The Journals of Sylvia Plath: Part One (July 1950-July 1953)

I've been slowly making my way through Sylvia Plath's journals since I found this going for £3 on eBay. It would be very strange to actually review a collection of journals, as they would have never been written with the intention of people seeing them, so these are merely musings on Plath's writings in the parts that the editor, Karen V. Kukhil has divided the journals into.

This first part begins with the 18-year-old Sylvia Plath preparing to read to Smith College, and ends in July 1953, a month before Plath attempted to kill herself. First of, Plath's writing remains lyrical, with an element of stream of consciousnesses throughout. This did mean that the journals are not an 'easy' read but, despite being expressions of great emotion, the diaries contain a surprisingly coherent narrative, in addition to giving the impression that they have been carefully though out when that would have been highly unlikely.

This part of the journals give a really interesting insight into Plath's early working processes. It is also really interesting to see the thought process of Plath, who is probably unfortunately known best for her suicide (I say this because when I said to my brother "You've got Sylvia Plath poetry in your anthology!", his response was "She stuck her head in an oven"). What surprised me most of all, was as a young woman who was ultimately driven to try and kill herself, is her self-confidence, she is aware that she is an attractive, intelligent young woman and frequently mentions this, almost coming across as arrogant. Perhaps indicative of the time is Plath's desire to constantly have a male companion; and her happiness does seem reliant on having a suitor.

I could understand and recognised many of Plath's feelings, and I will be going ahead and hopefully finishing the rest of the collection. My only complaint with it is to do with how the collection has been put together, with some entries placed in the appendix-I have to wonder why they were not just simply placed within the journals-it was a bit of a pain to keep flicking to the back of the book.