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Mary Ventura ve Dokuzuncu Krallık
İlk defa 2019’da yayımlanan, Mary Ventura ve Dokuzuncu Krallık, Sylvia Plath’ın 1952’de Smith College'da öğrenciyken yazdığı bir uzun öykü.
Kendi tanımlamasıyla “anlaşılması güç, sembolik bir öykü” dediği metnini yayımlaması için, bir süre önce ödül kazandığı, Mademoiselle dergisine göndermiş ancak öykü kabul edilmemişti.
Bu hikâyeyi yazdıktan sonra Plath, ertesi yaz ilk kez intihar girişiminde bulunur. Dolayısıyla bugün “intihar alegorisi” ile okunduğunda metnin bütün karanlığı ve tekinsizliği daha iyi anlaşılacaktır.
Mary Ventura ve Dokuzuncu Krallık, derginin reddettiği ilk, özgün ve en zengin versiyonuyla ilk defa okullarla buluşuyor.
Kendi tanımlamasıyla “anlaşılması güç, sembolik bir öykü” dediği metnini yayımlaması için, bir süre önce ödül kazandığı, Mademoiselle dergisine göndermiş ancak öykü kabul edilmemişti.
Bu hikâyeyi yazdıktan sonra Plath, ertesi yaz ilk kez intihar girişiminde bulunur. Dolayısıyla bugün “intihar alegorisi” ile okunduğunda metnin bütün karanlığı ve tekinsizliği daha iyi anlaşılacaktır.
Mary Ventura ve Dokuzuncu Krallık, derginin reddettiği ilk, özgün ve en zengin versiyonuyla ilk defa okullarla buluşuyor.
48 pages, Paperback
First published January 3, 2019
153 people are currently reading
14751 people want to read
About the author
Sylvia Plath
287 books28.7k followersSylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer, widely regarded as one of the most influential and emotionally powerful authors of the 20th century. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she demonstrated literary talent from an early age, publishing her first poem at the age of eight. Her early life was shaped by the death of her father, Otto Plath, when she was eight years old, a trauma that would profoundly influence her later work.
Plath attended Smith College, where she excelled academically but also struggled privately with depression. In 1953, she survived a suicide attempt, an experience she later fictionalized in her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar. After recovering, she earned a Fulbright Scholarship to study at Newnham College, Cambridge, in England. While there, she met and married English poet Ted Hughes in 1956. Their relationship was passionate but tumultuous, with tensions exacerbated by personal differences and Hughes's infidelities.
Throughout her life, Plath sought to balance her ambitions as a writer with the demands of marriage and motherhood. She had two children with Hughes, Frieda and Nicholas, and continued to write prolifically. In 1960, her first poetry collection, The Colossus and Other Poems, was published in the United Kingdom. Although it received modest critical attention at the time, it laid the foundation for her distinctive voice—intensely personal, often exploring themes of death, rebirth, and female identity.
Plath's marriage unraveled in 1962, leading to a period of intense emotional turmoil but also extraordinary creative output. Living with her two children in London, she wrote many of the poems that would posthumously form Ariel, the collection that would cement her literary legacy. These works, filled with striking imagery and raw emotional force, displayed her ability to turn personal suffering into powerful art. Poems like "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus" remain among her most famous, celebrated for their fierce honesty and technical brilliance.
In early 1963, following a deepening depression, Plath died by suicide at the age of 30. Her death shocked the literary world and sparked a lasting fascination with her life and work. The posthumous publication of Ariel in 1965, edited by Hughes, introduced Plath's later poetry to a wide audience and established her as a major figure in modern literature. Her novel The Bell Jar was also published under her own name shortly after her death, having initially appeared under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas."
Plath’s work is often classified within the genre of confessional poetry, a style that emphasizes personal and psychological experiences. Her fearless exploration of themes like mental illness, female oppression, and death has resonated with generations of readers and scholars. Over time, Plath has become a feminist icon, though her legacy is complex and occasionally controversial, especially in light of debates over Hughes's role in managing her literary estate and personal history.
Today, Sylvia Plath is remembered not only for her tragic personal story but also for her immense contributions to American and English literature. Her work continues to inspire writers, artists, and readers worldwide. Collections such as Ariel, Crossing the Water, and Winter Trees, as well as her journals and letters, offer deep insight into her creative mind. Sylvia Plath’s voice, marked by its intensity and emotional clarity, remains one of the most haunting and enduring in modern literature.
Plath attended Smith College, where she excelled academically but also struggled privately with depression. In 1953, she survived a suicide attempt, an experience she later fictionalized in her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar. After recovering, she earned a Fulbright Scholarship to study at Newnham College, Cambridge, in England. While there, she met and married English poet Ted Hughes in 1956. Their relationship was passionate but tumultuous, with tensions exacerbated by personal differences and Hughes's infidelities.
Throughout her life, Plath sought to balance her ambitions as a writer with the demands of marriage and motherhood. She had two children with Hughes, Frieda and Nicholas, and continued to write prolifically. In 1960, her first poetry collection, The Colossus and Other Poems, was published in the United Kingdom. Although it received modest critical attention at the time, it laid the foundation for her distinctive voice—intensely personal, often exploring themes of death, rebirth, and female identity.
Plath's marriage unraveled in 1962, leading to a period of intense emotional turmoil but also extraordinary creative output. Living with her two children in London, she wrote many of the poems that would posthumously form Ariel, the collection that would cement her literary legacy. These works, filled with striking imagery and raw emotional force, displayed her ability to turn personal suffering into powerful art. Poems like "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus" remain among her most famous, celebrated for their fierce honesty and technical brilliance.
In early 1963, following a deepening depression, Plath died by suicide at the age of 30. Her death shocked the literary world and sparked a lasting fascination with her life and work. The posthumous publication of Ariel in 1965, edited by Hughes, introduced Plath's later poetry to a wide audience and established her as a major figure in modern literature. Her novel The Bell Jar was also published under her own name shortly after her death, having initially appeared under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas."
Plath’s work is often classified within the genre of confessional poetry, a style that emphasizes personal and psychological experiences. Her fearless exploration of themes like mental illness, female oppression, and death has resonated with generations of readers and scholars. Over time, Plath has become a feminist icon, though her legacy is complex and occasionally controversial, especially in light of debates over Hughes's role in managing her literary estate and personal history.
Today, Sylvia Plath is remembered not only for her tragic personal story but also for her immense contributions to American and English literature. Her work continues to inspire writers, artists, and readers worldwide. Collections such as Ariel, Crossing the Water, and Winter Trees, as well as her journals and letters, offer deep insight into her creative mind. Sylvia Plath’s voice, marked by its intensity and emotional clarity, remains one of the most haunting and enduring in modern literature.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,086 reviews
July 25, 2025
I read the author's article and know that this book is not something that I can immediately figure out once finished. Especially when she said:
— because let's be real. When else do you ever get to crack Shakespeare works without some help. So, if you're reading this simply to read, then I'm afraid you'll get nothing out of it; or depending on how you want to make of it.
