The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

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Practically every character in The Bell Jar represents someone—often in caricature—whom Sylvia loved; each person had given freely of time, thought, affection, and, in one case, financial help during those agonizing six months of breakdown in 1953. . . . As this book stands by itself, it represents the basest ingratitude. Ernst Krauss, Die schweigsame Frau, program notes to the Dresden 1977 recording (conductor Marek Janowski). Translated to English by C. P. H. Linnemann. This tale involves a 1930's English woman in a loveless - albeit wealthy and advantageous - marriage who gets involved in a pre-WWII anti Hitler spy ring...and a good old fashioned murder. There is some good mystery - a few rather tense thriller moments - some interesting historical notes I wasn't aware of - and some good, clean, direct writing. The story flies by and kept me engaged the entire time. It's hard to change. But I think you have to, especially if you know you're going to write coldly about them."

Casaglia, Gherardo (2005). " Die schweigsame Frau, 24 June 1935". L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia (in Italian). As a big fan of historical fiction, I knew right away that I will love this book. However, I was very surprised by Catherine's courage and fearfulness. Though I spent every day with her for six years, and was rarely separated from her for more than two or three hours at a time, I never saw her show her real self to anybody—except, perhaps, in the last three months of her life.In her professional encounters Malcolm benefits, perhaps, from the fact she is small and deceptively slight. "I am unthreatening in ordinary life," she says. "But when you write about someone – that's the threat. That's the distinction. It's very easy to be unthreatening and nice. But then you have to take that harder step – that's when the aggression and heartlessness comes to the fore: in the writing." As a historian I loved The Silent Woman as it was set in my favourite time period. As a literary fan, I loved The Silent Woman with its great plotline and strong believable characters. I read it in just one sitting. I think it would make a fabulous BBC drama. Jade has already figured out that Sylvie is far from catatonic and is, contrary to Wells’ representations, capable of communicating. And armed with the stories related by Portia, Jade begins investigating. She has to know what Sylvie tried to tell her . . . and why. During the course of researching Iphigenia in Forest Hills, Malcolm did something she has never as a journalist done before: she interfered with the story. The man responsible for awarding custody of the couple's child to Borukhova's husband, despite the woman's accusations he'd abused both her and the child, revealed himself in an interview with Malcolm to believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy, that the world was run by a secret "communist-like system," and to hold a range of other opinions that would, surely, reduce his credibility as a witness. She passed on her notes to the defence attorney, who asked the judge for permission to re-question the man, after evidence had come to light "concerning his mental health". The judge denied the request.

I am writing from London, so happy I can hardly speak. I think I have found a place. . . . By an absolute fluke I walked by the street and the house (with Primrose Hill at the end) where I’ve always wanted to live. The house had builders in it and a sign, “Flats to Let”; I flew upstairs. Just right (unfurnished), on two floors, with three bedrooms upstairs, lounge, kitchen and bath downstairs and a balcony garden! Flew to the agents—hundreds of people ahead of me, I thought, as always. It seems I have a chance! And guess what, it is W. B. Yeats’ house—with a blue plaque over the door, saying he lived there! And in the district of my old doctors and in the street [where] I would want to buy a house if I ever had a smash-hit novel. The Silent Woman is an imaginative, fast-paced mystery at the center of which are two women who loved and married the same man. Jade is intelligent, intuitive, and skilled at conducting research. Her investigative efforts are, at times, thwarted, forcing her to devise alternate means to determine if her almost saint-like husband and fairy tale marriage are both, in fact, too good to be true. Admirably, she does not shy away from uncomfortable realities. Rather, the story zips along at a steady pace as she pursues clues to the truth about Wells’ history, his relationship with Sylvie, and what really happened on that fateful night three years ago when Sylvie’s life changed forever. Those portions of the story are related in a first-person narrative from Sylvie, giving them authenticity and context. Admirably, Jade is a woman who knows she made have made a mistake and is willing to take responsibility for her choices, as well as hold others accountable for their actions, even if that means dismantling the life she has only begun creating with Wells. “I should’ve known fairy tales only exist in fiction books and imaginations,” she laments.

All the recordings are of cut versions of the opera except for the 1977 one led by Marek Janowski. In staged performances cuts of 25 to 30% of the music are not uncommon. The full running time is about 3 hours. Children and dogs are welcome, however, please let us know upon booking if you are bringing your furry friends as we have a separate area for dogs, and of course a dog free restaurant for our other guests.

