Plath & Hughes on Winthrop beach. This picture is often attributed to Cape Cod yet the jetty and rocks in the background identify it more clearly as Winthrop, where Sylvia spend her very early years and where family members had a house.
Lately i've been reading a lot about Sylvia Plath, though i'm not quite sure why - why now, after all these years am i coming back to Plath. After all, i'm older now and out of my semi idol worship phase and have developed a more realistic and clearer view of those that i admire, yet i'm still drawn to Plath the way I am still drawn to Kurt Cobain of Nirvana or Elliott Smith or any great artist that I respected before they died. I hate that the few that i actually identify with are the ones who opt out. I wonder what, if anything this says about me. Will one day, i too, opt out? God, i hope not. I don't think so but who can predict their own life.
To be clear, my respect for any of these people did not increase after they took their own life. If anything, it just pissed me off to see such talent so selfishly taken away from us, as if they had each abconded in the night taking with them their gift of word or song or both, leaving us with their full and yet empty hearts, the profound sense of yearning and sorrow in their tone, that rings true and through both lyric and meter. Plath just won't go away; it is almost as if she refuses to die. That her presence is still here, still present and because i happen to live not even two blocks from her childhood home in Winthrop by the Sea, i feel her more acutely. I look out of the study window and i see the beach - her beach - the one she wrote of so often, and to where she lay, allowing herself to be bronzed and blonded by the sun, her lungs filling with the same briney sea-air that fills my own on these foggy mornings and gauzey twilight afternoons.
I had read Bitter Fame, Ted and Sylvia, Birthday Letters, Sylvia Plath - a biography, etc etc. Any book on Plath, i had read long ago and filed away and every once in a while, i would seek out her poems and read those too, and even read her stories in Johnny Panic and The Bible of Dreams or even my tattered and torn copy of The Bell Jar. Reading the poems and the biographies at the saem time made each more impressive - by which i mean, it left an impression so deep that i could almost feel her strong hand squeezing my arm, leaving red marks and blue bruises as if she were desperate to reach the one person who would understand what it was she had been trying to get at all those years through her writing and the way she lived.
Article comments
1 - SFC SKI
THanks for writing this peace, I am not much aware of Plath or her writing, but this was interesting to read.
It always leaves a sour tatse in my mouth when I consider the "tortured artist suicide", brilliant as they may be, their "opting out" from life always dimishes them talent for me.
We all have problems and feel overwhelmed at times, most of us struggle on, who deserves the accolades and interest more?
2 - srp
absolutely i agree with what you say, and even say so in the piece toward th end. that what they do is rob the world of talent -- and also, rom those who love them. having experienced the suicide of someone close, i know how awful the after affects, so i thihk we're on teh same page. Plath should be neither idolized nor hated because she opted out; she should be, like anyone, considered on the merits of her work - and even now, i htink she had incredibly talent. a bit wearing at times, but strong and clean nonethelss. Living only a block from the house she grew up in is odd; one feels compelled to say something...
thx. for reading, and be well
srp
3 - Mark Saleski
sadi, my wife teaches at a shelter for troubled girls. she said that a lot of the girls seem to be fixed recently on plath and cobain.
i guess when you're troubled you tend to seek solace in what looks like a 'like mind'.
4 - srp
that's interesting. i suppose it's normal to seek out as you say, a "like mind." I think though, speaking for myself, i actually DON'T identify with Plath -- i can get to her, understand her, but i'm not as erratic as she was, i'm not so black and white. i think for Sylvia, there was Absolute Good and Absolute Bad, and while i tend to believe in absolutes (which is likey part of my epilepsy), i am also so very aware of hte many shades of grey. that life is rarely so extreme. if she had seen this, then i doubt she would have taken her life. In some ways, i can respect her commitment to the absolutes - it's fierce and determined, but in the final account, she loses out on what could have been a pretty great life. she wanted perfect -- that is rare, if ever attained. If she only knew that the trick to getting closer what you want is to some extent, learning how to settle for less than perfect but pretty darn great...
just my opinion. . but it's helped me life a better life.
tx for reading and sharing about your wife; that's interesting, but dangerous. those kids need to focus on a role model who sees it through and doesn't take the easy way out. A person who went through immense shit but came out the other side, like William Styron (he's alive, right? i think he tried, but anyway). His book about depression is an absolute MUST if you are in that place. It's called "Darkness Visible" by William Styron. Check it out.
cheers,
srp
5 - Jame McPhail
Your piece is thoughtful and dramatic as Sylvia herself, but your georgraphy is off by miles. Sylvia lived on Johnson Avenue in Winthrop, Mass. Her parents (and grandparents) lived in a house on Boston harbor, which is several miles from the ocean side breakers in the photo, and your supposed apartment " few blocks away" on Winthrop Beach.