But for all that, I hate to be kept in the dark so I did some digging on the figurative meaning behind this piece. And it's best to say, my second time rereading this was something else. The experience of reading Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom is inextricably linked to what we know is about to happen: an impending doom made all the more terrifying by the other passengers' blissful innocence. Hence, to escape the fate that awaits everyone else, Mary realizes, she will have to opt-out of the system.
To think that I love how the book starts its story because it reminds me of Harry's first ride with Hogwarts Express might be an understatement to delightful. Because if anything, Mary's trip to the Ninth Kingdom is anything but joy, and Mary's decision to get off the train is more likely a suicide allegory.
The story appears to suggest that life is miserable and leads to nothing but disaster and that the only way out is to stop living, reflecting the author's first suicide attempt the summer after writing this story. Having myself filled with this information gave me cold shivers, considering how clueless I was the first time I read this and how accurate it seems to the living day now.
All said and done, I know Plath's works may not be up to everyone's alley, but if you want something short and mindblowing. This book is perfect for you.
"I can’t let Shakespeare get too far ahead of me, you know"
— because let's be real. When else do you ever get to crack Shakespeare works without some help. So, if you're reading this simply to read, then I'm afraid you'll get nothing out of it; or depending on how you want to make of it.
But for all that, I hate to be kept in the dark so I did some digging on the figurative meaning behind this piece. And it's best to say, my second time rereading this was something else. The experience of reading Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom is inextricably linked to what we know is about to happen: an impending doom made all the more terrifying by the other passengers' blissful innocence. Hence, to escape the fate that awaits everyone else, Mary realizes, she will have to opt-out of the system.
To think that I love how the book starts its story because it reminds me of Harry's first ride with Hogwarts Express might be an understatement to delightful. Because if anything, Mary's trip to the Ninth Kingdom is anything but joy, and Mary's decision to get off the train is more likely a suicide allegory.
The story appears to suggest that life is miserable and leads to nothing but disaster and that the only way out is to stop living, reflecting the author's first suicide attempt the summer after writing this story. Having myself filled with this information gave me cold shivers, considering how clueless I was the first time I read this and how accurate it seems to the living day now.
All said and done, I know Plath's works may not be up to everyone's alley, but if you want something short and mindblowing. This book is perfect for you.
February 5, 2019
This is a rejected short story Sylvia Plath wrote when she was 20. Unearthed and published for the first time, it’s an exciting event for no one but us literary nerds.
The story itself is above-average quality. A bit wordy at the beginning, but amps up significantly by the halfway point. When the less-than-subtle suicide allegory kicks in, it becomes unputdownable for those of us obsessed with Plath’s personal life.
While clearly the work of someone still developing their craft, the themes provide an interesting insight into one of the greatest writers of all time. I was not disappointed!
The story itself is above-average quality. A bit wordy at the beginning, but amps up significantly by the halfway point. When the less-than-subtle suicide allegory kicks in, it becomes unputdownable for those of us obsessed with Plath’s personal life.
While clearly the work of someone still developing their craft, the themes provide an interesting insight into one of the greatest writers of all time. I was not disappointed!
October 29, 2022
The Bell Jar, written by Sylvia Plath, is one of my favorite books of all time.
(Picture courtesy- vinhanley.com. You could relate to many of the things mentioned in the above picture if you have ardently followed her works.) When I saw the name Sylvia I quickly jumped on to read this short story by her.
This book is about independence over infanticide, which was written after she left her home. We can see Plath's writing skills in the raw form in this book. Many topics which she discusses in her future books, like suicide and hope, are all well depicted in this book.
It is sad to hear that this was initially rejected when she wrote it at the age of 20. I am glad that someone was able to find this short story and publish it.
(Picture courtesy- vinhanley.com. You could relate to many of the things mentioned in the above picture if you have ardently followed her works.) When I saw the name Sylvia I quickly jumped on to read this short story by her.
This book is about independence over infanticide, which was written after she left her home. We can see Plath's writing skills in the raw form in this book. Many topics which she discusses in her future books, like suicide and hope, are all well depicted in this book.
It is sad to hear that this was initially rejected when she wrote it at the age of 20. I am glad that someone was able to find this short story and publish it.
![Profile Image for s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1735525095i%2F6431467._UX200_CR0%2C11%2C200%2C200_.jpg&w=128&q=75)
April 13, 2025
‘The shuttle of the train wheel struck doom into her brain.’
If life is hurtling us towards our destruction, one would wish we could at least take control over our inevitable course towards corpse-hood. Or is our trajectory so strongly determined by forces outside of us that we barely have any agency left. Such is the question in Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom, a story written by Sylvia Plath when she was 20 years old and attending Smith College. It isn’t just the title, which takes its namesake from a high-school friend of Plath’s, that seems to invoke a spirit of epic fantasy, coming-of-age tales as Plath infuses her story with many of the genre elements such as threatening journey and an older mentor figure, all shrouded in menacing mystery. Drenched in a tone of lurking dread as what seems like an innocent train trip in waking reality begins to crumble into something ominously horrific, Mary Ventura and the Ninth Gate is an eerie, fun, and youthful story that displays Plath’s great promise, though also does read more like an artist attempting to discover their style and dressing it up in surreal, surprise twists.
‘Everyone has to go away sooner or later.’
Following a $500 winning prize from Mademoiselle magazine for her short story Sunday at the Mintons, Plath departed from her realist fiction to a ‘vague symbolic tale,’ as she called it, inspired by her recent love for the art of Giorgio de Chirico. The initial draft was rejected, and Plath would revise it many times, including a reworked version for a religious short story contest with a different ending to make it an allegory for, in Plath’s own words, passing ‘ through the temptation of the material world, grows aware of her own idealism and power to help others, and discovers the City of God.’ As Plath was herself an atheist, she eventually declined to submit it and the story has collected dust in her archives. It was recently published in its original form, which Plath scholars assert is the best version, and it is quite an exciting little story to read that gives early insight into her themes, though on it’s own it isn’t much more than a curio for Plath enthusiasts. Still we see Plath using surrealism to grapple with concepts of mental health struggles and taking agency in one’s life, something that would define further in Esther Greenwood of The Bell Jar.
Giorgio de Chirico, Present and Past
Still, it is a fun and unsettling tale, rather Dantean in its approach (Plath had recently read Inferno) with a story of a train passing through stations with increasing foreboding. She does an excellent job at building tone with striking imagery portending doom. The world is described as grey, smokey and eventually frozen over, with violent looking sunsets, lips the color of blood, an interior to the train with wine red colored upholstery where all the goings on of laughter and feasting takes on a tone of near-grotesque. ‘Guilt, the train wheels clucked like round black birds, and guilt, and guilt, and guilt,’ the girl observes, and the shift from regular reality to doom is best encapsulated when ‘adorable brothers across the aisle rapidly devolve into physical violence…blood oozed from a purpling bruise.’ Her use of color is fantastic here. As the journey progresses, the creeping feeling that something is not right takes hold of Mary.
