Comments on: Sylvia Plath’s Son?

By: Leianna Zohs

Leianna Zohs — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:50:15 +0000

Interesting read.Nice voice. You should write more often eh?

By: JB

JB — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 08:44:20 +0000

Hi John,

Great article and I really enjoyed the podcast. I read that a critic should not simply grade art but adds value by placing it in context. Nobody will remember you as a critic because you create art. I recall the cyanide bullet poem with fondness, though only Googling around much later did I figure out WTF you were talking about. I will read some Hughes, since I can see that same dark joy.

You sounded good during the interview. You were very on point and prepared. I was a bit disappointed with the ambush comment against Britain that your interviewee never got to respond to, and the apology of self-indulgent length. Also, the intern who said “copyright 2009″ sounded like McLovin from Superbad.

Best wishes,
JB

By: privileged ape

privileged ape — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:10:14 +0000

No, a weak article. Plath and Hughes don’t need to be foils for each other - both have idiosyncratic strengths — nor has either poet been in any way neglected by the poetry-reading community.

Pleasant Hell is a great piece of writing - Lighty is wrong.

I hope you detest the intellectual parasites that stick to the bottom of your articles as much as I do.

By: L'artista precedentemente conosciuto come principe.

L'artista precedentemente conosciuto come principe. — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:09:29 +0000

Parole vuote di uno studente del secondo anno di invecchiamento.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:17:30 +0000

Brilliant. Every. Fucking. Word.
I’m trying to say something besides amen.
When I read the obits, I was, at first, shaken at the tragedies that seem to hover like the Furies around Ted Hughes when I read his son’s obituary (his son sharing the same love of the wild and of fish as his father), but then, pissed, too at the slighting.
More than that — I feel a bit the same way when I found someone else who liked Joy Division back in the day. I’ve never met any one who shared my enthusiasm and admiration for Hughes. I can’t tell you the useless hours I spent making a case for Hughes with the members of the Plath coven. I was serious enough that I blew my chance for certain sex with some of them. Well, one of them, anyway (Now that seems like a rare example of good taste and good judgment on my part, then, it was a minor tragedy.) I’ve lost hours, maybe weeks of my life, trying to defend Hughes against the W.H. Auden devotees, too. To find out someone — really, any one, let alone someone whose work I deeply respect — fought the same battles and shared the same cause — is just a magnificent relief.
Thank you for your generous and grand article.

By: Slithe

Slithe — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:37:55 +0000

Some Random Asshole,
You must be looking at a different picture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sylvia_Plath.jpg) than I am. I would do her (if she were alive and still looked like that picture), but I am a horny basement-dwelling nerd.

Dolan, I am surprised that as a lover of opium and an appreciator of fantasy that you don’t give more credit to Coleridge. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is BY FAR the best work of fantasy (real fantasy i.e. phantoms and fancy as opposed to untalented ripoffs of Dark Ages England) in the English language (to my knowledge). Despite it being a poem, it is vastly superior (in the area of storytelling) to the plodding Lord of the Rings. Also, do i have to mention “Kubla Khan?”

By: Some Random Asshole

Some Random Asshole — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:14:01 +0000

Sylvia Plath was fucking hot though. And with all these mental problems, you know she’d just about rip your dick off.

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:12:33 +0000

These are the two sides of Dolan. The first side is him fighting the stupid, irrelevant battles of his youth. Who gives a shit about the 70s feminists? As far as I can tell, I couldn’t be bothered with either them or Hughes, although I’ll concede his point that Hughes sounds a touch more honest, and hell, reading Dolan blather about the 70s is actually pretty good fun even if it’s slightly embarassing.

Then there’s the glaringly, painfully relevant side, and the Famine is part of that. It’s not because of its victimology but because it was the beginning of something that shaped the whole world but that no one wants to talk about; the British reshaping of the globe into their own image, rights and lives of other people be damned. Dolan is the only person I can think of who writes cogently and readably on this, just like Ames (who’s another one with a substantial pitiful-bullshit side) and rampage shootings.

What ties the two together is how people use literature to evade obvious truths and make palatable stories out of the world. The anti-Hughes faction did and do it and so do the Tory apologists, and that’s why they’re both in this article (as well as Dolan’s habit of digressions, but fuck it, I’d rather read his digressions than most writer’s main points anyday).

By: Lighty

Lighty — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:54:32 +0000

No, you’re wrong Supdogg. I couldn’t be bothered because I was just so tired, and near the end. John knew what I meant.

And this is book…

http://www.lulu.com/content/2074501

Free and shit. ‘Cause that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

By: supdogg

supdogg — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 05:27:37 +0000

Lighty, are you retarded? That’s a serious question.

Stop trying to take the high-road with comments like “but I can’t be bothered” …. that’s the kind of thing you say when you’re PRETENDING you know what you’re talking about. I got a GOOD laugh at your “can I plug my book” comment. Let me guess … a book about your “mental breakdown” … kind of like the one you tote around on your site? Good thing you quit smoking and drinking to recover, my man … those habits may increase your chances of getting cancer!

PS: Stop dragging Thompson’s name through the mud, it’s really sad.