Idle Rambling: Starting to Read New Biography on Sylvia Plath

Updates

February 15, 2013: what a surprise. See below, the note regarding the new Sylvia Plath biography. I finished it. Would love to have someone to discuss it with. Last night, at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, I heard the author, Carl Rollyson, speak on his biography of Sylvia Plath. Absolutely fascinating. 

 

Original Post

The closest I can come to an English tea house in the Boston area is Starbucks. I visit our neighborhood Starbucks almost daily.

When I walked in today, overhead, Norah Jones, Come Away With Me:



I have just started Carl Rollyson's 2013 biography of Sylvia Plath.

Years ago I "ran" across Sylvia Plath, but do not recall "how." It was early in my aggressive reading program that I started while in Yorkshire, starting back in 2002. I enjoyed my Sylvia Plath stage, reading several biographies of her and her husband, and, of course, her book, The Bell Jar.  I left my Sylvia Plath phase a long time ago, but I think of her every so often.

So I was quite excited to see a new biography. The author is a professor of journalism at The City University of New York, so his writing might not be as good as that of an Irish, English, or Scottish writer, but be that as it may.

The introduction and first chapter are outstanding. The author assumes the reader is familiar with Sylvia Plath's life and will minimize going over "old ground." He will try to give the reader a feel for the intensity and passion this woman had with regard to writing.

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On a completely different note, reading the Plath biography quickly took me to Shakespeare: 

Ariel's Song

    Come unto these yellow sands,
              And then take hands:
    Curtsied when you have, and kiss'd
              The wild waves whist,               [whist: to be, or cause to be "quiet"]
    Foot it featly here and there;                [whist: card game; to be quiet]
    And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
              Hark, hark!
    Bow-wow.
              The watch-dogs bark.
    Bow-wow.
              Hark, hark! I hear
              The strain of strutting chanticleer   [chanticleer: a rooster]
              Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow.

    Full fathom five thy father lies;
              Of his bones are coral made;
    Those are pearls that were his eyes:
              Nothing of him that doth fade,
    But doth suffer a sea-change        [here is where Shakespeare coined 
    Into something rich and strange.        ["sea change" for
    Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:       ["major transformation"]
                              Ding-dong.
    Hark! now I hear them—Ding-dong, bell.    [c. 1560; Shakespeare, again]

It is truly amazing: a) how "modern" Shakespeare sounds; and, b) how many phrases Shakespeare introduced that we still use. He really was incredible. The right man at the right place at the right time.

Also, note, the use of "yellow" again. Something I first noticed when reading James Joyce. Norah Jones also uses the color "yellow" in yellow grass.

She's Someting Else

Remember this song on the VHS video? I had a copy. Found another copy. Left it in Pateley Bridge.

"She's Something Else" by Eddie Cochran:

She's Something Else, Eddie Cochran

And the video you remember:

She's Something Else, Little Richard and Tonya Tucker
Eddie Cochran wrote this song. He died in a car crash at the age of 21 in England. He was a passenger in a one-vehicle, speeding taxi, mishap. The taxi driver was convicted of "dangerous driving."

Twenty-one years of age. Amazing what talent some folks have/had.

What A Pity

Wow, this is incredible. I am fortunate enough to have been invited to Amazon.com's Vine program (along with two million others, I suppose).  Two weeks ago, I made an error in not selecting American Isis: Sylvia Plath, by Carl Rollyson. Yesterday, the Vine list arrived again; I did not repeat the mistake. I ordered American Isis; can't wait to read it. And then today, of all things, the book is reviewed (p. C7) in the WSJ, and takes up nearly a full page. This is the most space the WSJ generally gives any subject; this is huge (at least in someone's mind). There is also a wonderful photograph of her gravesite at Heptonstall Parish Church in Yorkshire, England. I did not get to my "Sylvia Plath" stage until I had left Yorkshire; what a pity. I could have driven to Heptsonstall from Pateley Bridge: 40 miles, an hour-and-a-quarter drive; west of Bradford. Interestingly enough, this is in/near Brontë country. Funny how things work out.

