Letters of Ted Hughes:

A fascinating review in The New York Times on a book I have been dying to read:

the massive collected letters of Ted Hughes, edited by Christopher Reid.

I’ve wanted to read it since it came out, for obvious reasons. And then Ms. Baroque was reading it, and posting about it – and I ate her posts up like a lunatic. This is when it wasn’t even out in the States yet, I believe! Ms. Baroque posted on February 11, 2008: “Well, please allow me to say this now. It’s still the first half of February, and this is my book of the year.” And then of course there was this post of hers , also referencing Hughes’ collected letters – which I found shattering. Shattering to consider his position in all of that, but then shattering, too, to think of what will be “left” in me, of my personality, when life has finished with me. What will be “intact”?

I love to read people’s letters, and Hughes – with his implacable persona for so many years – his participation in the psychodrama of Plath’s poems, his hovering presence over everything – has always been a mysterious man. Mysterious not just because he desired and demanded privacy after the personal madness of the 60s and all of the events therein – but mysterious because he was so vilified and demonized (to this day) … that there is no possible way he could ever defend himself. Why try? It was a personal matter between two highly volatile people, and if she hadn’t committed suicide, it wouldn’t have resonated in the larger culture at all. So Hughes paid MORE than a price for simple infidelity … not to mention the absolute horror of what went down a couple of years later with his lover Assia and their daughter. Now. This is not to say that Hughes does not bear some responsibility for, you know, enjoying the company of unstable women … there is definitely that. But isn’t all of that just a bit overkill? We can never know Hughes’ private agony, we can never experience it as our own … and while yes, I am curious to read the letters from those mad years … I am more curious to read the collection as a whole.

For example, in a letter to Anne Sexton, he began discussing favorable reviews and some of the dangers of them. And his words to Sexton are: “They separate you from your devil, which hates being observed.” Wow. Wow. Wow. This reminds me of Ellen Burstyn’s workshop (which I go into in this post, as well as in the comments section) having to do with the “shadow side”, and the great lengths that the shadow side will go to to avoid being revealed. Any time you see overtly fake acting you can bet that it’s either a complete and utter lack of talent … or it is the shadow-side trying to hide itself, throwing up a smokescreen of bad-acting to throw everyone off the trail. This is a deep conversation, and perhaps here is not the place … but that comment to Sexton blew me away. The devil hates being observed. I think lots of things – like writer’s block – and other types of artistic struggles – have their origins in some kind of demonic interference.

And then, the review in the Times closes with a ringing endorsement from Hughes of Plath’s final searing poems – put together by him after her death in the collection Ariel. Donald Hall, another poet, had expressed reservations about the Ariel poems, thinking they were too “sensational to be first-rate”.

Here is Hughes’ response to Hall:

Whatever you say about them, you know they’re what every poet wishes he or she could do. When poems hit so hard, surely you ought to find reasons for their impact, not argue yourself out of your bruises.

Incredible.

Can’t wait to read the book. Here’s a link to the review again

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