Olaf, who is a poet of some renown amongst his catkin, swears that every facet of his art has always brought him unmitigated joy. I am often amazed in my discussions with Olaf that two such different species as we have coexisted for centuries. But it is to Olaf's credit that this discussion leads me to ask if pain is a discipline in the creative life. I decided it was necessary to study the matter, so I began a purposeful reading of Sylvia Plath, and ended my study with her. Why go further than the Poet of Pain?

So I began struggling through The Haunting of Sylvia Plath, by Jacqueline Rose. Rose critiques a number of important previous studies on Plath, and provides a good overview of her multifaceted subject. Although Rose offers some interesting insights, it is hard to get through the convolutions of her style. 

Just when I was getting bogged down in Rose's narrative, a friend of mine--and possibly a friend of yours--Marc Goldfinger-telephoned to say he had found a book of Plath's letters to her mother, Aurelia Plath. It was 60% off the original price. Did I want copy too? Marc ended up getting only 20% off his copy because he left one of the books on the train and had to go back and buy another copy. But I digress.

I must admit, at first such a novel analysis (see right margin) as that which Aurelia Plath put forward appealed to me. It made me think about my first year in college when professors-in-therapy threw novels at us like The Collector, Catcher in the Rye, Slaughterhouse Five, John Updyke's warren and of course, the poetry of Sylvia Plath. Amid so much depressing literature, it is no wonder impressionable youth is seduced by the morbid talents of such writers. But when I thought about my own relationship with my mother and the type of letters I write her I realize that Sylvia's letters to her mother also chatted about what Sylvia knew her mother wanted to hear. When I saw Marc Goldfinger again, contrary to Momma Plath, we both agreed there is a manic quality about her letters which leaves the reader exhausted by the pace of her optimism.

I had to go deeper. So I picked up Rough Magic by Paul Alexander because of all the Sylvia Plath biographies, and Alexander's was the only one who did not appear to have an agenda. He just told the story.

When we look into Sylvia's genealogy, we find that her paternal grandmother suffered from serious depression, as well as her aunt and her father's cousin. This might have been the number one factor behind her condition. Furthermore, Sylvia craved nothing more than to be crowned the greatest female poet of her time. For her whole life, she worked towards it with such an obsession that I was left to marvel at the amount of rejection slips someone as fragile as she was capable of bearing. It made me realize how much it takes to get recognition. And it made me realize how much Sylvia wanted to succeed. She was an artist willing to give everything to her art. 

When Sylvia met Ted Hughes, she met her match. Many have rushed to condemn this highly talented and volatile writer and lay full blame at his feet for the destruction of Sylvia Plath. Olaf disagrees vehemently on this point, and I am inclined to agree with him. Even if Olaf has never been guilty of taking a feminist line on anything, like a stopped clock he can be right twice a day. 

What Sylvia never told her mother. . . The first time Ted Hughes bent down to kiss her, Plath pulled away. Hughes tore off her hair band and her silver earrings and said, "Ah I shall keep these." Then he again bent down to kiss her. This is when she decided to show him what stuff she was made of and bit him on the cheek, hard enough to draw blood. 

Such phrases as, "made for each other" and "love at first sight" are not only the sentimental notions of romance novels. They represent a phenomenon that occurs every day. A woman from an abusive family marries a man who abuses her. An alcoholic immediately spots a codependent and the codependent spots the person in need of watching. These are facts of life, never to be condoned, but they exist, whether we like them or not. When Sylvia met Ted, they both knew instinctively that each had met the person who would make them the writer each sought to be.

Here is a man "huge enough for me," wrote Sylvia when she first saw him. Hughes was a large man who could rest his chin on the top of Sylvia's head, who herself stood at 5'10". Here was a man who exuded violence and whose very poetry wrapped around it. So despite sound advice, 111 days later they were married. It was a marriage of two enormous talents with enormous appetites and drives. 

After their honeymoon, Sylvia met her new relatives. Hughes's family lived in Heptonstall, a hamlet in Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, where isolation allowed the deeply superstitious inhabitants to indulge in witchcraft and the occult. Plath was a willing student, who allowed her husband to hypnotize her so that she could enter her unconscious, and write poetry based on it. 

Keep in mind that this is a woman who at 19 suffered a nervous breakdown-triggered by not being accepted into Frank O'Connor's writing workshop at Harvard Summer School. To make matters worse her doctor then prescribed electroshock treatment which was poorly administered and without the necessary medication that lessens the trauma of such treatment. Her depression worsened to the point that she took a blanket, a jar of water and a bottle of sleeping pills and crept into the crawlspace underneath the porch. She then consumed so many of the pills that it actually saved her life because it made her sick enough to throw them up in her sleep.

Nevertheless, Hughes and Plath spurred each other on and developed their craft using any means necessary to get to the marrow of their emotions and produce works that shocked and delighted the world. Hughes, three years older and a more mature writer, guided Plath to greater heights through reading and writing assignments. She not only critiqued and inspired him but sent his work to magazines, foundations, and contests.

Olaf claims that when somebody reads a pain-filled poem, he does so in order to feel a close connection to the writer. But I say, Olaf, what do you know? You're only a cat! People don't read about other's pain to give something to the writer! They're too self-involved for that. They read it because it touches on their own pain, or because the exquisiteness of the work is such that it produces a sweet and terrifying music, a darkness that hurts so good that one can enjoy for vicarious moments. Then they return to the normalcy of their saner lives, relatively unscathed. 

Olaf nearly destroys the moment only to enter as a Greek God and save it. . .

From the corner of my eye, Olaf gesticulates. There is nothing more eye-catching, nor distracting than a gesticulating cat. "Come to the point," hisses Olaf, for once not trying to bring attention to himself. But of course by now everyone is staring at him. I also stare. A sense of ugly panic rises in me as I struggle with the dénouement-the enlightenment that I set out in search of. 

Olaf sees this, steps in and says, "You have been saying that an artist hardly thinks twice about sacrificing everything for his art. He creates from the deepest recesses of his psyche, his soul, and if there be pain there, then that is what will be expressed and if there be pain and joy, then that is what will be expressed. And, if there be only joy there, then he will be a singular individual with a fruitful career at Hallmark Cards, or he will be me, Olaf, Olaf the cat." 

I wonder if this is the twice-a-day time when the Stopped Clock is right. I don't have an answer. Olaf will to do anything to steal a scene.