Red Comet
The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath
(Sprache: Englisch)
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • The highly anticipated biography of Sylvia Plath that focuses on her remarkable literary and intellectual achievements, while restoring the woman behind the long-held myths about her life and art.
“One of the most beautiful...
“One of the most beautiful...
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PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • The highly anticipated biography of Sylvia Plath that focuses on her remarkable literary and intellectual achievements, while restoring the woman behind the long-held myths about her life and art.“One of the most beautiful biographies I've ever read." —Glennon Doyle, author of #1 New York Times Bestseller, Untamed
With a wealth of never-before-accessed materials, Heather Clark brings to life the brilliant Sylvia Plath, who had precocious poetic ambition and was an accomplished published writer even before she became a star at Smith College. Refusing to read Plath’s work as if her every act was a harbinger of her tragic fate, Clark considers the sociopolitical context as she thoroughly explores Plath’s world: her early relationships and determination not to become a conventional woman and wife; her troubles with an unenlightened mental health industry; her Cambridge years and thunderclap meeting with Ted Hughes; and much more.
Clark’s clear-eyed portraits of Hughes, his lover Assia Wevill, and other demonized players in the arena of Plath’s suicide promote a deeper understanding of her final days. Along with illuminating readings of the poems themselves, Clark’s meticulous, compassionate research brings us closer than ever to the spirited woman and visionary artist who blazed a trail that still lights the way for women poets the world over.
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1The Beekeeper s Daughter
Prussia, Austria, America, 1850 1932
Like Sylvia Plath herself, Plath s parents, Otto and Aurelia, have had to bear a difficult posthumous burden. Plath used her parents, like so many others in her life, as material for her writing. They existed as real people whose praise she craved and, at the same time, a deep fictional resource. They were of her, but not her a looking glass that reflected the possibility of what might or might not be, and she could not resist plumbing their depths as she sought to understand her own. She came to feel that in her parents lay the root of her anxieties, and, encouraged by her psychiatrist in the late fifties, she began to lash out at them in her journals and, later, her poems. Plath would express rage toward her parents at her father for abandoning her, at her mother for hovering too close. They remain distorted caricatures, stuck in amber. In Plath s most famous poem, Daddy, Otto who died when she was eight is a patriarchal tyrant, a Nazi bastard. Aurelia, skewered in The Bell Jar, is a menacing martyr who demands perfection from her daughter. But if Plath inherited anxiety and depression from her parents, she also inherited intelligence, discipline, and ambition. They stand Janus-faced, curse and blessing, at the beginning and end of Sylvia Plath s story.
In Otto Plath s case, myth has overshadowed truth in the popular imagination. For many readers of Sylvia Plath, Otto Plath is Daddy : Aryan, fascist, Nazi. In fact, Otto Plath was a committed pacifist who renounced his German citizenship in 1926 and watched Hitler s rise with trepidation. He held himself to rigid moral standards and expected others to do the same. In a photograph taken when he was a college student in Wisconsin, around 1910, he gives the impression of a man who does not suffer fools gladly. He sits unsmiling in the front row surrounded by drunken peers, laughing and holding steins. This is the serious,
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driven young man who would not compromise his ideals, even if that meant severing ties with his family a decision that would have a profound impact on his daughter.
At least three generations of the Plath family lived in Posen Province, West Prussia, before coming to America. Today Posen (Poznan) is part of Poland, in the area known as the Polish Corridor when it was transferred from the German empire to Poland after the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Like the Alsace-Lorraine region, it became a disputed territory, where tensions between ethnic Poles and Germans ran high. Despite the fact that the majority of those living in this area were Poles, Hitler attempted to annex it in 1939 one of the early acts of aggression that spurred France, Britain, and other Commonwealth nations to declare war on Germany. Though Otto Plath left Posen in 1900, well before both world wars, his daughter would eventually portray him as an embodiment of German imperialist aggression in Daddy.
