ihop med i många år. Moses Plath är en kvinna som säger ifrån, som beskyller Ted för vad han gjort mot henne. Plath i Moses roman känner starkt att hon ägnat sitt liv åt att ta hand om en man som nu lämnat henne med både barn och utan ekonomisk trygghet, trots att hon gett honom sitt liv.

Hoppen mellan månader gjorde mig stundtals lite förvirrad då det var svårt att få en sammanhängande bild av berättelsen. Till skillnad från Eufori som jag tyckte använde Plath mer som en symbol för budskapet tyckte jag Övervintring verkade fokusera mer på att kartlägga Plath. Jag har uppskattat båda romanerna på olika sätt. Främst tycker jag det är intressant att se "någon annans version" av vem Plath var.


English review:

Wintering by Kate Moses

Wintering is a fictional novel about the poet and author Sylvia Plath's last year in life. The story is set in 1962 with a few sections taking place other years. The story is told in fractions from this year and jumps between months and dates, which sometimes made it a bit hard to get the whole picture. I think you need a basic understanding about Plath to understand the story.
Moses Plath is someone who is angry, who stands up to Ted for what he has done to her (cheated, left her with two small children and with an unsure income).
A Plath that is now left alone after giving up her life, goals and dreams for his.

What I enjoy about the book was seeing Plath being portrayed by someone else, getting to see someone else's version of her, but I do think it's important the keep in mind that it still is fiction.

[Elisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I found this very overwritten and thought its central conceit of every chapter being themed around a Plath poem wore pretty thin, though I do also think that reconstructing Plath's original Ariel in the contents page was a pretty radical thing to do (esp. as the reconstructed Ariel hadn't yet been published when Wintering came out!) Perhaps this book didn't tick every box for me personally in terms of being something I enjoyed reading, but I genuinely believe that Plath would be satisfied with this portrayal of herself, and in the end that matters more.

[Ginny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written and does justice to Plath. Unfortunately didn’t read it all.

[Cathie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars Moses is a very very good writer. Very poetic. The topic still gives me pause, but it's really a beautiful book and she defintiely did her research.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed reaction here. Kate Moses obviously immersed herself in all the Plath writings (by and about) and does try to channel the very words Plath might have used. So, you really have to admire her earnestness and her love of language.

But Sylvia Plath is tricky territory. So many of us are sort of fangirls, you know? And we all have our triggers and sore points and exalted opinions and sorrows and yearnings. (and we wonder about--how we wonder--what the poems of the next decades would have held).

The structure of the novel is clever: chapters with the names of the poems of Ariel in the order in which Sylvia placed those poems, without the changed sequence and the omissions and additions of the first edition, which was arranged by Hughes. This structure made me go take a look at the poems that aren't in my first edition...and appreciate the ones that Hughes tagged on at the end.

And yeah, the whole question of balancing mothering very small children and keeping sane and writing..Moses, who has kids of her own, obviously gets it and probably identified at a core level with that struggle.

But..if you just picked up this book randomly, if you weren't a lover and student of all the Plath poems and the many Plath histories and letters and criticism...would you get it? I mean, we know how Plath's life ended, and as the narrative zigs and zags (in the order of the poems, which are not chronological in Plath's version) you get bits and pieces. If you know, you nod sagely and think "yeah, Dido did find Sylvia annoying...but really, Merwin doesn't like to be called Bill, why on earth is Moses so cozily doing that?". If you don't...I don't know, would you just go "why the f*ck are these precious people maundering so?"? Ultimately I thought the book was a good attempt, but...no, you really have to read the actual writings. Though..well, nicely audacious of Kate Moses to try this.

[Amy W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. A perfect addition to Plath's own journals.

There's some criticism on here about the dense prose, but, having waded through 750 pages of the aforementioned journals, I can confirm the writing style is absolutely spot on.

I do take the point that if you want to properly experience Sylvia Plath you should read Sylvia Plath and not someone pretending to be her. However, this being written in the third person helps reassure the reader that Moses is only trying to be like Plath, not actually be Plath. It's good to keep that in mind.

The way the narrative weaved back through previous events and seemed to fixate on certain events/objects/places/people with no warning was very authentic. The overall sense of abandonment and loss of hope was palpable. The whole melancholic tone of the book was suffocating at times yet impossible to resist. Reading this was like eating expensive chocolate – you can't have too much at once or consume it too quickly. Every mouthful/page must be savoured and processed before moving on. At several times I had to put the book down and think over what I'd just read. There was a constant, uneasy sense of teetering over the edge of a cliff. We know what happens to Plath in the end and as such are just edging forward... pulling back... waiting... waiting... for the tale to reach its inevitable conclusion.