What the Ninth Kingdom is exactly we never learn for sure, and Plath does well by allowing her allegory to remain vague and interperetable. Whatever it is, it isn’t good and the woman who becomes Mary’s companion takes on a sort of potential guide—or possibly mentor—role.
We are all headed towards our deaths and Mary is horrified to see the passengers all laughing and carrying on in ways described with sexual or violent undertones as if the final stop at the Ninth Kingdom isn’t coming. The train is an apt setting as a force of unstoppable motion with a certain destination. ‘They are blind’ she is told, and perhaps we all are looking the other way and enjoying a ride that will end in death which seems a rather pessimistic look but through Plath we often see life simply as suffering. Mary’s pleas to escape are brushed aside and when she protests her parents made her take the trip she is reminded she negated her own agency by allowing them to force her. For all our follies, we could have made other decisions. ‘They just accept it when the time comes,’ the woman says. But perhaps she can find ‘the one assertion of the will remaining’ and escape.
The story is certainly open for interpretation and can be read as any means of taking our lives into our own hands and escaping an overwhelming bleakness. Though knowing mere months after writing this Plath had her first suicide attempt does nudge a hindsight reading of the ending plausibly being about simply taking ones own life to espace. Plath has been criticized for using historical tragedies such as the holocaust as metaphors for her own personal struggles, as well as the racism in The Bell Jar, and the repeated mention of the waiter as Black here seems a bit cumbersome though is also one of the several ways she denotes class differences between the passengers and the crew. The train taking them to their doom may be a holocaust reference (there are quick asides about mass arrests and executions) but is used in its own way here, so make of any of that what you will. It does feel like the sort of story one comes up with in college, where the surreal twist “reality isn’t reality at all!” feels much more fresh (this was the 1950s though so perhaps it feels a bit stale after how frequently that was a narrative trick in 1990s films and books) and while it reads like a younger Plath, it still reads quite impressively.
Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom is an unearthed nugget of literary history that fans of Sylvia Plath will no doubt love to discover and trace the trajectory of her themes on suffering and women attempting to wrestle back their own agency. While I wouldn’t recommend it as anyone’s first introduction to her, it is still an engaging and thought provoking story for those who aren’t very familiar with Plath as well. Short, surreal, and scorching the reader in dread, this is a fun, eerie little read from the vaults.
3.5/5
If life is hurtling us towards our destruction, one would wish we could at least take control over our inevitable course towards corpse-hood. Or is our trajectory so strongly determined by forces outside of us that we barely have any agency left. Such is the question in Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom, a story written by Sylvia Plath when she was 20 years old and attending Smith College. It isn’t just the title, which takes its namesake from a high-school friend of Plath’s, that seems to invoke a spirit of epic fantasy, coming-of-age tales as Plath infuses her story with many of the genre elements such as threatening journey and an older mentor figure, all shrouded in menacing mystery. Drenched in a tone of lurking dread as what seems like an innocent train trip in waking reality begins to crumble into something ominously horrific, Mary Ventura and the Ninth Gate is an eerie, fun, and youthful story that displays Plath’s great promise, though also does read more like an artist attempting to discover their style and dressing it up in surreal, surprise twists.
‘Everyone has to go away sooner or later.’
Following a $500 winning prize from Mademoiselle magazine for her short story Sunday at the Mintons, Plath departed from her realist fiction to a ‘vague symbolic tale,’ as she called it, inspired by her recent love for the art of Giorgio de Chirico. The initial draft was rejected, and Plath would revise it many times, including a reworked version for a religious short story contest with a different ending to make it an allegory for, in Plath’s own words, passing ‘ through the temptation of the material world, grows aware of her own idealism and power to help others, and discovers the City of God.’ As Plath was herself an atheist, she eventually declined to submit it and the story has collected dust in her archives. It was recently published in its original form, which Plath scholars assert is the best version, and it is quite an exciting little story to read that gives early insight into her themes, though on it’s own it isn’t much more than a curio for Plath enthusiasts. Still we see Plath using surrealism to grapple with concepts of mental health struggles and taking agency in one’s life, something that would define further in Esther Greenwood of The Bell Jar.
Giorgio de Chirico, Present and Past
Still, it is a fun and unsettling tale, rather Dantean in its approach (Plath had recently read Inferno) with a story of a train passing through stations with increasing foreboding. She does an excellent job at building tone with striking imagery portending doom. The world is described as grey, smokey and eventually frozen over, with violent looking sunsets, lips the color of blood, an interior to the train with wine red colored upholstery where all the goings on of laughter and feasting takes on a tone of near-grotesque. ‘Guilt, the train wheels clucked like round black birds, and guilt, and guilt, and guilt,’ the girl observes, and the shift from regular reality to doom is best encapsulated when ‘adorable brothers across the aisle rapidly devolve into physical violence…blood oozed from a purpling bruise.’ Her use of color is fantastic here. As the journey progresses, the creeping feeling that something is not right takes hold of Mary.
What the Ninth Kingdom is exactly we never learn for sure, and Plath does well by allowing her allegory to remain vague and interperetable. Whatever it is, it isn’t good and the woman who becomes Mary’s companion takes on a sort of potential guide—or possibly mentor—role.
‘There are no return trips on this line,” the woman said softly. “Once you get to the ninth kingdom, there is no going back. It is the kingdom of negation, of the frozen will. It has many names.’
We are all headed towards our deaths and Mary is horrified to see the passengers all laughing and carrying on in ways described with sexual or violent undertones as if the final stop at the Ninth Kingdom isn’t coming. The train is an apt setting as a force of unstoppable motion with a certain destination. ‘They are blind’ she is told, and perhaps we all are looking the other way and enjoying a ride that will end in death which seems a rather pessimistic look but through Plath we often see life simply as suffering. Mary’s pleas to escape are brushed aside and when she protests her parents made her take the trip she is reminded she negated her own agency by allowing them to force her. For all our follies, we could have made other decisions. ‘They just accept it when the time comes,’ the woman says. But perhaps she can find ‘the one assertion of the will remaining’ and escape.
The story is certainly open for interpretation and can be read as any means of taking our lives into our own hands and escaping an overwhelming bleakness. Though knowing mere months after writing this Plath had her first suicide attempt does nudge a hindsight reading of the ending plausibly being about simply taking ones own life to espace. Plath has been criticized for using historical tragedies such as the holocaust as metaphors for her own personal struggles, as well as the racism in The Bell Jar, and the repeated mention of the waiter as Black here seems a bit cumbersome though is also one of the several ways she denotes class differences between the passengers and the crew. The train taking them to their doom may be a holocaust reference (there are quick asides about mass arrests and executions) but is used in its own way here, so make of any of that what you will. It does feel like the sort of story one comes up with in college, where the surreal twist “reality isn’t reality at all!” feels much more fresh (this was the 1950s though so perhaps it feels a bit stale after how frequently that was a narrative trick in 1990s films and books) and while it reads like a younger Plath, it still reads quite impressively.
Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom is an unearthed nugget of literary history that fans of Sylvia Plath will no doubt love to discover and trace the trajectory of her themes on suffering and women attempting to wrestle back their own agency. While I wouldn’t recommend it as anyone’s first introduction to her, it is still an engaging and thought provoking story for those who aren’t very familiar with Plath as well. Short, surreal, and scorching the reader in dread, this is a fun, eerie little read from the vaults.
3.5/5
August 10, 2019
My first encounter with Sylvia Plath in this short story. She wrote it at a young age and it was a rejected short story. A weird, dark and intriguing story of a young lady, Mary, being put on the train by her parents to 'the Ningth Kingdom'. But what is that 9th Kingdom and what is the symbolism/meaning of this story....She meets a 'kind-seeming lady' on the train who explains things... but things do not get any clearer it seems. As the journey progresses, at first quite pleasant, Mary starts to think she does not want to go to the Ninth Kingdom. The lady friend on the train gives her some advice what to do....
Lips the colour of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like 'guilt, and guilt, and guilt': these are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom...
More to follow later. Intriguing and great writing style.
Lips the colour of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like 'guilt, and guilt, and guilt': these are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom...
More to follow later. Intriguing and great writing style.
January 14, 2023
Late in 1952, Smith College student Sylvia Plath completed this “vague symbolic tale” and submitted it to Mademoiselle. Although Mademoiselle commissioned Plath to interview poet Elizabeth Bowen, and invited her to come to New York as a guest editor (a heady and unsettling experience which provided inspiration for The Bell Jar), the magazine rejected her story. Although Plath later made a half-hearted attempt at revision, she never submitted “Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom” again.
It remained unpublished for more than fifty years. Until now. It’s no masterpiece, but it is quite good, well worthy of the magazine publication it never received and a significant contribution to the Plath legacy.
It is a tale of a young woman’s train journey—urged on her by her parents to a destination continually referred to as the Ninth Kingdom. Is it a good place or a bad place? Or perhaps “The Good Place” or “The Bad Place”? Is the knitting fat woman who sits next to Mary her friend, or is she an enemy? Should Mary continue to her final stop, or should she pull the emergency cord?
What makes this is good short story—at least for me—is that each detail of the journey is precisely imagined, and yet characterized by such doubleness, such unrelenting ambiguity, that the reader remains in doubt of the wisdom of Mary’s choice until her journey reaches its end.
It remained unpublished for more than fifty years. Until now. It’s no masterpiece, but it is quite good, well worthy of the magazine publication it never received and a significant contribution to the Plath legacy.
It is a tale of a young woman’s train journey—urged on her by her parents to a destination continually referred to as the Ninth Kingdom. Is it a good place or a bad place? Or perhaps “The Good Place” or “The Bad Place”? Is the knitting fat woman who sits next to Mary her friend, or is she an enemy? Should Mary continue to her final stop, or should she pull the emergency cord?
What makes this is good short story—at least for me—is that each detail of the journey is precisely imagined, and yet characterized by such doubleness, such unrelenting ambiguity, that the reader remains in doubt of the wisdom of Mary’s choice until her journey reaches its end.
December 24, 2024
قصة قصيرة كتبتها سيلفيا بلاث وهي تبلغ من العمر ٢٠ عاماً..
لو قرأت القصة من غير ما تعرف حاجة عن حياة بلاث ممكن متفهمش أوي و لكن لو قرأت عنها حتفهم حاجات كتير و حتشوف إنها قصة مميزة جداً وتعبر عنها ولو بطريقة غير مباشرة...
سيلفيا بلاث انتحرت وهي عندها ٣٠ سنة وماتت أثر التسمم بأول أكسيد الكربون بعد أن حشرت رأسها في الفرن وقد حرصت على وضع مناشف مبللة تحت الأبواب لتكون حاجزًا بين المطبخ وبين غرف أطفالها!
بطلة الرواية علي ما أظن بتعبر عن سيلفيا و كانت هي كمان بتحاول تخرج من هذه الحياة بأي شكل!
قصة غريبة ومميزة و مشجعة جداً لقراءة كتب تانية للكاتبة..
(القصة متوفرة علي موقع كتب مملة)
لو قرأت القصة من غير ما تعرف حاجة عن حياة بلاث ممكن متفهمش أوي و لكن لو قرأت عنها حتفهم حاجات كتير و حتشوف إنها قصة مميزة جداً وتعبر عنها ولو بطريقة غير مباشرة...
سيلفيا بلاث انتحرت وهي عندها ٣٠ سنة وماتت أثر التسمم بأول أكسيد الكربون بعد أن حشرت رأسها في الفرن وقد حرصت على وضع مناشف مبللة تحت الأبواب لتكون حاجزًا بين المطبخ وبين غرف أطفالها!
بطلة الرواية علي ما أظن بتعبر عن سيلفيا و كانت هي كمان بتحاول تخرج من هذه الحياة بأي شكل!
قصة غريبة ومميزة و مشجعة جداً لقراءة كتب تانية للكاتبة..
(القصة متوفرة علي موقع كتب مملة)
February 11, 2025
Wow. And wow, again. A masterpiece. Folks, the struggle is real. It's never over till the Fat Lady sings!
NEVER give up.
Yikes. My dear, but prematurely dour poet, Sylvia Plath, has grabbed The Stick of Life by The Short End: hopelessness... And circumstance has told her to Give Up.
She has.
The Long End of that stick, of course, is to Keep on Going through that Hopelessness.The Ninth Kingdom, absolute resignation to hopelessness can be superseded by The Twelfth Kingdom: PEACE.
The Third Kingdom - awakening - is Hope. That's where Plath is: right here, refusing hope.
Zap, she's gone.
But the devil supersedes that, in his Sixth Kingdom, by dashing Cold Water in our Face. "Give it Up!" he barks.
That is the stick from which he dangles hope in our awakening to hopeful adulthood. We struggle. Now he beats us with it. It becomes the Ninth Kingdom: Doing what he wants - Giving up.
Bad things happen in threes. Good Things happen, though, if you STILL don't give up.
I reached the Twelfth Kingdom, because - well, why?
I was deprived of oxygen at birth. I became an Asperger's case. In 1950, there was no such thing as Asperger's. So I was repeatedly beaten by Life. And physically!
But we Aspies always have Hope, even when beaten.
My Mom always told me: "go a little farther than your friends. Go them one better - always!" So I did. She played music of hopeful resistance to me: Beethoven. I now Was that hope.
When I was twenty I was medically constrained by heavy neuroleptics. Still am. The adults didn't stop me from hoping, though: I was now an Aspie/ diagnosed Bipolar.
Thank Heaven for my Up staircase! I knew the Down pole was the adults' punishment. I retained my Hope, like Mom enjoined.
The going got tough when my neuroleptics locked arms with the depression of aging, though.
The Ninth Kingdom raced far ahead of Hope, had the Jockey called Paraclete not dug his spurs into the flank of my Nag, Blue Hope.
"Hold on a sec, folks. Blue Hope's not giving up yet. Blue is gaining, gaining - wow! I can't believe it!"
