In 1963

Yesterday was a sad anniversary - on that date in 1963, the poet Sylvia Plath died. Her 'novel', The Bell Jar, is among the most disturbing pieces of writing that I have ever read. It seems to me that she was a sensitive, brilliant spirit, rudderless in a highly competitive, materialistic and unspiritual milieu. I think much of her behaviour was influenced by the most destructive impulses of feminism - which is a movement that, in trying to make women assimilate maleness, has always been a disastrous and damaging force.

Plath's approach to life was so often performative, her aim mainly to impress or astonish. If the concept of love entered the head of the heroine of The Bell Jar, I don't think, from dim recollection, that she mentions it. In fact, that may be what was so disturbing about the book - it is an account of life in a world where love is of no account.

Plath had a weakness for being showy and histrionic, she was desperate to please or, failing that, to be noticed. All the same, at her best, she produced some wonderful writing, and she was a genuinely pitiful soul. I find it very sad that she seems never to have had any wise and affectionate guidance.

Here is one of her loveliest poems. I wish she had been happier:

Balloons, by Sylvia Plath

Since Christmas they have lived with us,
Guileless and clear,
Oval soul-animals,
Taking up half the space,
Moving and rubbing on the silk

Invisible air drifts,
Giving a shriek and pop
When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling.
Yellow cathead, blue fish —-
Such queer moons we live with

Instead of dead furniture!
Straw mats, white walls
And these traveling
Globes of thin air, red, green,
Delighting

The heart like wishes or free
Peacocks blessing
Old ground with a feather
Beaten in starry metals.
Your small

Brother is making
His balloon squeak like a cat.
Seeming to see
A funny pink world he might eat on the other side of it,
He bites,

Then sits
Back, fat jug
Contemplating a world clear as water.
A red
Shred in his little fist.