Summer Wine

It would be summer wine to share these videos with you over Chinese takeout from the little restaurant in Pateley Bridge. (Some of the videos keep getting removed by YouTube but I keep trying to replace them.)

To Sir With Love, Lulu

This has nothing to do with Yorkshire, but it's the mood I'm in tonight.

I don't recall seeing this movie. At most, I've seen bits and pieces but I can probably imagine the story. It would be too difficult for me to watch.

I had such crushes in middle school and high school.

"How do you thank someone who has taken you from crayons to perfume?" What a great line.

To Sir With Love, Lulu

Incredible. And just the perfect song to play over and over tonight, on a Friday night. And to reminisce.

"The time has come
for closing books
and long last looks
must end

And as I leave
I know I am leaving
my best friend."
 

When I Grow Too Old To Dream ...

... I will have you to remember.

When I Grow Too Old To Dream, Vera Lynn
It's another difficult  night.

Stumblin' In

At the time, this said a lot.

Except for "Stumblin' In" I suppose not so much relevance any more.

Stumblin' In, Suzi Quatro, Chris Norman

Pitch Black

It's cold in the Boston area. It's been colder and it will be colder this winter, but it's still fairly cold. But with layered clothing, gloves, scarf, etc., it is actually quite comfortable to go biking. So, I biked into Cambridge, about 40 minutes from where I am when I take care of the granddaughters. I always enjoy Harvard Square, particularly the book stores. Actually, just one book store: Harvard Book Store, but no connection with the university.

On the way home, it could have been pitch black. But much of the way was, of course, was lit with street lamps. Still, much of the way was pitch black. The night reminded me of those pitch black nights when we walked from "here and there and back again" in Yorkshire.

It's funny. I really don't recall ever seeing Pateley Bridge in the daylight; of course, I must have on several occasions but the memories are distant or unmeaningful. I do remember the pitch black nights from the valley to the Pateley Bridge bridge. Wow, it was dark. There were no street lights lighting the asphalt patch but we had walked it so many times, we didn't need any light or torches (as they called flashlights in England). It took me three or four times before I felt comfortable walking that path in pitch black; it was probably the same for her when she took her first walks many months earlier. But by the time I departed Yorkshire, I could walk that path in the pitch black.

Riding "home" tonight on my bike I thought about those nights. But other memories kept intruding. The sidewalks were uneven due to large trees and their roots lifting the concrete. I first saw that phenomenon in Storm Lake, Iowa, when we visited our maternal grandparents. There were "no" trees in Williston. There were, but there were few, in comparison to the East, and what trees we had were relatively young and certainly not old enough to have large enough roots to life concrete. So our sidewalks in Williston were flat. But not in Storm Lake, Iowa. A lot of sidewalks were cracked and raised by tree roots, one of my earliest memories while visiting my grandparents. Riding through the residential area of Belmont (MA), it made me think that it looked a lot like Storm Lake, and it probably looked a lot like the nicer suburbial areas of St Louis.

But in Williston and Storm Lake and St Louis there were street lights. That path from the valley to Pateley Bridge was pitch black. But I can see the asphalt path as "plain as day" as they say.

Wading Into The Swamp

Over at my literature blog:

My hunch is that I would not enjoy reading any of Burroughs' writing, but he may represent an important element of postmodern writing. So, with that, I will read a bit and see if I enjoy any of it. I will probably enjoy the biographical notes, the analysis, but I probably would not enjoy the original works, and I know I won't agree with Burroughs' worldview.

But here we go, into the swamp.

The four seminal figures of the first Beat circle: Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Herbert Huncke.

I started reading  The New Yorker when I went out to California in the summer/fall of 1973 to begin medical school at the University of Southern California. It's possible I started reading the magazine in college, but I seriously doubt it. Reflecting back on that, it seems strange that I would "start reading" when I would be hit with a fire hose of reading in medical school. I had had no real-life experiences up to that point, having lived a sheltered life in small-town America (and an incredibly rural America, at that) and then attending college in the same small-town America, albeit a slightly bigger city.