"Folks, we have a new Derby CHAMPION."
"BLUE HOPE BY A WHISPER!"
But guess what? All these years of working hard at my management career taught me attention to detail. The devil's in the details, and seeing him clearly made me drop my Aspie Dreamworld.
And my mental illness was that Dreamworld's Lie.
It has fallen away, a bad habit.
And what is left is a Pyrrhic Peace.
The Twelfth Kingdom.
And the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth!
Keep going.
Keep HOPING.
Nothing wrong with normalcy. It HEALS.
NEVER give up.
Yikes. My dear, but prematurely dour poet, Sylvia Plath, has grabbed The Stick of Life by The Short End: hopelessness... And circumstance has told her to Give Up.
She has.
The Long End of that stick, of course, is to Keep on Going through that Hopelessness.The Ninth Kingdom, absolute resignation to hopelessness can be superseded by The Twelfth Kingdom: PEACE.
The Third Kingdom - awakening - is Hope. That's where Plath is: right here, refusing hope.
Zap, she's gone.
But the devil supersedes that, in his Sixth Kingdom, by dashing Cold Water in our Face. "Give it Up!" he barks.
That is the stick from which he dangles hope in our awakening to hopeful adulthood. We struggle. Now he beats us with it. It becomes the Ninth Kingdom: Doing what he wants - Giving up.
Bad things happen in threes. Good Things happen, though, if you STILL don't give up.
I reached the Twelfth Kingdom, because - well, why?
I was deprived of oxygen at birth. I became an Asperger's case. In 1950, there was no such thing as Asperger's. So I was repeatedly beaten by Life. And physically!
But we Aspies always have Hope, even when beaten.
My Mom always told me: "go a little farther than your friends. Go them one better - always!" So I did. She played music of hopeful resistance to me: Beethoven. I now Was that hope.
When I was twenty I was medically constrained by heavy neuroleptics. Still am. The adults didn't stop me from hoping, though: I was now an Aspie/ diagnosed Bipolar.
Thank Heaven for my Up staircase! I knew the Down pole was the adults' punishment. I retained my Hope, like Mom enjoined.
The going got tough when my neuroleptics locked arms with the depression of aging, though.
The Ninth Kingdom raced far ahead of Hope, had the Jockey called Paraclete not dug his spurs into the flank of my Nag, Blue Hope.
"Hold on a sec, folks. Blue Hope's not giving up yet. Blue is gaining, gaining - wow! I can't believe it!"
"Folks, we have a new Derby CHAMPION."
"BLUE HOPE BY A WHISPER!"
But guess what? All these years of working hard at my management career taught me attention to detail. The devil's in the details, and seeing him clearly made me drop my Aspie Dreamworld.
And my mental illness was that Dreamworld's Lie.
It has fallen away, a bad habit.
And what is left is a Pyrrhic Peace.
The Twelfth Kingdom.
And the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth!
Keep going.
Keep HOPING.
Nothing wrong with normalcy. It HEALS.
January 30, 2019
Mary Ventura bids a reluctant farewell to her parents before embarking on a train journey to the mysterious Ninth Kingdom. But what is the Ninth Kingdom - and will Mary reach it safely?
Sylvia Plath’s short story sounds dreamlike and that’s exactly how it reads! The premise and overall atmosphere feels like Plath by way of Shirley Jackson/The Twilight Zone though unfortunately it’s nowhere near as good as either. Considering she wrote this as a 20 year old undergraduate at Smith, the prose is surprisingly strong and you can see her literary talents emerging. Still, I wouldn’t call it a gripping or even half-interesting reading experience.
The deliberate vagueness and allegorical style intentionally lends itself to various interpretations. Is it simply a nightmare? A symbolic representation of Plath’s state of mind? A metaphor for the afterlife? Is the maternal woman on the train an angel or God? Is the train conductor Death? Is Mary dead – who killed her; her parents? Is the story a metaphor for Mary’s struggle to regain control of her life and destiny? An allegorical coming-of-age story? A metaphorical battle against the seeming inevitability of depression?
It’s impossible not to read the increasingly tense atmosphere and ominous tone of the story contextually, given Plath’s most famous for killing herself. Her first suicide attempt would shortly follow the completion of this story; she would fail for the last time ten years later.
I like aspects of the story – the strange train people, the doom-laden journey, the odd place names (Seventh Kingdom, Ninth Kingdom) – but, like a fleeting dream, Mary Ventura: Fret Detective was a little too insubstantial to leave much of an impression. Which is probably why Plath succeeded as a poet – that subtlety lends itself perfectly to the medium. And it’s fairly well-written, particularly considering her age at the time.
But it’s still a largely dull and unsatisfying read – like The Bell Jar, her prose leaves me cold and indifferent despite the potentially compelling subject matter. I find with Plath it’s more interesting thinking about her writing afterwards than it is reading it.
Sylvia Plath’s short story sounds dreamlike and that’s exactly how it reads! The premise and overall atmosphere feels like Plath by way of Shirley Jackson/The Twilight Zone though unfortunately it’s nowhere near as good as either. Considering she wrote this as a 20 year old undergraduate at Smith, the prose is surprisingly strong and you can see her literary talents emerging. Still, I wouldn’t call it a gripping or even half-interesting reading experience.
The deliberate vagueness and allegorical style intentionally lends itself to various interpretations. Is it simply a nightmare? A symbolic representation of Plath’s state of mind? A metaphor for the afterlife? Is the maternal woman on the train an angel or God? Is the train conductor Death? Is Mary dead – who killed her; her parents? Is the story a metaphor for Mary’s struggle to regain control of her life and destiny? An allegorical coming-of-age story? A metaphorical battle against the seeming inevitability of depression?
It’s impossible not to read the increasingly tense atmosphere and ominous tone of the story contextually, given Plath’s most famous for killing herself. Her first suicide attempt would shortly follow the completion of this story; she would fail for the last time ten years later.
I like aspects of the story – the strange train people, the doom-laden journey, the odd place names (Seventh Kingdom, Ninth Kingdom) – but, like a fleeting dream, Mary Ventura: Fret Detective was a little too insubstantial to leave much of an impression. Which is probably why Plath succeeded as a poet – that subtlety lends itself perfectly to the medium. And it’s fairly well-written, particularly considering her age at the time.
But it’s still a largely dull and unsatisfying read – like The Bell Jar, her prose leaves me cold and indifferent despite the potentially compelling subject matter. I find with Plath it’s more interesting thinking about her writing afterwards than it is reading it.
June 23, 2023
A fairy tale full of atmosphere turns dark quickly
The shuttle of the train wheel struck doom into her brain. Guilt, the train wheels clucked like round black birds, and guilt, and guilt, and guilt.
Again I must compare the writing of Sylvia Plath with Stephen King. This short story of a train ride reminded me of the end of The Waste Lands, where the main characters end up in sentient psychopathic train.
Following the tracks laid out by your parents or come into one’s own, even if that means sounding all the alarms, is the question at the heart of Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom.
