Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath

Of all the bios I have read regarding Sylvia Plath, Stevenson's - Bitter Fame - still stands as the best. For me, the linchpin is the fact that the masterful poet Stevenson carries within herself the depth necessary to reach for the stars in comprehending one of our greatest poets. To distill life to its essence as the hallmark of poetry itself - is no easy task - neither is that endeavor made more accessible when the subject, such as Sylvia Plath in this masterpiece-of-a-book, presents perhaps the most complicated, but profound soul, we might count upon as a gift to treasure ever and anon.

Plath is presented as an unstable but very talented woman. There is not doubting her instability which appeared long before she met Ted Hughes, but what Anne Stevenson has managed to do is present the enormous stresses placed upon her husband and her friends by Plath's behaviour. It is not easy living with a poet, at least one who writes seriously. Dido Merwin was on the receiving end of some pretty nasty vitriol, but if you have a face-lift to make yourslef look younger don't invite a perceptive poet along to visit you in hospital. This book is a fine biography and in my view is the standard work on a great 20th century poet.

I'm surprised no one has yet reviewed this landmark in the Plath biography lexicon. It was savagely attacked when it came out because Anne Stevenson was writing under the tight control of Ted and Olwyn Hughes and readers rightly saw it as slanted heavily in their favor. But anyone interested in Sylvia Plath should definitely read it. It's by far the best written of the biographies and presents a complex, believable portrait of Plath up to the point where her journals disappeared. After that, Stevenson has not a single good word to say for Sylvia and not a single bad word to say for Ted. It's a fascinating read that should be either preceded or followed by Janet Malcolm's The Silent Woman which explains the drama that went into its creation.

This is one of the better biographies of Sylvia Plath (as is the Wagner-Martin biography, though Stevenson is much more thorough). Supposedly Stevenson comes down on the side of Ted Hughes, but to me the biography seems objective and fair. Even in those biographies written to make Plath look like a victim, she still comes across as tempermental and difficult to live around. I think Stevenson's biography is fair, if at times a bit ponderous to read. I'd suggest Silent Woman as a companion piece (it's a biography of Stevenson's biography). Bitter Fame has three appendices--memoirs of Sylvia written by others--Lucas Myers, Dido Merwin, and Richard Murphy. You get a sense of dread as you approach Dido's little memoir. I'm sure Plath was difficult and I'm sure Dido has her reasons, but you get the impression that she wrote her memoir just to 'get back at' Plath. To show her up so to speak, even though its tone isn't much different then what else you'll find in the book. Anyway, regardless of what type of person Sylvia Plath was, difficult or not, you cannot deny her genius, which is far greater than those who she came in contact with or have written about her.

"The Bell Jar" is my favorite book and I think this is the best biography there is of Sylvia Plath.