I was absolutely enthralled by this book. I loved it. ALTHOUGH had I been new to Plath I would have really struggled with the heavy, overly descriptive prose style. None of the events the book was talking about would have made any sense either and I would have just got frustrated and given up. So some background on Plath is essential to be able to enjoy Wintering.

I know die-hard Plath fans disagree, but I personally thought this book was excellent.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know what to think of the book "Wintering" yet. I am enjoying the poetic prose but at times it gets confusing, especially during the Ariel chapter.

I understand that the poem, Ariel, was one of Sylvia Plath's best poems, and Ariel, the horse, was very significant in her life (an inspiration), but for me, this chapter went on a bit too much. It was mostly just descriptions of the scenery and her relationship to the handling of the horse. Ariel was not an easy horse to maneuver and Sylvia was celebrating her birthday by sneaking out at dawn with Ariel for a horseback ride.

The chapters that I enjoyed much more were the ones about Sylvia who was on her own in London, coming to terms with the break up of her marriage, and her obsessive creation of poetry and how the words were just demanding to get out...and get put on paper. Given a voice.

The book follows Sylvia in the last winter of her life, living in Yeats' old house in London, working, caring for her children and coming to terms with the death of her marriage.

I am a big Sylvia Plath fan, by the way and I thought this book was well written, very descriptive (which I love). As I wrote before, there were some points (like the Ariel chapter) that dragged, but for the most part, the book was excellent.

Worth reading, even though it is a bit depressing. Very descriptive writing style.

[Daneil Newcomb · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are some books you devour, indulging in page after page, drinking in the words like ice cold lemonade on a sweltering summer day or homemade cookies from mother's college care pack. These books are ingested with urgency and saturating yourself in their goodness. These are the books you skip meals for, or stay up far too late to finish, or push aside your to do list for another day to read just one more chapter. There are books you devour, but this is not one of those books.

This book is much too rich for swift consumption. Like a deep chocolate torte, it sits upon your tongue and leaves you heavy-lidded and humming as it's bittersweet flavor soaks into each of your taste buds. This is a book that must be savored, one chapter at a time, leaving space for the words on the page to be fully digested.

I highly recommend reading the poems that couple to the chapters as you go. Moses has done a beautiful thing.

[Lorri Steinbacher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moses so completely captures the oppressive sadness as well as the manic creativity that I imagine marked the last few months of Plath's life. I like that she ends on a hopeful note, rather than on the more salacious point of her suicide, which takes place a few weeks later. Since Moses used Plath's journals as part of her background research this makes sense--she cannot extrapolate on those last weeks as those journals were destroyed by Hughes. Like all good, complex characters you simultaneously want to give Plath a hug and a day off while also wanting to shake her out of some of her more self-indulgent thought patterns. This is not an easy book, but it is worth the time.

[Kerry & naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath held a certain sense of immediacy for me. I was about to leave Northampton, the location of Smith College where Plath attended as an undergraduate and then later taught. Smith College’s archive is a treasure trove of Plath memorabilia from drafts of her poems, her journals, letters, even notes from classes and the books she read and annotated (the other repository for Plath scholars is the Lilly Library at the University of Indiana in Bloomington). My final hurrah in graduate school, only one other master’s student and I opted to write master’s theses. My compatriot, with whom I shared many late night phone calls and writer’s block panics, is a Plath scholar and wrote her thesis on how Plath’s reading of Virginia Woolf novels influenced Plath’s own writing. What with The Hours released in theatres, discussion over the casting of Gwyneth Paltrow as Sylvia Plath in an upcoming movie, a book signing by Kate Moses at a local indie bookstore, and all of these other things, Wintering just seemed another part of the literary resonance in my life at that moment.

The Plot

Wintering opens with Sylvia Plath’s first morning with her children in a flat she rented in Yeats’s old house in London after her separation from her husband, poet Ted Hughes. Sylvia is in the process of making a new life for herself after she could no longer ignore Ted’s affairs and can no longer stay in the house they bought together in Devon, Court Green, where she feels that all her happiness was built on a lie. Sylvia tries to cope with two children, one two-year-old, the other not quite one and still nursing, while trying to unpack and settle into the flat, and, most saliently, trying to order her manuscript for Ariel drawn from the flurry of poems she wrote over the last few months as her marriage fell apart.