I guess imigination is what counts.
s
6 - Erstwhile Honan
Winthrop?
Not likely, since Ms Plath and her whole family moved from here when she was 10 years old..
7 - sadi
Plath lived in two places in Winthrop, one at the Schroeber's house and another on Johnston avenue. she moved when she was ten or eleven to Wellesley. the apartment where i lived is right around the corner from the Schroeber's beachfront place near Point Shirley, so yes, it was literally a few blocks away from where i was living.
Winthrop is important because Plath herself felt that this was her "true" home, according to her own diaries. She always felt that strong connection with the sea and often came back to Winthrop, even brining Ted Hughes here to visit the beach (the one i saw from my bedroom window) and her father's grave, which is right near St. John's Episcopal Church, where i attend and have seen Otto's grave.
I'm not sure what the disagreement is? Did you not know she lived in two places in Winthrop and that one was beach front? Also, you said, Not Likely without knowing where i live exactly -- so i'm not sure how you can know. The point and i believe i made it, if not, i'll say it here, is that Plath LIVED in Winthrop and that this was b y her own voice, where she considered home. That is what she herself thought, so amen.
If you disagree, then find some source b y her that says as much. I was saying that Winthrop WAS her true home, so i'm not clear on what the point was exactly -- in any event, Winthrop was close to her heart and she hated leaving here. That much i do know. and please, don't tell me where i live. If you are a Plath Scholar then you know she lived in two places in Winthrop, again, one on the beach, the other on the address you cite. What exactly is the problem here?
8 - sadi
oh, one more thing ' what the hell is "supposed apartment" a few blocks from the beach? Does it not exist? TRust me, i lived there up until a month ago. It exists. Indeed, it was less than half a block from the beach and the breakers. The harbor is NOT several miles, as you say from the photograph. It's about a five minute drive with traffic lights. Do you live in Winthrop? If so, then do as i did and make the drive and count the mileage. It's not "miles away..." as you say. I'm not going to argue geography with you but when you say my "supposed apartment" you're even doubting the existence of where i lived as if i had conjured it up, which is absurd. If you want to disagree about mileage, fine... but since i live here and make the drive every day and have visited all locations, then i think i would know. What's more, Winthrop itself couldn't be more several miles in and of itself. It's a small town right off of East Boston, separated by Saratoga Street, which runs over the water, so in effect,it creates and isthmus when the tide comes in. IF you live here, take the drive, count the mileage from Shore Drive to Johnson and report back. Otherwise, i'll have to trust that my apartment exists, that the photograph is near the breakers, that as you noted, as i note, plath lived in two places etc etc and that she often came to this beach in that photo came here with Ted Hughes.
I'm not repeating this again. It's too stupid. If you live here, again, go count the miles if it makes you happy, and if you like, i'll give you my old address so you can see that yes, in fact, it does exist and is yes, right there, a half a block from the ocean. Not imagination - but geographically correct and actually there.
9 - D.B. Cooper
It is kind of odd that this very interesting piece about a figure who has haunted us for several generations would be ignored all for the sake of making an unusual comment as to the location of the photograph or Sari's pad.....
Good God, we've all been haunted in some way by writings and photographs and history, and have returned to the exact spot where certain actions took place, perhaps hoping to catch a glimpse of a ghost, or imagine what it would have been like to have been there at a specific moment.
I have not a doubt Sari stood on those rocks, just as I have stood on rocks in Montana, in Gettysburg, in San Francisco, in Washington, D.C., imagining different places and unique minds. To doubt she did so is a bit strange....
10 - sadi
cheers, d.b.,
point well taken. be well, and rock on.
sadi
11 - J. Weaver
Hi,
I really enjoyed the article. I agree with the opinion you stated. I feel Ted's unfaithfulness sent Sylvia over the edge ending her life. Its a shame and tragic story of a relationship that went so wrong. It was a pretty cruel thing for him to do with a lady so honoring of him and so fragile in her own mind. I love her poetry though and she will live on in literary history. Thanks for the aritcle, it was an enjoyable read.
-Justin
12 - Sage
This was wonderful to read and i know all the places you talked about considering I grew up in Winthrop.
I suddenly felt like i was sixteen agian, clutching my ratty copy of bell jar as i stared out at the water.
Awesome.
13 - Johnthebarman
Thanks for a good read.