Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath

by Kate Moses | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: 1400035007 Global Overview for this book
Registered by trekwoman of -- Somewhere In The State --, California USA on 7/30/2008
Buy from one of these Booksellers:
Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | Amazon DE | Amazon FR | Amazon IT | Bol.com
This book is in the wild! This Book is Currently in the Wild!
3 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by trekwoman from -- Somewhere In The State --, California USA on Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Paperback.

Journal Entry 2 by trekwoman at Controlled Release, A Bookcrossing member -- Controlled Releases on Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Released 15 yrs ago (8/19/2008 UTC) at Controlled Release, A Bookcrossing member -- Controlled Releases

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

{r} RABCK!

Journal Entry 3 by JennyC1230 from Woodstock, Georgia USA on Saturday, August 30, 2008
Wow! I love Sylvia Plath! I have a book with all of her poetry. I also have the novel she wrote The Bell Jar. This book is so beautiful, it looks brand new. I am looking forward to reading this one!

Thank you Trekwoman, you are so special! :-)

Journal Entry 4 by JennyC1230 from Woodstock, Georgia USA on Saturday, May 9, 2009
Book Description:

This is the story of a woman forging a new life for herself after her marriage has foundered, shutting up her beloved Devonshire house and making a home for her two young children in London, elated at completing the collection of poems she foresees will make her name. It is also the story of a woman struggling to maintain her mental equilibrium, to absorb the pain of her husband's betrayal and to resist her mother's engulfing love. It is the story of Sylvia Plath.

In this deeply felt novel, Kate Moses recreates Sylvia Plath's last months, weaving in the background of her life before she met Ted Hughes through to the disintegration of their relationship and the burst of creativity this triggered. It is inspired by Plath's original ordering and selection of the poems in Ariel, which begins with the word 'love' and ends with 'spring,' a mythic narrative of defiant survival quite different from the chronological version edited by Hughes. At Wintering's heart, though, lie the two weeks in December when Plath finds herself still alone and grief-stricken, despite all her determined hope. With exceptional empathy and lyrical grace, Moses captures her poignant, untenable and courageous struggle to confront not only her future as a woman, an artist and a mother, but the unbanished demons of her past.

I am reading this one now and will soon journal it with my review!

Journal Entry 5 by JennyC1230 from Woodstock, Georgia USA on Thursday, May 14, 2009
My Review:

I have always been fascinated with Sylvia Plath since I read The Bell Jar (which is an amazing book). Her life seemed so tragic and her poetry was raw and wonderful. Some of her best poems were written when she and her husband were dealing with his infidelity and their separation. This book is a fictional account based on facts of what she might have been thinking, feeling, etc. those final nine months before she killed herself. I think that the author did a great job writing from Sylvia's point of view. Most of the time I forgot I wasn't reading an autobiography. This is a great book!

This is my favorite poem by Sylvia Plath:

Daddy

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time ----
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You ----

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two ----
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

More poems by Sylvia Plath

Released 14 yrs ago (6/16/2009 UTC) at ~~~ ♥ ~~~ A Friend ~~~ ♥ ~~~, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- USA

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

If you have found this book, welcome to Bookcrossing and thank you for taking the time to let us know about its journey. Feel free to enjoy the book and pass it along to a friend, neighbor, family member or co-worker, or simply leave it somewhere for another lucky reader to enjoy as you did! This book isn’t your type of read? No problem, don't feel obliged to read it, just be kind enough to help it on its journey. If you join, please use my name as your referring member: JennyC1230.

Sending to princess-peapod: If you want to read this, give it to someone, or put it in your OBCZ, it's all good!

Journal Entry 7 by princess-peapod from San Luis Obispo, California USA on Monday, June 22, 2009
I also have been a bit facinated with Slyvia Plath, this looks to be an intruging read, thanks for sharing!

Released 4 yrs ago (1/9/2020 UTC) at Little Free Library - Fern Wood Drive in San Luis Obispo, California USA

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Left at Little Free Library on Exposition
Read this quite awhile ago & found it interesting. Time for it to travel on to another reader

"A book is a mysterious object, I said, and once it floats out into the world, anything can happen. All kinds of mischief can be caused, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it. For better or worse, it's completely out of your control."
Paul Auster


Are you sure you want to delete this item? It cannot be undone.