The protagonist of this story is led on the express train of life alone, and despite the train being quite full, there is almost no help for Mary during her trip. She comes to realise more and more during the ride, in a well done feeling of increasing unease, that not taking action will only lead her to the ominous Ninth Kingdom.
Which I take to be a metaphor for depression, death or suicide, but which is not made specific by the author. The writing is very spheric, at the end I almost felt in the snow, running. Enjoyable, and with a lot of the alienation from normal life that we can see coming back in the The Bell Jar, this was a surprisingly satisfying short story from a 20 year old.
The shuttle of the train wheel struck doom into her brain. Guilt, the train wheels clucked like round black birds, and guilt, and guilt, and guilt.
Again I must compare the writing of Sylvia Plath with Stephen King. This short story of a train ride reminded me of the end of The Waste Lands, where the main characters end up in sentient psychopathic train.
Following the tracks laid out by your parents or come into one’s own, even if that means sounding all the alarms, is the question at the heart of Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom.
The protagonist of this story is led on the express train of life alone, and despite the train being quite full, there is almost no help for Mary during her trip. She comes to realise more and more during the ride, in a well done feeling of increasing unease, that not taking action will only lead her to the ominous Ninth Kingdom.
Which I take to be a metaphor for depression, death or suicide, but which is not made specific by the author. The writing is very spheric, at the end I almost felt in the snow, running. Enjoyable, and with a lot of the alienation from normal life that we can see coming back in the The Bell Jar, this was a surprisingly satisfying short story from a 20 year old.
September 16, 2022
Surreal and arresting - can't help but see the the analogy that 'tracks' over into the life of this great poet towards the end. We can all relate to that feeling of 'movement' that a train makes; the different stations, always having to be ready to exit at some point. A reflection of Sylvia Plath that is haunting.
October 12, 2019
What a nice cover!
What a beautiful writing!
How dare they reject that brilliant short story from publishing?
Sylvia has been able to master writing these events in a very limited number of pages, no more than forty.
What a beautiful writing!
How dare they reject that brilliant short story from publishing?
Sylvia has been able to master writing these events in a very limited number of pages, no more than forty.
February 15, 2019
Everyone has to go away sooner or later.
When I think of Plath, I don’t tend to think of The Twilight Zone, but that’s what came to mind here, and Alice in Wonderland, somehow. This surreal and ominous allegorical train ride builds quickly and is filled with creepy encounters and panicky imagery. It’s very short, and very dark, and manages to squeeze in an early dig at her father hiding under a hat, sentiments that would later show up in the more mature and angry poem “Daddy.” But then again, there is that theory that that poem is really about her mother, shown here with blood red lips, cold and domineering.
She was 20 when she wrote this. Knowing her fate, you can’t help but wonder about the prophecy of it. And you can’t help but think of Anna Karenina.
The shuttle of the train wheel struck doom into her brain. Guilt, the train wheels clucked like round black birds, and guilt, and guilt, and guilt.
When I think of Plath, I don’t tend to think of The Twilight Zone, but that’s what came to mind here, and Alice in Wonderland, somehow. This surreal and ominous allegorical train ride builds quickly and is filled with creepy encounters and panicky imagery. It’s very short, and very dark, and manages to squeeze in an early dig at her father hiding under a hat, sentiments that would later show up in the more mature and angry poem “Daddy.” But then again, there is that theory that that poem is really about her mother, shown here with blood red lips, cold and domineering.
She was 20 when she wrote this. Knowing her fate, you can’t help but wonder about the prophecy of it. And you can’t help but think of Anna Karenina.
The shuttle of the train wheel struck doom into her brain. Guilt, the train wheels clucked like round black birds, and guilt, and guilt, and guilt.
January 10, 2019
Sylvia Plath doing what Sylvia Plath does best- zinging imagery, with a dark and sinister air hovering in the background. This story was intense, ominous and knew exactly what it wanted to achieve. Not a word wasted
August 18, 2023
"মেরি ভেনচুরা" গল্প হিসেবে অদ্ভুত ও প্রতীকী। আমাদের জীবন আমরা নিজেরা নিয়ন্ত্রণ করতে পারি না সবসময়। সামাজিক প্রথা আমাদের ঘিরে ধরে, পারিবারিক চাহিদা আমাদের জব্দ করে; আমাদের স্বপ্ন তখন হাওয়ায় মিলিয়ে যায়। মেরি ভেনচুরাকে তার মা-বাবা জোর করে পাঠাচ্ছে এক জায়গায়। মেরি ট্রেনে উঠলো। তার যাত্রাপথের ঘটনাই গল্পের উপজীব্য। শেষ স্টেশন বা নবম সাম্রাজ্যে পৌঁছে গেলে তার আর ফেরার পথ থাকবে না।কারণ এটা "kingdom of frozen will."
সামাজিক চাহিদার কাছে নতি স্বীকার না করে মেরি কি পারবে পালাতে? ট্রেনের সবার চোখ এড়িয়ে নিজের গন্তব্যে যাত্রা করতে? আমি ভাবলাম একটা আধ্যাত্মিক ভ্রমণের গল্প পড়েছি। কিন্তু গল্পটা লেখা হয়েছিলো সিলভিয়া প্লাথের প্রথমবার আত্মহত্যা প্রচেষ্টার আগ দিয়ে, সেই পঞ্চাশের দশকে। লেখিকা কি সমাজের জাল থেকে মুক্তির উপায় হিসেবে আত্মহত্যাকে তখনই চিহ্নিত করেছিলেন? মেরি কি আত্মহত্যা করেছে নাকি সব প্রথা সব বাঁধা ছিন্ন করেছে? কে জানে! যে উপায়েই হোক সে যে মুক্তি প��য়েছে এটা নিশ্চিত।
সামাজিক চাহিদার কাছে নতি স্বীকার না করে মেরি কি পারবে পালাতে? ট্রেনের সবার চোখ এড়িয়ে নিজের গন্তব্যে যাত্রা করতে? আমি ভাবলাম একটা আধ্যাত্মিক ভ্রমণের গল্প পড়েছি। কিন্তু গল্পটা লেখা হয়েছিলো সিলভিয়া প্লাথের প্রথমবার আত্মহত্যা প্রচেষ্টার আগ দিয়ে, সেই পঞ্চাশের দশকে। লেখিকা কি সমাজের জাল থেকে মুক্তির উপায় হিসেবে আত্মহত্যাকে তখনই চিহ্নিত করেছিলেন? মেরি কি আত্মহত্যা করেছে নাকি সব প্রথা সব বাঁধা ছিন্ন করেছে? কে জানে! যে উপায়েই হোক সে যে মুক্তি প��য়েছে এটা নিশ্চিত।
September 8, 2021
Striking, beguiling, and awfully sinister.
June 6, 2021
A vida exige que tomemos decisões a todo momento – das menores às definitivas.
Mary Ventura é uma jovem “condenada” pelos seus pais a fazer uma longa viagem de comboio que apenas terminará na última estação: O Nono Reino.