Wintering follows Plath from December 12, 1962 until December 29, 1962, interspersed with flashback chapters that reach back as far as 1958 but mostly concentrate on the summer and autumn before when Sylvia realizes that Ted is cheating on her and that she wants a divorce. Sylvia also wants time to write, something she’s not getting when she’s saddled with all of the childcare responsibilities as Ted slips away to see his mistress, and she cannot find an adequate nanny.

This novel, ultimately, is about the disintegration of a marriage, and the disintegration of a woman who has placed too much importance on being a wife and is struggling to redefine herself as a poet.

Elements of Style

Wintering has 41 chapters, the same number as the poems in Ariel. However, Ted Hughes published Ariel after Sylvia’s suicide; he reordered the poems in the manuscript and removed some poems and substituted them with others that she had written previously. Moses resurrects Plath’s ordering of her poems—Plath wanted the first word of Ariel to be “love” and the last word to be “spring”--and uses the titles of the poems originally intended for Ariel as her chapter titles. I did have a copy of Ariel handy and read the poem associated with each chapter before reading the chapter itself. Since only the Collected Poems has all of the poems that Hughes purged from Ariel, I was not able to read every poem for every chapter, but I would like to encourage future readers of Wintering to do so. I think my appreciation of Moses’s prose was heightened when imagery from the chapter’s title poem would appear in the chapter or when a chapter recounted the events that led up to the writing of its title poem. I probably missed some significant points because I did not have a copy of the Collected Poems on hand as I read Wintering.

In addition to the ingenious framework, Moses’s writing style flows easily from third person descriptions to Sylvia’s thoughts to narrated memories. Moses herself has a way with words that infuses her prose with poetry, particularly apt given the subject of the novel, yet also blends in the messy realities of toddlers and a single mother whose world has broken into fragments and is desperately trying to hold everything together for her children and herself. Most poignant, I suppose, is the reader’s knowledge that Sylvia Plath took her own life not even two months after the end of Wintering. Despite all of Plath’s efforts to regain her equilibrium, I knew what was coming toward her throughout the novel, but now I also understand better why she took her own life.

(And just for the record, one often hears that Plath committed suicide by “sticking her head in an oven.” Although she did put her head in an oven, that’s not what killed her. Plath died from asphyxiation by turning on the gas of her oven and not lighting the flame to produce the oven’s heat. Her death was quite peaceful, her cheek pillowed on a dishcloth in the oven, not the gore conjured up, in the minds of elementary school students, by statements about heads in ovens.)

Overall

Sylvia Plath was an amazingly talented and intelligent woman, poet, and mother—I can only speculate what her genius would have produced if she had lived past the age of 30. Although Wintering is a fictionalized account of some of the last months of Plath’s life, Kate Moses has more than done justice to Sylvia Plath’s memory.

[Julie Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel was haunting. Sylvia was such a profoundly sad, talented writer and the author here has beautifully crafted a believable tale of what "might have, could have" been Sylvia's life during the crumbling of her marriage. Reading this book led me to explore more of her work - until this I had only read The Bell Jar.

[Katarzyna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Totemic body of work, but unnecessarily pretentious. In parts unreadable.

[Ester Grinvud · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nema gde je nisam nosila sa sobom i nema osobe za koju znam da voli Silviju Plat, a da joj nisam ovu knjigu stavila u ruke.

Ono što je Kejt Mozis pokušala da uradi ovim romantizovanim prikazom jednog dela života Silvije Plat jeste da pronađe priče koje su mogle poslužiti kao inspiracija za svaku od njenih pesama koje su se našle u posthumno objavljenoj zbirci ,, Arijel”. Naravno da se nije sve moglo tako odigrati, naročito deo kada na scenu stupa Asja zbog koje Ted Hjuz ostavlja Silviju i koja će svega koju godinu kasnije okančite svoj život na isti način kao što je to učinila i Platova sa sve ćerkom u naručju ( taj Ted Hjuz... ja ne znam je li on bio najveći baksuz sa ženama i/ili je budio abnormalnu nesreću u njima ) i naravno da Kejt Mozis ne može znati zasigurno koji događaj je inspirisao koju pesmu i da je ucrtavala i dodavala uzimajući biografske podatke, ali kao nekome ko neizmerno voli i poštuje pesnikinju i spisateljicu kojoj je ova knjiga posvećena, uživala sam u svakom trenutku. Meni je uvek zanimljivo da vidim na koji način neko drugi interpretira meni draga dela, na koji način vidi ljude koje poštujem, pa kad je još i neko ko sam po sebi predstavlja misteriju čiji život sa sobom nosi određene problematike za koje rešenja i objašnjenja nisu pronađena, fenomenalno. Odluka da svako poglavlje nazove po pesmama kojima su posvećena i da ih struktuira na način na koji je to uradila sama Platova, a ne bivši suprug joj prilikom uređivanja zbirke, je nešto što mi se izrazito dopalo.

