Sylvia Plath's Letters Volume 2 by Fay Bound Alberti

I have just finished reading the second volume of Sylvia Plath's Letters, published by Faber and Faber. They make for sober reading. The first volume, published in 2017, covered the period 1940-1956. In those, a smiling, bikini-clad Plath beams out from the front cover, while the pages are filled with the optimism and hope of youth. There are pockets of doubt and difficulty, the hint of rape and a suicide attempt, but also Plath's growing certainty of herself as a writer, a woman and an equal to the towering figure of Ted Hughes, with whom she is forever linked.

Letters, volume 1

It is evident from the book jacket that the second volume will be a more serious affair. Gone is the summer sun and the happy expression. Viewed from the side and in monochrome, Plath's expression is serious, her hair tied up in a no-nonsense style. In nearly 600 letters, we follow Plath's marriage to Hughes, their movement around the globe and the UK, her library successes and his more immediate recognition, childbirth and child loss, a breaking-down marriage and her suicide at the age of 30.

Letters, volume 2

To Plath, Hughes was a giant, a genius, a literary God. He must be fed steak for breakfast and waited on, his needs tended to. Yet she also resented her domesticity, her entrapment to the demands of her husband - first moving to Devon because he wanted space, searching for childcare in order to write,  and juggling the demands of that writing along babies, cooking, cleaning and tending to Hughes. The marriage was intense. It was also violent. She wrote to her psychiatrist that Hughes beat her when she was pregnant, causing her to miscarry their second child. 

In the foreword to the book, their daughter Frieda meets these claims head on. She writes in defence of her father, justifying his apparent violence towards Sylvia - which is also recorded in Plath's journals - on the problematic grounds that what was meant by 'a beating' is unclear (a hit, a swipe, a push?) and that her mother had been difficult, needy, disruptive. It is difficult to read this perspective, and to compare it with the plaintiveness of Plath's own journals, the constant fretting about existence that hovers at their margins, her need to do right, live right, be right. 

Yet it is clear in Frieda's foreword how difficult it must be to have parents so utterly in the public eye and simultaneously capable of creating division. Plath was better known after her death than in life, with her books The Bell Jar (a semi-autobiographical novel about a nervous breakdown) and her poetry. Her writing is said to have contributed to the development of the confessional style in literature. And yet it is Hughes who is remembered in Westminster Abbey, not Plath.

The Bell Jar, first published in 1963 

Plath's final letters were written just a few days before she died by suicide in her London flat. She had successfully moved back to the city after being left by Hughes (he was unfaithful with their tenant Assia Wevill, who, in a terrible mirroring would kill herself and her daughter in the same way that Plath died). Plath seemed to be getting better; she had been knocked by Hughes' infidelity and the subsequent rejection of some friends, and she struggled with Frieda missing her father. She was convinced that her daughter had 'latent schizophrenia', and she fretted constantly about her wellbeing. 

It took such effort on the part of Plath to reestablish herself, to find childcare, to push herself back into the London scene, that the exhaustion is apparent on the page. Her letters to people become repetitive as she tells one after another about Hughes' adultery and abandonment, the money he is to pay, his family's turning on her, her living in Yeats' house and how that was fate, and finally, the endless illness, colds and flu of her children. 

In the main, Plath's letters have an enforced jollity even when she is struggling. From time to time she was angry and critical with her mother, but she also felt responsible for her, writing to her sponsor, the American author Olive Higgins Prouty, not to pass on information that might cause Aurelia worry. Prouty had suffered with mental health problems too, so Plath felt she was an ally. Plath was convinced that Hughes wanted her to kill herself, something she refused to contemplate. 

But by the beginning of 1963, despite all her contrived hope and determination, Plath was sleep deprived, unwell, lonely and depressed. On 11 February, having previously convinced herself, and her psychiatrist that she was no longer a suicidal 'type', she left out a snack for the sleeping children, took precautions to seal the kitchen and gassed herself in the oven. 

23 Fitzroy Road, London, last residence of Sylvia Plath

Two years after her death, Plath's collection of poems Ariel was published by Ted Hughes. These poems, including the eponymous poem written on her 30th birthday, drew on the pain of abandonment and loss that had followed her marriage breakdown. This is the writing for which she is best remembered. 