Uma alegoria que compara a vida a uma agradável e luxuosa viagem num comboio expresso - quase sem paragens, com túneis, paisagens e singulares jogos de luzes -, mas onde os passageiros são meras peças com movimentos limitados. Oferece a perspectiva de não retorno sobre as decisões que outros tomam por nós.
Precisamos de obedecer a todas as leis que a sociedade nos impõe?
Há excepções. Obedecer? Só às leis naturais.
Sylvia Plath não descreve as personagens, mas apresenta-as através de diálogos esmerados, como os que são trocados entre esta jovem e a sua companheira de viagem.
E, em poucas páginas, aprendemos ou (re) aprendemos que, mesmo que nos tenhamos submetido à vontade dos outros, há sempre uma hipótese de afirmar uma vontade de rebelia que julgávamos congelada.
Afinal, o que a vida nos pede é coragem.
Admito que possa haver outras interpretações para este conto maravilhosamente escrito, mas esta é a minha.
Gostei muito. Não estava à espera de gostar tanto, pois há o The Bell Jar.
[Estas edições liliputianas da RA são lindíssimas]
Mary Ventura é uma jovem “condenada” pelos seus pais a fazer uma longa viagem de comboio que apenas terminará na última estação: O Nono Reino.
Uma alegoria que compara a vida a uma agradável e luxuosa viagem num comboio expresso - quase sem paragens, com túneis, paisagens e singulares jogos de luzes -, mas onde os passageiros são meras peças com movimentos limitados. Oferece a perspectiva de não retorno sobre as decisões que outros tomam por nós.
Precisamos de obedecer a todas as leis que a sociedade nos impõe?
Há excepções. Obedecer? Só às leis naturais.
Sylvia Plath não descreve as personagens, mas apresenta-as através de diálogos esmerados, como os que são trocados entre esta jovem e a sua companheira de viagem.
E, em poucas páginas, aprendemos ou (re) aprendemos que, mesmo que nos tenhamos submetido à vontade dos outros, há sempre uma hipótese de afirmar uma vontade de rebelia que julgávamos congelada.
Afinal, o que a vida nos pede é coragem.
Admito que possa haver outras interpretações para este conto maravilhosamente escrito, mas esta é a minha.
Gostei muito. Não estava à espera de gostar tanto, pois há o The Bell Jar.
[Estas edições liliputianas da RA são lindíssimas]
April 7, 2019
I think I'm open-minded about 1.) books on my library's new arrival shelf and/or 2.) checking out the works of notable or respected authors. With that in mind I checked out Plath's newly issued novella.
While it was not bad writing per se, the story - the title character is a young lady on a train ride with sinister overtones ( . . . I think?) - was too vague or overly dependent on a reader's interpretation. I was thinking it was heading towards a Twilight Zone twist / finale, but there was just nothing.
While it was not bad writing per se, the story - the title character is a young lady on a train ride with sinister overtones ( . . . I think?) - was too vague or overly dependent on a reader's interpretation. I was thinking it was heading towards a Twilight Zone twist / finale, but there was just nothing.
January 4, 2024
Vaguely symbolic, it says in the introduction. I agree. I couldn’t figure out what the symbol was, and I had a couple in mind. What was it that the train was hurtling toward? Death? Easy to assume. Maybe the portrait of female lives at the time? Perhaps. Either way, not fully developed, but there is something there.
June 4, 2020
“The shuttle of the train wheels struck doom into her brain. Guilt, the train wheels clucked like round black birds, and guilt, and guilt, and guilt.”
“Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom” is for the readers of Plath, who love Plath, for all that Plath represents. This short work, written during the time Sylvia was a student at Smith College, is speckled with brilliance and lines that will make up the alluring essences of Ariel or even The Bell Jar. For readers who enjoy curling in the secrets of her diary, “Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom” is almost a jolt— a prophetic warning of future suicide attempts and a life of pressures and second-guessing. The short story weighs on the reader like a damp quilt.
It seems as if HarperCollins Publishers excavated a true, infant gem in the massive plethora of what is available to Plath fans, a sort of fossilized egg that shares the DNA of its predecessors. Plath’s writing is so captivating and accessible that it is hard to imagine how private Plath was with her subconscious. “Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom” is a young Sylvia with the same outlook on life. To new Plath readers, keep in mind this short story is 11 years before the publication of The Bell Jar, years before her marriage with Ted Hughes, and barely months away from her first suicide attempt. Moreover, “Mary Ventura” was completed before her rejection from Harvard’s summer writing program. All in all, “Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom” mirrors Sylvia Plath before the scratches that would eventually become deeper wounds.
On the surface, “Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom" is a story about a young woman on a train to a destination unknown; however, like much of Plath’s work, the short story has translucent layers the reader must pull back. The short story allows us to see the dichotomy of female agency and independence; free will and paralysis; youth and death. Narrative-wise, the story is a quick, simple reader under 30 minutes. However, the wave of what is underneath hitting the reader right in the chest. You remain hopeful and somewhat proud of Mary’s agency and willingness at the end of the story. It seems as if the story echoes the plights and happy ending conventional to fairy tales...
Yet, reality sinks in. You leave the short work sad knowing Sylvia’s fate, wondering what led her astray and into the Ninth Kingdom and why Plath would never get the chance to meet the woman with the blue gaze of triumphant and love. Why Plath could not hear “I have been waiting for you, dear” in the hullabaloo of her life.
The train has departed.
August 28, 2025
primeira vez que leio algo escrito pela sylvia plath.
November 19, 2022
This short story is an allegorical tale of a woman who breaks free from the shackles of her mother and father and what they represent, nature and culture. Compelled by her eager parents, Mary goes on a train headed to the Ninth Kingdom, a mysterious place we soon come to associate with tyranny and oppression. Mary feels reluctant, but her mother and father push her on. She meets a woman who divulges some information about where the train is headed. Mary soon wakes up to the fact that she is being herded to some dangerous and seemingly oppressive place. She tells the woman that she wants to escape. The woman promptly agrees, excited that she finally found a woman who would readily say no. The escape is somewhat symbolic. Mary pushes on a lever to stop the train at the next station. She runs up a dark and scary stair, guarded by a snake that swivels around her ankle. She keeps running until the climb ends with her coming to a big city. There she meets the woman, who maternally leans over the boxes of flowers she lined along the street.
The tried symbol of the snake is reminiscent of the fall (here the climb) from innocence to experience. And I think that the upward trajectory symbolizes Mary’s coming to a higher mode of consciousness (this can also be read as climbing up from hell to heaven, that is, the narrator is really dead).
So, would I recommend this short story? Absolutely. I love symbolism and this story makes good use of its symbols.
The tried symbol of the snake is reminiscent of the fall (here the climb) from innocence to experience. And I think that the upward trajectory symbolizes Mary’s coming to a higher mode of consciousness (this can also be read as climbing up from hell to heaven, that is, the narrator is really dead).
So, would I recommend this short story? Absolutely. I love symbolism and this story makes good use of its symbols.