But it was Los Angeles where my life began, I suppose. And for some reason I started reading The New Yorker. And one of the first articles was about free love, Big Sur, and Michael Murphy. An Army psychologist. Smile. Some will see the irony.

But I digress.

So, having stumbled on Word Virus, the William S Burroughs Reader, I have come full circle, I suppose.

[Note: some years later I was surprised to find that my brother enjoyed The New Yorker, perhaps his favorite magazine. And he had never left small-town rural America. I think he was frustrated that very few of his peers read. One of his closest friends, however, was an English/literature professor in one of the state universities. I have four sisters; had one brother; all younger. My brother died in 2011, five years after he was diagnosed with a rare cancer. His goal was to see his one child graduate from high school. He succeeded, seeing her graduate, and then a few weeks later he was gone. Craig did not introduce me to The New Yorker. But he did introduce me the Bose Radio/CD player, and Leonard Cohen.]

London Homesick Blues

London Homesick Blues, Gary P Nunn, Jerry Jeff Walker

Just a lot of fun.

Song From The Past

Earlier today I happened to hear the song that will be posted below.

Over the course of one's life we all have a finite number of life-altering events, I suppose. In terms of relationships, there is no question that I had three, maybe four life-altering relationships. The first one was in the summer of 1971. Although to others the geographical separation would have been the obvious reason that the relationship did not last, that was not the case. At the time and in retrospect it was clear to me, and most likely clear to her, that although we had the deepest feelings for each other, there was something intangible that both of us knew, something intangible that would prevent us from taking our relationship to the next level, that next level being a mutual agreement to a lifelong commitment.

If there is one song that brings back all those memories it is the video below. Interestingly, the memories come flooding back with the immediate opening chords/riff. In addition, this song has no relevancy to any of the other relationships, even those that also ended prematurely.

It's Too Late, Carole King
************************   On another note, this song brings home to me how really incredible the music was in the late 60s, early 70's as music truly mature, truly moved to a new level, beginning with the Beatles ad then moving in multiple directions.

I assume there is a book out there somewhere  documenting the culture history of the 60's and 70's but I haven't found it. I'm not talking about fluff, but something serious, something that could have only been written by a prose poet. I'll have to keep looking.

************************   Interestingly, there was one other song that I associate with the summer of 1971:

Spanish Harlem, Aretha Franklin

I spent my days, six days a week, in my own special "Spanish Harlem" in a suburb of New York City in the summer of 1971. I remember catching snippets of radio reports and/or television reports of a moon landing. Of course, without wiki I would not know which one, but this was the one: Apollo 15:

It was also the first mission on which the Lunar Roving Vehicle was used. The mission began on July 26, 1971, and ended on August 7. At the time, NASA called it the most successful manned flight ever achieved.

Okay, one more. Wow, if this one doesn't describe that summer of 1971, I don't know what would:

Maggie May, Rod Stewart

This song, by the way, may be THE song that introduced me to music. We did not listen to music growing up at home in Williston, North Dakota. I first really listened to music when I sent college, but it probably wasn't until this one and the Bee Gees that I was first truly moved by music.

Tolkien Letters

And so I have completed the first go-through of The Letters of JRR Tolkien.

Absolutely incredible. One could spend a lifetime, I think, studying Tolkien.

I probably won't add any more notes to those already at the link.

The Mundane

I often spend mornings at Starbucks: blogging, reading.

I just completed a few more pages of The Letters of Tolkien.

It is Sunday, overcast, drizzly. It is exactly how I remember Yorkshire. Exactly. The only difference: Now: in Starbucks reading and blogging. Then: a drive in the drizzly rain on a very curvy road (with roads that paralleled the river before turning across the bridge) to Ripon; church some days; then exploring.

I do think, of all things, Evensong, was most special. Nothing can replace that.

But only with another. Evensong with another has been replaced with reading. Alone. And I am content/satisfied. 

