Euphoria - Elin Cullhed translated byJennifer Hayashida

 I think in reading a book like this the reader has to remember that it is a work of fiction not fact. The author takes enormous pains to emphasise this at the start of the novel, but I found it all too easy to become caught up in the narrative and wonder if this WAS how it happened. I’ve referred to Plath’s journals just to check things!

I guess this is such a bold book in attempting to inhabit the mind of one of the world’s greatest poets in marital combat with another of the world’s greatest poets!! The writing is muscular and substantial, and seems to convey the paradox of Plath’s power and weakness both emotionally and intellectually.

The novel focuses on the final year of Sylvia Plath’s life and in this respect it  does follow the sequence of events historically at least. And I imagine the majority of folk coming to this book do so because they have an interest or some knowledge of both Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, bringing their own perceptions with them. Are those perceptions matching those depicted in the story?

Something I think Cullhed has achieved is to show Plath as a multifaceted person, so real. There were times when I actively disliked her which I found unnerving because I’ve always admired her, certainly as a poet. I had the sense that Plath was on a rollercoaster headed towards disaster and a lot of it was of her own making. I wanted to yell at her to stop! As if that could have changed anything. Ted Hughes doesn’t come across as particularly likeable and yet he was up against a formidable force. I thought the depictions of the children were very real as well.

But how about the reader who comes to this book with no prior knowledge of either Plath or Hughes? What then? They would read a powerful novel of a disintegrating relationship between two people, a contemplation of marriage, motherhood, and how to resolve the mundane every day requirements of those states with a powerful and deep creative force. But however you come to it, it is a book of complexity. I also had the sense of the author’s understanding of Plath’s style, and it was written in a way that Sylvia Plath might have written it herself. The prose is poetic. The novel ends ends significantly, I think, before the tragic event of 11th February1963.

I finished this book in tandem with the news that Sinéad O’Connor had died, which moved me very much as I was a fan of hers too but somehow it seemed fitting.

My thanks to Canongate books for a gifted copy of this paperback.