Još jedna stavka koja od mene dobija plus jeste činjenica da u ovoj knjizi Silvija Plat nije idealizovana, što je čest slučaj sa biografijama na koje sam naišla i što mi uvek ide na živce do te mere da mi se diže kosa na glavi. Da, dobijete vi ovde pokušaj savršenstva, ali isključivo od same Silvije koja ka idealu teži, dok Mozisova uspeva da razgraniči njenu želju za perfekcionizmom i prikaz nje same gde vidite i ženu koja je histerična, koja zanemaruje svoje obaveze, koja nije fer prema svojim bližnjima, što naravno da može da se objasni njenim psihičkim stanjem, ali ne treba da se svaljuje krivica na onog nesretnika od Hjuza i njen odnos sa majkom, što biografi i sledbenici imaju tendenciju da rade. To mi se zapravo najviše dopalo. Nema krivaca. I Silvija nije samo žrtva drugih, života i svoje bolesti, iako ona sebe kao takvu vidi. Lepo je to Mozisova razgraničala.

Nesreća ovog romana jeste da će se neminovno porediti sa radovima same Silvije Plat gde će bitku u startu izgubiti. Nije ovo ona, već knjiga o njoj. Nije ovo njen stil, iako ga autorka mimikuje svaki put kada prenosi tok Silvijinih misli, pa se u tekstu nađe sve ono što se Platovoj kao autorki zamera, sa akcentom na prečestu upotrebu prideva. Tako u određenim delovima i Mozisova piše rečenice u kojima svaku imenicu ,,krasi” određen pridev. Negde i po dva-tri. To me je izluđivalo. Ne može svaka imenica u svakoj rečenici imati svoj pridev. To prouzrokuje glavobolju. Bogu hvala, pa ovo nije slučaj sa celokupnim romanom.

Iako zainteresovana za roman, očekivala sam jako malo, jer ja sam baš kritična kada je sve vezano za Silviju Plat, pa i nju samu, u pitanju. Što je meni neko draži, ja sam prema liku i delu te osobe kritičnija, pa tako i onima koji o njima pišu. Međutim, dobila sam znatno više od očekivanog i jedan potpuno drugačiji uvid u njeno stvaralaštvo, kao i različito tumačenje njenih pesama. Ako vas interesuje lik i delo žene kojoj je ova knjiga posvećena, od mene imate preporuku. S tim da bih vam savetovala da si nabavite i kopiju njenih pesama, jer blisko su povezane, pa taman možete da pročitate pesmu, a onda poglavlje koje joj je posvećeno i vidite kako ju je neko drugi razumeo i šta misli da se iza nje krije. Lepo idu u paru. Samo se spremite za prideve. Na to moram da vas upozorim.

[Tall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is an utterly amazing piece of work. Beautifully written, it goes straight to the heart of Sylvia Plath, a tortured genius whose poetry so aptly depicted the inner demons with whom she fought for all of her short life. The book uses not only the facts of Ms. Plath's life, but also the imagery and symbols of her poetry, interwoven so completely and skillfully that the novel becomes a perfect fictional character study of a real-life person. It would help to have a copy of Plath's posthumously published book of poetry, "Ariel," to refer to as you read the book. The titles of the chapters are those of most of the poems of "Ariel" and the themes, images, and symbols are parallel. As you read her life, Sylvia Plath's inner thoughts are revealed in even more depth by her emotionally charged and intelligent poems.
Ted Hughes edited "Ariel" after Sylvia Plath committed suicide, and was criticized for, among other things, leaving out some of the poetry she had written in the days before her death. It is a testament to the power of those poems, Plath's character and of the circumstances of her death that Ted Hughes was never able to free himself of the spectre of his first wife or of her work. The poems of "Ariel" present, with frightening clarity and remarkable directness, the unraveling of a woman's mind and the unapologetic anger, pain, and sorrow she felt when she stared, open-eyed, into her own soul.
"Wintering" is not a biography. It is a very creative novel which goes straight to the heart and mind of one of the 20th Century's greatest women poets. It is gut-wrenching and poignant, wonderfully evocative of a place and time, and incredibly perceptive in its characterization of a woman who tried to have hope even though she was haunted by death all of her life.
Even if you are not familiar with Sylvia Plath or her poetry (and I had to admit, the last time I read any of her poetry was in grad school, years ago), if you appreciate well written literature, and have the courage to look into the soul of a woman who was utterly tormented by the fear that she would lose all she had come to see as the "miracle" of her life, only to have that fear realized, then I urge you to read this wonderful book.