Now stop trying to get me to write about decent courageous people—read the Ladies’ Home Journal for those! It’s too bad my poems frighten you—but you’ve always been afraid of reading or seeing the world’s hardest things—like Hiroshima, the Inquisition or Belsen. The relationships between the characters were complex and nuanced, and I liked seeing things develop, or gaining more insight into why certain characters get along and others don’t. I would say that the book was more character driven than really driven by the mystery, which works for me since I love character books. In particular I found Isabelle and Catherine’s relationship intriguing, since I don’t think it was ever clearly explained why Isabelle dislikes Catherine so much, and how she was so convinced Catherine was the murderer. I would’ve liked to see their relationship fleshed out some more. Three years ago, Sylvie suffered a catastrophic injury. She hasn’t uttered a sound since. None of the world-renowned physicians, psychologists, or other specialists consulted have been able to elicit so much as a word from the silent woman . . . until now. Zahr, Oussama (24 July 2022). "Review: The Silent Woman, an Opera About Putting on an Opera". The New York Times . Retrieved 10 July 2023.

ACT 1.

My favourite character was Catherine. I really admired her strength, courage and determination. It would have been very easy for her to toe the line and do as society and her family expected but the fact she doesn’t really shows her character. It was quite startling reading about what rights a woman had at this time, which wasn’t actually that long ago, and how much control men had. Cat really pushes against this and refuses to conform. Her arguments with her sister in law were brilliant and helped add to some comic moments in the book. The years passed, and one day a poem by Anne Stevenson appeared in the Times Literary Supplement entitled “A Legacy: On My Fiftieth Birthday.” Anne was now a grand literary lady. Her poem was full of poets and editors and critics and friends and children and dogs, and its tone of intimate allusiveness evoked a society of remarkable people meeting in each other’s burnished houses and talking about literature and ideas in their quiet, kind English voices. I briefly considered writing Anne a note of congratulation and identifying myself as an old Michigan schoolmate—and didn’t. Her society seemed too closed, sufficient unto itself. In “The Bell Jar” Plath conveys what it is like to go mad. In the “Ariel” poems she gives us what could be called the waste products of her madness. The connection that art draws between individual and collective suffering is drawn by Plath’s art in a way that not every reader has found convincing. Howe, for example, extends his criticism of “Daddy” to the whole of “Ariel.” “What illumination—moral, psychological, social—can be provided of either [extreme situations] or the general human condition by a writer so deeply rooted in the extremity of her plight?” he asks. And yet what was exacted from Plath was so far beyond what was expected of the gushing girl with the Samsonite luggage that we must all agree on the singularity of the achievement. How the child, “plump and golden in America,” became the woman, thin and white in Europe, who wrote poems like “Lady Lazarus” and “Daddy” and “Edge,” remains an enigma of literary history—one that is at the heart of the nervous urgency that drives the Plath biographical enterprise, and of the hold that the Plath legend continues to exert on our imaginations. ♦

Jade Westmore had the life she's always dreamed of. Living with her new husband, Wells, in the palacial estate of Hollywood icon, Viviette Westmore, her husband's late grandmother, and contracted to write a biography of her life. However, there is a catch. Behind the gates of the estate, hidden from street view in the caretaker's cottage lives Wells' first wife, Sylvie. Three years prior, a sudden accident left Sylvie uncommunicative and fragile. It is the best-written and most stirring polemic of the year. Completely brilliant.”–David Hare, The Times (London)The story line of an old man marrying a young woman who turns out rather differently to what he expected has its roots in classical antiquity: the play Casina by Plautus (251–184 B.C.) being an early example. Perhaps the closest progenitor is from the Declamatio Sexta, a Latin translation of mythological themes from the Greek sophist Libanius. [19] Sylvie lives in her ex-husband's caretaker's cottage, located on the premises of Wells and Jade's elysian estate. (Huh?) Jade was, of course aware of the unconventional arrangement when she agreed to marry Wells, as well as the fact that Wells was initially deemed a suspect by the police, who were never able to establish precisely how Sylvie ended up in the pool. Or whether her injuries were accidentally or intentionally inflicted. In fact, one of the conditions of their marriage is that Jade is to play no role in Sylvie’s care and maintenance. Because her physicians are not sure how much of the world around her Sylvie is able to comprehend. She has overheard Wells use words like “manic, catatonic, physical outbursts, lethargic, unstable, mood stabilizers, appetite stimulants” in conversation with Sylvie’s caregivers. Also, Wells wants to avoid burdening Jade with any responsibilities concerning Sylvie. Thus, Jade is to keep her distance and never enter the cottage in which Sylvie now lives. I also know that a person can think they know someone and end up knowing nothing about them at all." bang the door was shut and he was sloshing brandy into a glass and I was sloshing it at the place where my mouth was when I last knew about it. . . .