Posen, whose population comprised Germans, Poles, and Jews who lived in separate ethnic enclaves, was perhaps the poorest region in Prussia. By the late 1800s, ethnic Germans, lured by the booming industrial economy in the Rhine and Ruhr regions, as well as free land in America, began leaving the region en masse in the Ostflucht, or flight from the east. More than two million had left by the early 1900s, including Sylvia Plath s paternal great-grandparents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and father. Her great-grandfather, Johann Plath, was an illiterate farmer, but his grandson Otto would eventually become a Harvard-educated professor, and his great-granddaughter a trailblazing poet and novelist. Sylvia s perfectionism, often derided as neurotic or pathological, nee
At least three generations of the Plath family lived in Posen Province, West Prussia, before coming to America. Today Posen (Poznan) is part of Poland, in the area known as the Polish Corridor when it was transferred from the German empire to Poland after the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Like the Alsace-Lorraine region, it became a disputed territory, where tensions between ethnic Poles and Germans ran high. Despite the fact that the majority of those living in this area were Poles, Hitler attempted to annex it in 1939 one of the early acts of aggression that spurred France, Britain, and other Commonwealth nations to declare war on Germany. Though Otto Plath left Posen in 1900, well before both world wars, his daughter would eventually portray him as an embodiment of German imperialist aggression in Daddy.
Posen, whose population comprised Germans, Poles, and Jews who lived in separate ethnic enclaves, was perhaps the poorest region in Prussia. By the late 1800s, ethnic Germans, lured by the booming industrial economy in the Rhine and Ruhr regions, as well as free land in America, began leaving the region en masse in the Ostflucht, or flight from the east. More than two million had left by the early 1900s, including Sylvia Plath s paternal great-grandparents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and father. Her great-grandfather, Johann Plath, was an illiterate farmer, but his grandson Otto would eventually become a Harvard-educated professor, and his great-granddaughter a trailblazing poet and novelist. Sylvia s perfectionism, often derided as neurotic or pathological, nee
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Autoren-Porträt von Heather Clark
Heather Clark
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Heather Clark
- 2021, 1184 Seiten, 4 Abbildungen, Maße: 15,5 x 23,1 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: VINTAGE
- ISBN-10: 030795126X
- ISBN-13: 9780307951267
- Erscheinungsdatum: 02.10.2021
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
A New York Times Top 10 Book of the Year Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the LA Times Book Prize A New York Times Notable Book Named a Book of the Year: O, the Oprah Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Boston Globe, Literary Hub, The Times (London), The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and The Times of India Winner of the Biographers' Club Slightly Foxed Prize for Best First Biography Mesmerizing . . . Comprehensive . . . Stuffed with heretofore untold anecdotes that illuminate or extend our understanding of Plath s life . . . Clark is a felicitous writer and a discerning critic of Plath s poetry . . . There is no denying the book s intellectual power and, just as important, its sheer readability.
The New York Times
A majestic tome with the narrative propulsion of a thriller. We now have the complete story.
O, The Oprah Magazine
An exhaustively researched, frequently brilliant masterwork. . . . It is an impressive achievement representing a prizeworthy contribution to literary scholarship and biographical journalism.
The Washington Post
One of the most beautiful biographies I've ever read."
Glennon Doyle, author of #1 New York Times Bestseller, Untamed
Clark masterfully analyzes the poetry with intelligent incorporation of the biography. . . . Red Comet shows that the achievement of Sylvia Plath was miraculous but it wasn t spasmodic, or rare. It was hard-won, every single day.
Los Angeles Times
Massive, insightful . . . Red Comet is a critical examination of what it means to be a female artist, to suffer from depression, and to be alone, as it is revelatory about this one particular life and the art that came from it. The red comet (an image from her poem Stings ) is an apt metaphor for Plath.
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Boston Globe
Revelatory. . . . Plath s struggles with depression and her marriage to Ted Hughes emerge in complex detail, but Clark does not let Plath s suicide define her artistic achievement, arguing with refreshing rigor for her significance to modern letters. The result is a new understanding and appreciation of an innovative, uncompromising poetic voice.
The New Yorker
A definitive biography. . . . What ultimately bursts off the page is Plath s short, vibrant life, which is too often most remembered for the way it ended: That s the irony, isn t it? says Clark. She s so incredibly alive.
Entertainment Weekly
Red Comet is absolutely necessary. . . . In Clark s attentive hands, Plath s life is laid out in its full complexity.
Lit Hub
Aiming to shake the public perception of Sylvia Plath as the Marilyn Monroe of the literati, Clark delivers a meticulous, unflinching and fresh view of the brilliant, troubled poet.
People
Surely the final, the definitive, biography of Sylvia Plath . . . Takes its time in desensationalizing the life and the art; this lets Clark place both firmly in the literary and politically engaged contexts that formed them and simultaneously demonstrate how Plath s work, in return, gifted the writing life unimaginable new sinew.
