It's been 52 years since she died. She was just 30 when she woke up one
morning, stuck her head in the oven and turned the gas on. After years
of battling depression, she finally made her exit leaving behind two
little children, an estranged husband, and a timeless legacy of
brilliant writing. I first read Sylvia Plath as a teenager and was
instantly drawn to her beautiful portrayal of pain thinly masked by
razor sharp wit. Her style of confessional poetry had such a deep impact
on me that while studying for my BA in English Literature, it was
American Literature that became my favourite subject. Fascinated by her
stupendous command over her craft and intrigued by her personal life, I
read anything and everything I could find written by her and about her.
Those were the days when I "entertained" myself by making frequent trips
to the American Library at the USIS and British Council Library. When I
finally read The Bell Jar, it felt like Plath had articulated the
thoughts in my own head, as I'm sure countless young women the world
over still feel. When I was younger, I could not understand why she
killed herself. I felt angry and hurt and betrayed because her death
felt personal to me. It didn't matter that she had lived and died years
before I was even born. But that's just how I felt. And I also felt
deprived, thinking about all the stories and poems and profound wisdom
that she took along with her. I'm no longer that teenage girl who first
stumbled upon Plath's writing and said "Whoah!!" but I admire her just
the same, if not more. And as the passing years revealed to me my own
dance with depression, I finally began to understand why she did what
she did. Her brilliance continues to amaze me, and her writing continues
to unhinge me and put me back together all in the same breath.
Featured Post
It's been too long, she says. My muse, she waits...
Blogging has been a wonderful refuge for my soul over the past 13 years* ; it's a place I've come to sometimes frequently, some...
Popular Posts
-
Yesterday while I was taking a shower, my mind was suddenly flooded with recollections of all the times I've been asked for "writin...
-
You look so good in all shades of blue until one rainy morning I witness white cotton sitting gently on your shoulders bringing out the glo...
-
Last night, while chatting with Marmalade, I typed - "I thought I knew all there is to know about love until I met him." She f... -
It happens to everyone. No matter how different you think you are or hope to be, there comes a point when your mouth automatically s...
-
Ask any self-respecting Goan, worth his or her weight in coconut, what would they like as their last meal and this is the answer you will ...
-
And in the end, we will count all the things we didn't do. While other lovers piece together moments to map their memories, we will fli...
-
She is fire. She sparks and rages, spits and smokes, radiates a heat that could burn him to cinders. Oh, but he is water. He g...
-
He walked out of the elevator and approached her with a big smile on his face. She felt her cheeks flush with a shyness she never knew she ...
-
Take me to all the places you've been keeping from me. Even the ones you think I will not like. Especially the ones you think I wil...
-
The words roll off my tongue and cling to your floor. I cannot control what you do with them once they force their way out of my guard. Som...
3 comments:
I read the bell jar some years back and to this day, that book scares me. I too didn't understand why she put her head in the oven, but now that people speak more openly about depression, I think I understand.
Another book that's brilliant and sad is the wide sargasso sea by Jean Rhys. If you read it, please tell me what you think of it.
I like lit. from all over the world, having studied french, spanish, english, american, west indian.
And it is sooo good to see you posting here on blogger!
Hey GG! Thank you for commenting. Yes Bell Jar is quite tough to digest even for me, even now after understanding depression and going through it myself. But I adore writers like Plath and Virginia Woolf because their art is just so brilliant and timeless and unlike anything I have ever read. I find that very inspiring.
I do have Wide Sargasso Sea and I remember you telling me once not to read it when I'm sad or depressed. And when I bought it I was all that and more so I paid heed to your advice :) But thanks for reminding me, I can definitely read it now.
Btw, I had posted this piece on Facebook recently. In fact, if you notice a sudden spate of posts here on Blogger, it's all stuff I've moved from FB. I kept thinking I had neglected my blog and writing over the past couple of years... Then I realised that I had, in fact, been writing but I was just publishing it on a different platform. So I've put it all here now and from now on will be posting simultaneously here on the blog, as well as the new Cloudcutter Chronicles page that I've created on FB.
Post a Comment