2015: The Year of Reading Women discussion

I've been wanting to read The Bell Jar for ages now. I hope I'll find a reading buddy here. :)

Traveller wrote: "I've been wanting to read The Bell Jar for ages now. I hope I'll find a reading buddy here. :)"

I loved "The Bell Jar" and find the main character's transformation and mental decay brilliant! I don't know if I would find the full time to follow you entirely but count me in. Perhaps yeah...I'll enjoy it again and read along with you whenever you decide to so. :)

Oh, that would be nice, thanks! Luckily it's not a very thick book.

I would gladly, finally, read Ariel this year - I only know selected poems from this volume.

Sylvia Plath is one of those authors that I haven't read but have been wanting to for a long time now, so you could pretty much count me in on the poetry as well.

Bloodorange, do you read your poetry volumes all in one sitting, or do you, like many people read a few poems every day, say before bed or so?

Trav, count me in for a joint read of "The bell Jar", I've been meaning to revisit Plath since I tuned the last page of "Ariel".

I've just been rejoicing in the group lounge that you joined the group, Dolors, so yaye! I'm not quite sure how the joint reads will work here; I suppose we'll have to wait and see how things crystallize, but I am very happy to hear that you'd be interested in Bell Jar. I suppose the big thing would be to agree on a date. I suppose we should wait a bit for more people to arrive and so forth before starting to make definite arrangements, eh?

Traveller wrote: "I've just been rejoicing in the group lounge that you joined the group, Dolors, so yaye! I'm not quite sure how the joint reads will work here; I suppose we'll have to wait and see how things crys..."

I am ecstatic to see you here too Trav! This group bodes more than well and I love the possibility to create multiple joint readings with less participants and more flexibility to settle down on dates and reading projects. Finding a date for me won't be a big issue this time around, I could start reading within a week's notice, but let's wait a bit to see how many more members might be interested in a co-read and then we decide when to start! :)

Traveller - I usually read a few poems at once, allowing them to sink in and/or doing my homework (checking references, finding critical readings, etc.)

I'm with everything you said there, Dolors, and I agree - the flexibility makes the idea of this group very attractive. I like that we have such a wide range to choose from!

Bloodorange - I love poetry, but I usually only get to read it when nudged by other people; though sometimes I will go on a poetry binge and look up poems on various poetry sites on the internet.
So I will be very happy indeed if you nudge us along with Ariel... not sure if you and Dolors know one another, but Dolors is very big on poetry! ;)

Apart from Plath, we don't have many poetesses in the bookshelves, right? Will have to muse a bit over the issue, I suppose Dickinson and Audre Lorde could be added...
Revisiting "Ariel" would be fantastic Bloodorange, Plath's poetry is asphyxiating and suggestive, I hope to find some of that pungent lushness in her prose.

Dickinson is already there, I think? Brontë and Angelou might not be bad ideas...

Dickinson's here, as are all the Brontës. Lorde and Angelou would be good to add. As for other poets, Loy and Carson have their own threads already, and there are likely more I can't remember.

I am totally in it for The Bell Jar. Plath is on my to-read list ever since I read her BEE poems. Her verse and imagery is absolutely brilliant.

Just added Lorde in the shelves. Will come back if I can remember the other name I had at the tip of my tongue...

Let me know when you're ready to start with Ariel - I might need a month to get hold of the book.

Dolors - it's a pleasure to be with you in one thread:)

May I make a suggestion for Ariel? How about we do one or two poems every weekend until the book is finished?

As for The Bell Jar, I think we have at least 3 takers for that already? So shall we make tentative suggestions about a date, or, since it's not a very thick work, shall we wait a bit and see how our other reads work out?

OK, that's official - I'm ordering Ariel, should have the book by mid-January. I'm fine with reading two? poems every weekend.

Morning Trav! Your suggestion to comment/discuss a couple of poems per week suits me fine, as I have already read the whole collection.
Plus it would be fantastic to interweave the motifs/themes that we detect in her poems in "The Bell Jar", sort of like back-to-back readings as we advance in both works at once.
I am fine for any date starting January, let's hear what others think and settle for a date, which shouldn't be difficult if it's only three or four of us, right?

I'm still on board with all of that, guys!

Trav and Dolors, I'll hop in on 'The Bell Jar' ride too. Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwar knows I need to just get it over with.

All right, any suggestions for tentative dates on Bell Jar?

Re: Bell Jar: I'm in it with you, too:D

Yay. :D
How about we flag off the year of group readings with this one? January suits me. February is okay too.

Samadrita wrote: "Yay. :D
How about we flag off the year of group readings with this one? January suits me. February is okay too."

I know Bloodorange is in a hurry for Wise Sargasso Sea, and we sorta said Feb for that, so not February, perhaps, but since it's short, maybe we can fit it in January sometime?

January sounds good. And since this is not a hefty book we can easily finish this one in a a couple of weeks and a bit more if necessary.

I own a copy of The Bell Jar and am ready to rock, ladies. I usually take a media fast on the 1st of January, but should be back on 2nd.

