Pain, Parties, Work Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

Just to be up front, I personally do not like Sylvia Plath, her abandonment of her children and disdain for her family turn my stomach a little. I very rarely make judgements about authors and I don't know why I make the exception for her -- maybe it is because so many young women view her as some kind of role model and I think that is misguided-- no matter how good your poetry is it does no good for your children if you choose to commit suicide when they are toddlers -- and maybe it is because I have  gained some perspective and learned to prioritize because I have been fortunate to live much longer than she did. Nevertheless, I like The Bell Jar . That metaphor for depression is absolutely spot on  -- certainly we have all felt that heavy, airless, suffocation that clots the mind and slows the body . It is the mental equivalent of  iron deficiency or an asthma attack. The lack of oxygen darkens and narrows the vision.  This book is a memoir of the Plath's life during the time in which the The Bell Jar takes place. It is based on the memories of the other ladies who joined Sylvia as guest editors for Madamoiselle magazine in 1953. Sylvia, the brilliant young writer on the cusp of a magnificent career, decked out in  fifties glamor, the full, ballet length dresses with cinched-in waists, which exaggerated and enhanced the female form,  the intensely red lips and nails which advertised  female sexuality, the smooth pageboys , the mandatory gloves, matching hats, bags and shoes-- combine this plethora of clothing and cosmetics with a small, airless , broiling hotel room in one of the hottest summers in memory and you have your  bell jar, the physical setting  of Sylvia's most exciting summer . The fifties -- glamour - a wonderful time to be a woman -- well, no, because by and large no matter how brilliant and creative and excellent you may have been, the expectation for all women was full time wife and motherhood -- and  this dip into exciting careerism in New York's publishing industry only sharpened that dichotomy between desire and ultimate duty providing for some pretty intense internal pressure. Sylvia's colleagues relate the externals of Sylvia's journey in The Bell Jar, her hard work with interviews and articles, her photographic shoots for the college issue, her bout with food poisoning, her poisonous dates, her male admirers, her final evening, throwing her New York wardrobe off the high-rise roof, feeding it to the night. That hot, high, fast summer of the Rosenbergs. The book is a perfect companion to Sylvia's memoir, the same progression of events from two points of view, theirs objective, hers slightly crazy, intensely subjective. Not all the memories are good ones, though, for Sylvia disappointed many with her fictionalization of them in The Bell Jar. Upon reading that book, a few discovered what Sylvia really thought of them back then and it was not pleasant to learn- they felt cheated, exposed and misrepresented. Sylvia herself swore that her characters and the events portrayed within the book were fiction, based on reality, but really, the events, the people, the setting, they are all the same viewed through the prism of Sylvia's intense and sometimes harsh judgement. Yet all of the ladies interviewed confessed deep admiration Sylvia' s originality and energy and none of them judged her negatively for her final decision. This book is a short, sweet read for Sylvia admirers and those curious about the facts about that memorable summer.