ARIEL

And now I

Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.

The child's cry 

Melts in the wall. 

And I

Am the arrow, 

The dew that flies 

Suicidal, at one with the drive 

Into the red

Eye, the cauldron of morning. 

www.fayboundalberti.com 

Arvon Magic - Celia Rees

I'm sure that some of my fellow History Girls and our blog readers will have either tutored or attended an Arvon Course during their writing lives. For anyone who doesn't already know, Arvon runs a programme of residential creative writing courses and retreats for schools, groups and individuals. The five day courses are held at three centres: Totleigh Barton, in Devon, Lumb Bank in West Yorkshire and the Hurst in Shropshire and cover a wide range of genres, including fiction, poetry, screenwriting and playwriting. 

Lumb Bank

My first Arvon Course as a tutor was at Lumb Bank. The 18th century mill owner’s house once belonged to Ted Hughes and is set in a distinctive Pennine landscape with woods all around, a river at the bottom of the steep bank and the ruins of old mills just visible along the valley. It is about half a mile from the village of Heptonstall where Sylvia Plath is buried. Her grave is an object of pilgrimage. Writers leave pens and other offerings. If I'm there, I always find time to make the steep climb up to the village to visit her grave. 

My co-tutor on my first course was the late and much missed Jan Mark. A writer of considerable stature, huge talent and enormous erudition, we will not see her like again. It is good to see some of her books being re-published in the admirable Hachette Hodder Silver imprint. They serve as reminder of just how good she was.  She was also a highly experienced tutor, who had taught on numerous Arvon courses as well as being a regular at Ty Newydd in North Wales. I couldn't have had a better co-tutor; I learnt a great deal from her.

Jan and me - photo: Claire McNamee

Each day at Arvon is divided into workshops in the morning with individual tutorials and free writing time in the afternoon. The workshops are designed to look at aspects of the craft but also to stimulate new writing and can often be testing and challenging, pushing those participating out of their comfort zones. The one-to-one tutorials offer feed back and constructive criticism on work produced. The week is intense and draining for tutors and tutees alike, but at its best it can be transformative. Jan was a formidable tutor. Her workshops were brilliantly crafted to spur creativity and spark the imagination. She was quite willing to read anything and everything offered to her and she read every word. Her analysis was forensic and the criticism she offered, although not always welcome, was meticulously fair. Her advice was often to go away, try again, make it better. Wise words to any writer. She was also adamant that, while at Lumb Bank, writers had to engage in new work, not carry on with something that they had been writing before coming on the course. The last night is reserved for readings and new work was what Jan expected to hear. So that's what would be happening. No-one argued with Jan.  

Lumb Bank from across the valley

Jan was right, of course. Arvon has to be allowed to work its magic. And it is a kind of magic, a creative alchemy that comes from those five intense days and nights, the mixing of writers together, the focus on writing and only writing, the place itself. I still remember some of those Friday Night Readings, from this and other courses, how writers were transformed, how they wrote out of themselves. 

The most satisfying thing for a tutor is when a piece of writing that you remember, that was conceived at Arvon, becomes a book. One of the writers on that course was Tricia Durdey. She came with a  book already finished, she was just going to do a bit of final editing but Jan wasn't going to allow that. Tricia had to go away and think again. She came back with an idea for something she'd long wanted to write. A story set in war time Holland, involving a dance teacher and her class. It sounded intriguing, different. I told her to give it a go. She did. I can still remember her Friday night reading. Powerful, arresting, moving. Even Jan was nodding and smiling. I told Tricia that she should develop it into a novel, which she did, only to fall foul of mainstream publishers with their 'Not quite right for our list/the market'; 'If you could just change this, change that, make it for Young Adults/Real Adults/Children, give it another title...' and so on - we've all heard it - but she did not give up. Tricia has written about her experience of writing the book here.

By happy coincidence, another writer on the same course, Jan Fortune, went away and co-founded Cinnamon Press . Even more Arvon Magic. Not only are they writing books and getting them published but they are starting their own publishing houses.  How brilliant is that?

