Aegis 2015
78
Book Review >>> Katy Major
American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath Rollyson, Carl. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2013. 319 pp.
The winter of 2013 spawned several additions to an already-sizable dearth of biographical work on Sylvia Plath. February 2013 marked the fiftieth anniversary of Plath’s suicide, an event which, in the years which have elapsed, has taken on the sheen of legend. Despite the substantial efforts of the Plath estate—headed by Olwyn Hughes, a formidable legal opponent and protective sister of the late Ted Hughes—biographers have speculated about virtually every aspect of Plath’s existence, from her formative years on the Massachusetts coast to her notorious stint as guest editor for Mademoiselle in New York—recorded semi-fictionally in The Bell Jar—to her latter years in the chilly depths of England with Ted Hughes and their children. Each biographer is limited to the same territory of thirty years, and with the biographer’s shrewd need to sell, each has taken a variable approach. In American Isis, Carl Rollyson has chosen an approach which explores not Plath-the-woman, but Plath-as-legend. Using Greek mythology—and, often, pop culture references from Plath’s time—Rollyson poses Plath as the enigma that the fan sees her as: a figure who is larger than life, immortalized not only by her work, but by the continuing fascination of those who knew her, and those fans and feminists who believe they do. In doing so, he sometimes makes astute observations about the firsthand accounts that Plath left behind—in the form of her journals or letters—but when he waxes on about Plath as legend, the author often seems to lose sight of the woman herself, robbing American Isis of the credibility of a biography grounded in fact. Given that such a wide array of biographical work on Plath already exists, newer biographers tend to emphasize their unique slant on the Sylvia Plath story. As Janet Malcolm chronicled the “Biographer’s War” against the Plath Estate—and between biographers—in Silent Woman, rather than retracing the winding narrative of Plath’s life once again, Carl Rollyson covers more metaphorical territory than literal. Rollyson offers little context to the reader, which he claims in the Author’s Note is a superior way of presenting Plath, writing, “Previous biographers do [scene setting] and more, and what strikes me about their work is how distracting all that background is” (xiii). While this is a refreshing strategy for presenting Plath’s life for the experienced Plath scholar or fervent fan, this lack of structural context often makes the narrative difficult to follow, which would make this text frustrating for someone new to the story of Plath’s life. Furthermore, Rollyson has a tendency to skim over broad descriptions, preferring to zero in on the minutiae of Plath’s day-to-day existence— this, a fascinating turn, particularly for someone who has previously read one or more of the older Plath biographies, although, again, a choice which may prove confusing for someone unfamiliar with Plath.