February 18, 2022
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3.5 stars
I enjoyed this short story. It does strike me as a creative writing assignment as it seems to follow a certain formula (I remember in a creative class on short stories lecturers would always stress the 'wow ending'). There was an immediacy to this story which was intensified by the directness of the prose (narrative uses very simple statements and observations) and I thought it clever that such an ordinary thing as a train ride could come to convey such a sense of unease. This uneasiness quickly increases and the story ends in an almost predictable ambiguity. I like that most of the story is shrouded in mystery, and one could read into this story all sorts of things.
It definitely gave me Shirley Jackson vibes (I know that Plath admired Jackson's works).
3.5 stars
I enjoyed this short story. It does strike me as a creative writing assignment as it seems to follow a certain formula (I remember in a creative class on short stories lecturers would always stress the 'wow ending'). There was an immediacy to this story which was intensified by the directness of the prose (narrative uses very simple statements and observations) and I thought it clever that such an ordinary thing as a train ride could come to convey such a sense of unease. This uneasiness quickly increases and the story ends in an almost predictable ambiguity. I like that most of the story is shrouded in mystery, and one could read into this story all sorts of things.
It definitely gave me Shirley Jackson vibes (I know that Plath admired Jackson's works).
October 8, 2020
Una historia cierta e inédita que me pareció excepcional. Con un personaje que todo lo sabe y que es guía de la protagonista para tomar decisiones.
October 10, 2022
"There are no return trips on this line,” the woman said softly. “Once you get to the ninth kingdom, there is no going back. It is the kingdom of negation, of the frozen will. It has many names".
A girl embarks on a train journey and a series of mysterious events take place.
Published when she was twenty and written in Plath's typical alluring and mystical style, this is a sinister and remarkable short story featuring many themes that haunted her throughout her life.
If your a Plath fan then you've probably read it, but if your yet to read any of her work then it's an ideal place to start.
A girl embarks on a train journey and a series of mysterious events take place.
Published when she was twenty and written in Plath's typical alluring and mystical style, this is a sinister and remarkable short story featuring many themes that haunted her throughout her life.
If your a Plath fan then you've probably read it, but if your yet to read any of her work then it's an ideal place to start.
July 7, 2019
Allegorical short story about agency and self-determination. Deceptively simplistic.
October 21, 2021
Sylvia Plath escreveu este conto aos 20 anos e a revista para a qual o enviou não quis publicá-lo.
Adoraria ver o caixote de lixo deles...
A escrita é fabulosa, os diálogos divertidos e, se compreendi bem esta alegoria, já cá estão temas presentes na vida de Plath.
Adoraria ver o caixote de lixo deles...
A escrita é fabulosa, os diálogos divertidos e, se compreendi bem esta alegoria, já cá estão temas presentes na vida de Plath.
February 23, 2019
To celebrate their 90th birthday, publisher Faber and Faber have launched a series called ‘Faber Stories’. A single short story by a host of well-known writers such as Samuel Beckett, Kazuo Ishiguro, P D James, Lorrie Moore, Flannery O’Connor and Sylvia Plath. The first launch of these individual shorts has twenty slim volumes. There will be more later in the year.
This story by Sylvia Plath was written in in 1952 when she was twenty years old. It was sent to a magazine for publication, but was rejected. Two years later she revised the story, making it less sinister and curtailing the ending. This version is the first one that Plath wrote and in Faber’s opinion is the better of the two. This is its first publication.
It is a beautifully written story. There is an increasing sense of unease that grows from start to finish. We begin at a railway station. Mary’s parents deliver her to the train and are keen that she doesn’t miss it. Mary is reluctant. At one point she says she would rather go another time, but her parents are insistent. They are also remote, almost unfeeling about their daughter. She waves, but they do not see her.
A woman comes to sit next to Mary, and takes out her knitting. The train eventually emerges from a tunnel and the setting sunlight is smoky. The older woman say that the cause is forest fires burning away to the north. She has travelled this journey before, the waiter in the restaurant car knows her usual order. They do not pay for their orders, everything will be deducted at the end of the journey.
All elements of the train trip are slightly unnerving. Things don’t quite feel right, but it is hard to put your finger on exactly why. There is a mix of passengers; business men, mothers and children, the old woman and her knitting. The older woman buys them a chocolate bar, and when Mary offers to pay the older woman says, ”… you’ll have enough to pay for by the end of the trip.” It is the first off-key note.
The vendor recognizes the old woman, and they laugh easily together. He is surprised she is making the trip again, and talks about some sort of mistake on a previous trip. It seems people don’t often travel this journey more than once.
From this point on, the alarm bells start to ring. Things are not right, something sinister is happening. I won’t say more about the content of the story, other than that I like the way things begin to move rapidly in the last third of the book. Like the train you are rushing down the line to a conclusion. Many questions will be left unanswered, left to the imagination of the reader.
This story by Sylvia Plath was written in in 1952 when she was twenty years old. It was sent to a magazine for publication, but was rejected. Two years later she revised the story, making it less sinister and curtailing the ending. This version is the first one that Plath wrote and in Faber’s opinion is the better of the two. This is its first publication.
It is a beautifully written story. There is an increasing sense of unease that grows from start to finish. We begin at a railway station. Mary’s parents deliver her to the train and are keen that she doesn’t miss it. Mary is reluctant. At one point she says she would rather go another time, but her parents are insistent. They are also remote, almost unfeeling about their daughter. She waves, but they do not see her.
A woman comes to sit next to Mary, and takes out her knitting. The train eventually emerges from a tunnel and the setting sunlight is smoky. The older woman say that the cause is forest fires burning away to the north. She has travelled this journey before, the waiter in the restaurant car knows her usual order. They do not pay for their orders, everything will be deducted at the end of the journey.
All elements of the train trip are slightly unnerving. Things don’t quite feel right, but it is hard to put your finger on exactly why. There is a mix of passengers; business men, mothers and children, the old woman and her knitting. The older woman buys them a chocolate bar, and when Mary offers to pay the older woman says, ”… you’ll have enough to pay for by the end of the trip.” It is the first off-key note.
The vendor recognizes the old woman, and they laugh easily together. He is surprised she is making the trip again, and talks about some sort of mistake on a previous trip. It seems people don’t often travel this journey more than once.
From this point on, the alarm bells start to ring. Things are not right, something sinister is happening. I won’t say more about the content of the story, other than that I like the way things begin to move rapidly in the last third of the book. Like the train you are rushing down the line to a conclusion. Many questions will be left unanswered, left to the imagination of the reader.
October 26, 2021
An intriguing short story of a girl who gets on a train and goes through a series of events.
What caught my attention is the fact that this story had been rejected once or twice and it had to be rewritten.
What caught my attention is the fact that this story had been rejected once or twice and it had to be rewritten.
September 8, 2022
I read this because I want to be one of the girls that read Sylvia Plath on parks benches. But even though I liked this well enough, I don't think i "got it". Either because I'm not smart enough or it just wasn't for me.
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