Quote of The Day: Want Everything And Nothing (Part 7)

This is the 7th part of the story. The previous 6 parts are here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

I just realized that I haven’t finished this series, which is about two books I read on Sylvia Plath. Among the two, “Red Comet” is the most recent one and it is very long. If I had not got an audible copy of it, I probably wouldn’t have finished it. I like the first 80% of the book when it provides a lot of details of Plath’s life. However I am not sure about the last 20% of the book, which tries very hard to create a blameless image for Ted Hughes and put all the blame on Assia Wevill, whose affair with Ted precipitated the separation of Ted and Sylvia, and led to Sylvia’s suicide.

Actually when Assia Wevill first appears in “Red Comet”, she is said to be very beautiful, energetic, and smart. And her history is depicted with sympathy and even praise. However, at the end of the book, the tone changes. Her shortcomings are listed and the damage she did to others are enumerated. She is to be blamed for everything. I somehow think that the author was under pressure and had to write this ending due to the pressure and sanction from Ted’s family. If the author didn’t agree, she would not gain access to Plath’s diary and other intimate material, which were essential for the completion of the book.

Assia Wevill had a very complicated life. Born in Berlin, Germany in 1920s to her well educated parents, she had dreams and ambition for herself, but it all came crushing down in 1930s when the Nazis came to power. Being half Jewish, she had to flee to Palestine with her relatives and spent her time in Tel Aviv as a waitress and dancer. In 1940s, she met a British soldier there and married him. They immigrated to Canada, where she met her second husband, an economist. Several years later, she met the Canadian poet David Wevill and married him. They came back to London and she started to work in an advertising agency.

She was very talented and energetic in her work. Unfortunately in 1950s, she couldn’t exist as a self sufficient entity. She had to tie herself to a man. Although she married three times, none of the relationships made her happy. When she met Ted, she thought she finally found a poet and an artist who could really make her happy. She even tried to write poems, but her poems were unsatisfactory. Sometimes it makes me wonder why so many women, like Assia Wevill, with looks and ability and ambition and everything, can’t find happiness no matter what they do. Probably because they are looking for happiness in the wrong place, and barking at the wrong tree.

Unfortunately her affair with Ted didn’t lead to any happiness. It didn’t even lead to a marriage proposal. She tried everything–she got an abortion for Ted; she took care of Ted’s two children; she gave birth to a daughter, thinking that the kid would save their relationship. Finally when all hopes were gone, she killed herself and her daughter.

I don’t think Ted was to be blamed for the misery of the women around him. He didn’t do anything that was terribly bad. Even his affair was not really uncommon among married couples with a seven year itch. He is just a regular guy, not good enough to be a saint but not bad enough to be a villain, not so responsible as to do house chores but not so irresponsible as to be a bully or a deserter (of her own wife and children).

Still people can’t help noticing that Ted reaped all the benefit of the financial windfall of publishing his wife’s poems, became the poet laureate for two decades, won the Pulitzer Prize, got recognized as a talented artist while the two women who loved him perished in poverty, desperation, loneliness, hopelessness, and madness.

(The End)