[I remember someone once telling me her theory about English roads paralleling the river before turning to the bridge: that way, drivers would see the whole expanse of the bridge. The builders were proud of their handiwork and wanted others to see it, the entire bridge. When boating down the Charles River in Boston (rarely) and going under a bridge I realize that we see things on the bridge that others have never seen.]

Speaking of which, it was my visit to Monet's garden at Giverney many, many years ago when stationed in Germany that "taught" me to see the various greens in the the color of leaves. When I walk now, I still see many, many hues of green. Had it not been for that visit to Monet's garden, I might never have seen that there were so many shades of green. I don't notice that so much in other colors. Same with yellow blades of grass. I never thought there was such a thing as yellow blades of grass (except dying) until I heard Norah Jones' song and then saw yellow blades of grass in England while visiting an abbey destroyed by Henry VIII. We listened to the song together many times, but I don't recall if I ever mentioned the yellow blades of grass. The video of Norah Jones is posted elsewhere, probably more than once.

JRR Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings

I continue to read The Letters of JRR Tolkien, edited by his biographer, Humphrey Carpenter. It is absolutely incredible: it is obvious he was a genius; the question is whether his obsession with Middle-Earth was certifiable/diagnosable. The fact that he could function in society at a very high level, of course, means that he was neither certifiably or diagnosable but he was clearly as close to living in another world -- the world he had created in the Middle-Earth -- one wonders how close he came to crossing over into insanity.

In medical school, my closest friend who became a world-renown researcher in pediatric renal disease (at one time I thought he might be considered for a Nobel Prize in Medicine) talked to me about specializing in psychiatry. At that time I could not understand his passion for psychiatry (I, of course, do now) but he explained to me that he found it fascinating how all of us are literally on the edge of sanity/insanity.

I think of that the more I read the letters of Tolkien. I am about halfway through the book -- the letters are from the mid-50's. The last letter of the book is dated in 1973 or later; it will be interesting to see how his thinking evolves, but right now, he seems to be living in Middle Earth.

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It's a long story, but some time ago I was in my W. H. Auden phase. I'm not sure how I got to WH Auden; I assume I was led to WH Auden while in my Shakespeare phase [My Shakespeare phase began with Hamlet; became most interesting with the discovery of Brenda James.] But WH Auden is another writer who really intrigues me. I can't articulate why, but suffice it to say, WH Auden is in a class by himself, and I enjoy coming across Auden in places and times completely unexpected. So I was quite surprised to see the correspondence between JRR and WH Auden in 1955, just about the time JRR published the first volume of The Lord of the Rings. Auden had reviewed the book for the New York Times Book Review and Encounter, and was now asking Tolkien some questions about the book. Tolkien's reply was never found; Auden had a habit of throwing letters away after reading them. A pack rat, not. Apparently, this is another letter from Tolkien to Auden.]

**************************

In the letter to Auden I referenced above, Tolkien reminisces about his early life in "West-Midland," a region of England. As he describes it, I am taken back to Yorkshire. Unfortunately with time, my memories of Yorkshire drift farther away; they are not as vivid and certainly not as emotion-laden until I get to thinking about them again. The "hitchhiking" as it were, each night after work.  The rocks at Brimham. The long, long walks every Saturday (until I met another walker) -- walks so long, taken to drive suicidially-depressive thoughts out of my mind. I remember carrying a portable CD player with me and playing Hank Williams, Sr, over and over, a man whose songs suggested a deeply depressed individual. He, too, died in a most inglorious (?) way. Most sad. Wow, do I ever get off track. I used to think about Yorkshire all the time; it generally led to a real sadness (sadness being significantly different than depression). I no longer let myself go down that road, and I won't tonight. It it what it is, or rather, it was what it was, and now it's gone. Never to return.

Hmmm. Sadness vs depression. I don't know how professionals would differentiate the two. For me, depression is an emotional state that lasts for quite some time, often no overt signs except to someone perhaps trained in observing signs of depression. Sadness, on the other hand, is shorter in duration, measured in hours, maybe days (at which point I start to think of "grief"), and is pretty much obvious to others. They say the Eskimos have 100 words for snow. The other day, I happened to come across multiple words for different kinds of frost. And now, multiple words for depression, sadness, grief. Interesting.

