Sylvia Plath was a curious soul. She was an amazing writer, philosopher and individual. I first read her in my teen years, starting with “The Bell Jar.” At that time I was touched by her words and the stark authenticity of her voice. My admiration for her has only grown over the years.
Last week I started reading “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath” and I’m in awe. I am a consistent (obsessive?) journal-er myself and I am intrigued with the opportunity to get a glance into her mind. I have thousands upon thousands of pages of journals and it’s interesting to think what a stranger might perceive about me if they were to read them. That’s what gives Sylvia Plath the authenticity. She wrote these journals, not planning for them to be read by others. Being able to hear her thoughts, years after her death, is a bit eerie.
Finding a kindred spirit, a shared mentality, is a rare gift. As I read her words I understand them with my heart and I empathize with her struggles and triumphs. I have an innate sense of connection to Sylvia Plath, and reading her words brings me comfort and challenges my perspectives. Through her journals I gain a rich understanding of her views and her fears.
In the preface of my copy of her journals: “She began keeping diaries and journals at the age of eleven and continued this practice until her death at the age of thirty.” I also began journals at a young age. How I wish I still had those old journals. The ability to see yourself through your journey of perspectives is priceless.
Sylvia Plath’s unabridged journals cover her life from 1950 to 1962. Her introduction and acclimation to adulthood are on the pages, now to be shared with the world. I would love to read her last journals. But according to Karen Kukil in the preface: “The two bound journals that Plath wrote during the last three years of her life are not included in this publication. One of the journals ‘disappeared,’ according to Ted Hughes…The second ‘maroon-backed ledger,’ which contained entries to within three days of Plath’s suicide, was destroyed by Hughes.” It’s a voyeuristic desire, to read the words of a woman who was on course to commit suicide. Those last pages…I wonder when she knew? And how she justified the ending to her own mind. It’s fair that her husband destroyed them, I imagine they are painful and deeply personal.
Sylvia Plath is an inspiration. I’m excited to share my thoughts, as I ingest her thoughts. My lens is different. It is a different world for women now than it was when Plath was alive. I endeavor to experience her trials and tribulations through her words.
She shared the below quotes in the first journal entry published in this collection:
“We only begin to live when we conceive life as tragedy…”–W.B. Yeats
“Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past…”–James Joyce
These quotes are a little window into broader philosophies. Sylvia Plath was a philosopher at heart; like me.