I need to log out now (family duties); see you tomorrow:)

All right, if all are agreed, I could go and put our first entry for the year onto the schedule, for Bell Jar in January.

Maybe wait for Abubakar especially and Maria to okay that time as well, so I think let's wait another 10-12 hours or so before putting it on. :)

I can never say "no" to Plath anytime of the year. So, I am perfectly fine with any date in January.

Samadrita wrote: "Trav and Dolors, I'll hop in on 'The Bell Jar' ride too. Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwar knows I need to just get it over with."

YESSSSS!! Unashamedly rapturous to count on with you to explore Plath, Sama. Can't barely wait for January. Thanks Trav for taking the lead and organizing the schedule.

Okay, so January 2 is a Friday. Shall we, without further ado, schedule it for then? And since it's our first reading together project, shall we roughly schedule it over 3 weeks? That makes for about 96 pages a week. Would that be manageable for everyone? I'm checking before I set the dates "officially".

Or else we could start on Jan 8 and go until the end of Jan? Or, would you like shorter period, or a longer period?

I think starting on Jan 2 would be a nice way of starting 2015 - we wouldn't be losing the momentum at the very onset of the year. Still, I am flexible and can start later, if you like.

Then Jan 2 it is. I'll be posting the discussion details on the schedule shortly. Three weeks ok then?

Jan 2, then.
Three weeks work perfectly for me, even more if we still intend to comment on two poems of Plath's Ariel weekly.

Oh, the 2 threads are here, btw.
Bell Jar: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Ariel: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I have Ariel so I'm in for that.

Done. I have to fetch a paperback though, I don't have one.

Great work, Trav. I'll probably read selectively from 'Ariel' but there's so much allusion and symbolism in all the poems in that collection, I'm sure I'll benefit greatly from the co-read.

Which edition of Ariel will we focus on? I will use the older one, combining Plath's and Hughes' selection.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_...

Aaah this is so exciting! I'm slightly late to this thread (boo me!) but I have been dying to read The Bell Jar! I have read her diary and I couldn't believe how amazing her writing was! So, I'm totally in for a group read although I have never done it before :D

The edition of Ariel that I have is the restored edition which follows Plath's selection with a foreward by Frieda Hughes.

im good with january as well.... :)

Maria wrote: "sorry was in the hospital and didnt read all your comments but im good to go anytime now..."

Maria, I hope everything is fine with you and I am ecstatic about the prospect of sharing this reading journey with you! :)
My edition of Ariel is by Faber, it's completely bare of introductions or epilogues so I will doubly appreciate if you can share your thoughts on the foreword by Plath's daughter with us when time permits! :)

Dolors wrote: "My edition of Ariel is by Faber, it's completely bare of introductions or epilogues so I will doubly appreciate if you can share your thoughts on the foreword by Plath's daughter with us when time permits! :)
"

Will do that. The publisher I have is also faber & faber. I will see if I can upload the foreword when the time comes, it's not very long.

Oh I just found a web page with the foreword so I can just put up the link at the time of reading :)

The problem is that the older editions and the post-2004 editions seem to share ca. 75% of the material. Out of 43 poems in the pre-2004 editions 14 were selected by Hughes, most of them written in the period directly preceding Plath's suicide. The restored edition - and I beg you to correct me if I'm mistaken - eliminated them, adding 12 or 13 poems included in the Plath selection. I'm not sure how to handle a group reading of these two collections (provided that I'm not the only person in the group who uses the old edition - I can be flexible).

Hmm, so you are saying the poems are not the same in different volumes? How about each of us, on the actual thread for Ariel so we don't clog the S.P. thread too much, post the poems that appear in our own copy of Ariel?
(No harm in preparing for the discussion proper before the time).

I also have her collected poems with hopefully everything she wrote so any missing poems in my Ariel edition I might be able to find there.

I've posted my list here ; https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I wonder if we can find them online.

Here's an idea. I might be able to find them online; and then what I will do, is I will post them a poem at a time in that thread, (or 2 poems) a week ahead of time, which will give us a week to read them and think about them, and then we comment on them the next weekend, and that weekend I, (or someone else, as you wish), will post the next two poems and so on.

In other words, I would post the first 2 poems there now-ish, and then we start discussing those poems on the official start date of January 1. (I'd suggest sooner, but I suppose we should be fair to potential newcomers ?)

I'll post this suggestion in that thread as well if you all think it's a good idea.

Dolors wrote: "Maria wrote: "sorry was in the hospital and didnt read all your comments but im good to go anytime now..."

Maria, I hope everything is fine with you and I am ecstatic about the prospect of sharing..."
Hello my friend, many thanks. I'm ok now, ready for a new year of good reading and enhancing interactions with my GR friends! It's the first time I participate in a group reading and not sure how this exactly works out but I'm excited for the journey with you and everyone else participating. Hope to extract more of Plath's work this way and agree with interacting with The Bell Jar and Ariel sounds fascinating. Can't wait to Lady Lazarous. On Ariel I also have the one with the foreword by Frieda Hughes. If someone is missing a poem I guess one of us can post it here so everyone else can read it and discuss.