Wow, from JRR Tolkien to sadness.

I Am Sailing .. I Am Flying .... I Am ... Forever Trying ....I

I looked at the first post for this blog again tonight (at least I think it was the first post).

Nothing has changed. It was posted in 2009. I had been posting much earlier but as mentioned earlier, I deleted the original blog about that time and started over.

My original blog covered all my interests: the oil industry in my home state, music, literature, travels, and, of course, the life-altering experience called Yorkshire.

But that original blog was too eclectic so I broke it up into several blogs. Most of my time is spent on my blog regarding the oil boom in my home state. I post often throughout the day. It is probably the best source of information on the oil boom in North Dakota for "amateur" followers of the boom.

At one time, it was music that kept me going and I have a blog focusing on the music I enjoy. I've pretty much quit posting at that blog, having pretty much exhausted my personal music library, as it were.

But now, it is literature that keeps me going from day to day. I get into "phases" where I will read everything I can about a certain author. Before tackling a major work of literature, I read at least one biography, and generally two or three biographies before reading the novel. Examples include Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller: James Joyce and his wife Nora: Hemingway and his four wives, all very successful in their own right; Virginia and Leonard Woolf; F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald; Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas; Karen Blixen and Dennis Finch-Hatton; and, of course, the Brontës. I am absolutely fascinated by the human dilemma: how men, maybe women, "manage" relationships.

[I teared up after reading Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth, but Karen Blixen's Out of Africa was even more difficult for me to handle. I would love to read that book out loud to another; it is so poetic, so powerful. I think often of how Dennis died, and I am certain my thoughts about his death are correct. Wow, that was an incredible book. An incredible story. But I digress.]

I stopped reading literature in my fourth year of college, as I was transitioning to graduate school, and then the Air Force. I didn't start reading again until 2002, when I was sent to northern England. No one knew how depressed I was in the 90's -- it was reading that "saved" me. I started an aggressive reading program in 2002 and continue reading to this day. 

Enough rambling for now. 

I am sailing ... I am flying .. to be near you ... to be free ... can you hear me .. can you hear me ... 

It is incredible -- songwriting .. can you hear me ... through the dark night ... I am dying ... forever trying to be near you ...


I Am Sailing, Rod Stewart

Haworth

One of my favorite memories (click here), over at my literature blog.

Bronte Parsonage, Walk to Top Withens

I wrote a long post about Top Withens and Wuthering Heights about three years ago. Unfortunately, one night for some reason, long forgotten, I deleted the entire blog. I have never had the energy to re-create that post, but maybe I will do that someday.

Naomi Mitchison

I am "in love" with strong women. It would be an interesting area to explore. I have been very fortunate to have known three wonderful, powerfully strong women.

In my JRR Tolkien phase, I ran across, for the first time this woman: Naomi Mitchison, while reading The Letters of JRR Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter. Wow, what a story. See wiki.

In My JRR Tolkien, Lord Of The Rings, Phase

I talked about this elsewhere, on my literature blog, I believe. Several months ago, I got back into my JRR Tolkien / Lord of the Rings phase. Brings back wonderful memories of Yorkshire.

I will be updating my literature blog but it's hard to do. I would rather discuss it in person. Unfortunately that won't happen.

Not a day goes by that I'm not thinking of ...

No video today. Sorry.

Instead, some high points of my reading.

I am reading The Letters of JRR Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter, his official biographer, I believe.

I read it slowly, savoring every letter -- or almost every letter. There is a draft letter of Tolkien to C. S. Lewis, undated, but believed to have been written in 1943 on the subject of "Christian marriage, which is binding and lifelong, and marriage-contracts solemnised (sic) only by the State, which make no such demands."

The whole issue is, of course, problematic, but would be an interesting discussion.

I still maintain that as men grow older, they become more romantic; women, less so.