Jan has now published Tricia's book, The Green Table. My congratulations to both of them. Tricia has fulfilled her ambition to tell the story of dance teacher Hedda Brandt's struggle against Nazi oppression in wartime Holland. As Hedda's class dwindles, first the Jewish girl goes, then the girl handicapped by polio, we are reminded of bleak choices to be made, the heroism and sacrifice of ordinary people and the words of Pastor Niemöller:

 First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

underlying all is the eternal question: what would you do?

The Green Table is a story of love, loyalty and courage. Tricia makes fine use of dance and music to express spirited defiance in the face of brutal occupation. The book is beautifully produced and contains all the originality and passion I first heard on that Friday Night Reading in the sitting room at Lumb Bank. 

Celia Rees

www.celiarees.com

A DIP IN THE SEA – Dianne Hofmeyr

Muizenburg Beach, South Africa 1950

My father was a lifesaver, a surfer and an amateur early photographer. In an old shoebox I discovered heaps of negatives and sepia photographs some still in their buff Kodak envelope sleeves from the 20’s and 30’s. His surfboard was the thin wooden type with an upturned nose, sometimes called a belly-board – the kind where the surfer lies down as he catches a breaker. I found this wonderful photograph of him from the late 30’s with a girlfriend. The board is clearly visible leaning up against the back of the car. 

Photographs of his friends at a place called The Strand show a gang of them making pyramids and fooling around like teenagers. They weren’t teenagers but rather youths and young women. The term ‘teenager’ hadn’t yet been invented. There was nothing as indulgent as being a teenager. Boys and girls were expected to grow up and behave like grown ups. That’s why it was particularly special to find these photographs of people his age really having fun. He’s the one second from the front in glasses. (look at those cars and de rigueur sprigged beach dresses and sunshades)

When I started researching the history of surfing and swimsuits, I came across this photograph of George Bernard Shaw holidaying in South Africa in 1931. At Muizenburg, which is the next beach up from The Strand, at age 75, he had his first go at board surfing (see below). And apparently enjoyed the waters of South Africa so much that he extended his holiday by more than two months and went up the coast to Knysna to swim as well. I also discovered that Samuel Langhome Clemens (aka Mark Twain) as well as Jack London were all keen surfers.

For further photographs and a report of George Bernard Shaw in the South African Travel News, click here.

I went looking for more authors in swimsuits – didn’t find any History Girls – but I found this beautiful photograph of Sylvia Plath in a white two piece. 

For more writers in swimsuits click here.

Neither my father nor Bernard Shaw were the first to trying surfing at the Cape. In 1919 two United States Marines returning to the US after the war, arrived with their Hawaiian style longboards and Cape Town witnessed the first ‘stand up’ surfing ever done on its shores. They befriended a lady, Heather Price, (seen here in the photograph wearing a spotted cloth scarf... also de rigeuer beach headgear of the time with one of the marines ) She attempted to surf on the Hawaiian longboards. Surely South Africa's first woman surfer? But the marines took their boards back home with them when their ship sailed. 

An earlier picture of Cape Town with Lion’s Head and Signal Hill in the background shows bathing ‘machines’ drawn onto the beaches by horses so ladies could swim. These were replaced by the palisades of colourful bathing boxes that still stand at Muizenburg and St James and throughout England. By the 20’s women were beginning to show their bodies and fashions changed rapidly from the black stretchy knitted unisex suits to more glamorous swimsuits of printed cotton and even bikinis. I found this photograph of my mother (the ever present cigarette in her hand) in a skirted polka dot bikini, from the early 40’s, while my sister stands behind her in one of those stretchy bubbly swimsuits.

Again my mum in same swimsuit her surfboard and rubber bathing cap

From the 50’s there’s this one of my very curvy 15 year old sister. But those were the days of Marilyn Monroe, so curves were okay. 

A further search of the 50’s took me to three girls on leaning up against longboards on Bondi Beach, Australia and a stylish woman in black and white two piece swimsuit (look at the wonderful straw hats). 

My own photographs from the 60’s (not in the same shoebox) show me wearing a bikini on the famous 2nd Beach at Clifton where I had a white cat who used to join me on sand that was whiter than any beach I’ve ever been on.

Hope you all have a great summer holiday… beach or not!
www.diannehofmeyr.com

 THE MAGIC BOJABI TREE

'immensely satisfying' 
from Children's Summer Reading in THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY last week – 21 July 2013