[Anne Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a book that promised much ... a fictionalised biography of a writer who's become an icon as much because of her sensationalised and tragic life than for her undisputed brilliance. It is in fact a look at the last troubled months of Plath's life after she moved with her two children to London, although it stops short of her actual suicide. Although this period is the core of the book, corresponding with the writing of many of the "Ariel" poems, the chronology jumps about erratically to preceding months and sometimes years. Moses is a very skilled writer and she's taken on an ambitious project and delivered it with great skill and empathy backed up by exhaustive research. The problem lies in the fact that consciously or unconsciously in an attempt to speak with the voice of her subject, she's parodied or attempted to parody Plath's style. The result in the main is a long prose poem that is bogged down with tedious, overwritten and overlong passages of description that in the end obscure the rendering of Plath as a believable character. There is just too much - too much lyricism, too much detail, too much artful posturing and too much self-conscious effort to reproduce the fierceness and visceral nature of Plath's prose. What could have been a gripping story in the end sinks beneath a burden of sodden hyperbole.

[Daisy George · Rating 3 out of 5]

ഈ പുസ്തകം വായിച്ചു കഴിയുമ്പോൾ നിങ്ങൾ ഒരു കവി ആയേക്കും.!!!
അത്രയും വാക്കുകൾ....!

അമേരിക്കൻ കവയിത്രിയും കഥാകൃത്തുമായ സിൽവിയ പ്ലാത്, തന്റെ ഭർത്താവുമായി പിരിഞ്ഞതിനു ശേഷം അനുഭവിച്ച മാനസിക പീഡകളാണ് ഈ പുസ്തകം. അവർ ആത്മഹത്യ ചെയ്യുന്നതിന് മുന്നേവരെയുള്ള ജീവിതം കഴിയുന്നത്ര വിശാലമായി എഴുതിയിരിക്കുന്നു.

തുടക്കം മുതൽ അവസാനം വരെയും തുടരുന്ന 'descriptive writing' രീതി പത്തിരുപത് പേജുകൾ കഴിഞ്ഞപ്പോൾ തന്നെ മടുത്തു. പക്ഷേ, Vocabulary ബെറ്റർ ആക്കാനാഗ്രഹിക്കുന്നവരെ ഈ പുസ്തകം നിരാശപ്പെടുത്തില്ല. മലയാളം മുഴുവനാക്കാതെ,  ഇംഗ്ലീഷ്(WINTERING) പതിപ്പ് ന്റെ pdf എടുത്താണ് വായന പൂർത്തിയാക്കിയത്. ഇംഗ്ലീഷ്  വളരെ simple and beautiful ആയി തോന്നി.( ഇംഗ്ലീഷ് ഭാഷയുടെ poetic ഭംഗിയാണ് ഉദ്ദേശിച്ചത്. തർജ്ജമ അത്ര ഒത്തില്ല!)അതാണ്‌ തുടക്കത്തിൽ പറഞ്ഞത്,  നിങ്ങൾ ഒരു കവിത എഴുതിയേക്കും!. മലയാളം വിവർത്തനം ചെയ്തിരിക്കുന്നത് ജോളി വർഗീസ് ആണ്.
ഇംഗ്ലണ്ട് ലെ ശീതകാലവും ജീവിതവും പ്രകൃതിയും ഇത്രകണ്ട് കാവ്യത്മകമായി, Sensory details തരുന്ന മറ്റൊരു പുസ്തകം ഉണ്ടോ എന്നറിയില്ല.

Plath നെ ക്കുറിച്ച് വായിക്കാൻ ആഗ്രഹിക്കുന്നവർക്ക് ⬇️ഈ പുസ്തകങ്ങൾ (books rated 4.5 above) തിരഞ്ഞെടുക്കാവുന്നതാണ്.

1.The Silent Woman (1995)-Janet Malcolm
2.Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath(2020)-Heather Clark
3..Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamation(2024)
- Emily Van Duyne
4..Sylvia Plath: A Critical Study-Tim Kendall