The Guardian ( The Best Books of 2020 )
Red Comet is a mighty achievement. Clark is compassionate, clear-eyed, sceptical. Each chapter reads with the ease of a novel. . . . Plath s resilience, genius and insight blaze through the book.
The Times (UK)
Clark entices us with the impossible: an unbiased, authorised biography of Sylvia Plath. . . . Red Comet is the kind of serious literary biography Plath has long deserved but, until now, not received.
New Statesman (UK)
Unlike other biographies of Plath (1932-63), Clark s traces her subject s literary and intellectual development rather than concentrating on her undoing through suicide. . . . A masterful biography, that will especially interest literary scholars.
Library Journal
[A] page-turning, meticulously researched biography of Sylvia Plath. . . . Clark s in-depth scholarship and fine writing result in a superb work that will deliver fresh revelations to Plath s many devoted fans.
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A sober and detailed critical biography of one of the 20th century s greatest and most misunderstood poets. . . . Redeems Plath from the condescension of easy interpretation.
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Once I started reading this book, I couldn t stop; I read it upon waking and late at night, at the dinner table and during the workday. I thought I knew Plath, but this wonderful book shows me I did not. Like the lyric speakers of her late poetry, she emerges from these pages transformed. Red Comet presents Sylvia Plath as she ought to be: as an innovative, ambitious, driven artist, at a time when women weren t supposed to be any of these things. In the end, I was awestruck by Plath s courage and strength in the face of so many obstacles; I was awed, too, by the work Clark has done to bring this writer to life.
Maggie Doherty, author of The Equivalents
Revelatory. . . . Plath s struggles with depression and her marriage to Ted Hughes emerge in complex detail, but Clark does not let Plath s suicide define her artistic achievement, arguing with refreshing rigor for her significance to modern letters. The result is a new understanding and appreciation of an innovative, uncompromising poetic voice.
The New Yorker
A definitive biography. . . . What ultimately bursts off the page is Plath s short, vibrant life, which is too often most remembered for the way it ended: That s the irony, isn t it? says Clark. She s so incredibly alive.
Entertainment Weekly
Red Comet is absolutely necessary. . . . In Clark s attentive hands, Plath s life is laid out in its full complexity.
Lit Hub
Aiming to shake the public perception of Sylvia Plath as the Marilyn Monroe of the literati, Clark delivers a meticulous, unflinching and fresh view of the brilliant, troubled poet.
People
Surely the final, the definitive, biography of Sylvia Plath . . . Takes its time in desensationalizing the life and the art; this lets Clark place both firmly in the literary and politically engaged contexts that formed them and simultaneously demonstrate how Plath s work, in return, gifted the writing life unimaginable new sinew.
The Guardian ( The Best Books of 2020 )
Red Comet is a mighty achievement. Clark is compassionate, clear-eyed, sceptical. Each chapter reads with the ease of a novel. . . . Plath s resilience, genius and insight blaze through the book.
The Times (UK)
Clark entices us with the impossible: an unbiased, authorised biography of Sylvia Plath. . . . Red Comet is the kind of serious literary biography Plath has long deserved but, until now, not received.
New Statesman (UK)
Unlike other biographies of Plath (1932-63), Clark s traces her subject s literary and intellectual development rather than concentrating on her undoing through suicide. . . . A masterful biography, that will especially interest literary scholars.
Library Journal
[A] page-turning, meticulously researched biography of Sylvia Plath. . . . Clark s in-depth scholarship and fine writing result in a superb work that will deliver fresh revelations to Plath s many devoted fans.
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A sober and detailed critical biography of one of the 20th century s greatest and most misunderstood poets. . . . Redeems Plath from the condescension of easy interpretation.
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Once I started reading this book, I couldn t stop; I read it upon waking and late at night, at the dinner table and during the workday. I thought I knew Plath, but this wonderful book shows me I did not. Like the lyric speakers of her late poetry, she emerges from these pages transformed. Red Comet presents Sylvia Plath as she ought to be: as an innovative, ambitious, driven artist, at a time when women weren t supposed to be any of these things. In the end, I was awestruck by Plath s courage and strength in the face of so many obstacles; I was awed, too, by the work Clark has done to bring this writer to life.
Maggie Doherty, author of The Equivalents
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