Lover of Unreason: Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath's Rival and Ted Hughes' Doomed Love

by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev

Book Overview

The failure of the marriage between Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes has always been considered from one of two conflicting viewpoints: hers or his. Missing for more than four decades has been a third perspective on the events that brought their marriage to its ill-fated end, the story of another -- the other -- woman: Hughes' mistress Assia Wevill. Like Plath before her, Assia shared her life with Hughes for seven years, until she took her own life and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786721057
• ISBN13: 9780786721054
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Reasons for Suicides

This deeply researched book goes into detail after detail about Ted Hughes's relationship with two talented women living in an age about to burst with freedom for women. Although the Suffragette Movement had power, giving women the vote in decades before Sylvia & Assia were born, they were still (as the authors point out) stuck in a mind-set that "without a man, a woman is nothing." Romance to this day plays a huge part in people's lives, men & women, gay or straight. People do continue to commit suicide over failed love, especially teenagers. But this book goes into detail about how Assia's personality & life experiences led up to her suicide & the killing of her little daughter. Her father was a natural story teller & he adored her. Her looks slayed men, she could snap her fingers & they'd all lie down for her but she had--according to people who knew her--a strange lack of awareness of her own intense beauty. She had a gift with words, used this gift in her work as a translator (a job I wished for when I was a teenager) and an ad writer (a job my sister & I both thought would be fun--we were teens in the 60s, when Assia was writing ads). The description of one ad she wrote---based on the 007 movies & The Odyssey was delightful. There were so many little scenarios like this in the book, it made me want to read it straight through in one sitting. People who saw Ted Hughes at Assia & Shura's memorial service say he was weeping. Why was he so unable to be kind to women who adored him & put their projects/lives on hold for him? Assia easily kept other men in the palm of her hand. Her Russian soul identified with the tale of Anna Karenina. It must've been a shock to realize she couldn't keep Ted Hughes hypnotized. She clearly had come to a fearful place--a child out of wedlock back when that simply "wasn't done," lost her job, apart from her doting father, Hughes prevaricating as to whether he'd buy a house with her or not, trying to keep his relationship with her secret, him not admitting Shura was his daughter. Above all, the looming ghost of Sylvia Plath--perfect housefrau, good mother, genius of a writer. All that crept up on Assia as she faced the loss of her Cleopatric beauty. In the many photographs this book offers, she looked gloriously beautiful to me. There are women who continue to be beauties up into their 80s/90s. If only--if only--if only Sylvia & Assia had close friends who could reassure them that yes, beauty changes over the years or you can survive without a man. I wonder why Hughes didn't honor Assia's last wish to be buried in the simple countryside. The authors offer a possible reason. Why was Hughes such a predator? Perhaps the way he grew up, having to hunt to put food on the table, one of the few young men in a WWI descimated Yorkshire, resulted in a loner who had to shake women off him like a Retriever shaking off lake water? This book clearly explains how the tragic end of Assia's life was woven, begi

Great Read

I have read several biographies of Sylvia Plath, and one of Ted Hughes, but Assia seems to have been the forgotten point of the triangle. This book was very informative, giving lots of insight as to what made these people tick, and explains some of the mysteries of the lives of these three people. A very interesting book.

Great Yet Frustrating

This was a great book from the prespective based on the woman who caused the demise of Ted and Sylvia's marriage (in my opinion). There were many parts of the book where I found myself asking "what the heck is she thinking" or better yet screaming AT HER "what the heck is wrong with you" in various parts of the book. Not only did I find this book intriquing but by the end of it I was exhausted mentally from all the drama of her life. I would never put myself through reading this book again but I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is fascinated by the whole Ted, Sylvia, Assia triangle. It definitely sheds light on who she was but it also paints her in a negative light as someone so desperate for attention, yet seductively innocent at the same time. I took away from the reading a feeling of sympathy for her based on the choices she made, bad and good and the lives that she ruined because of her insecurity and loneliness.

Fascinating look at an era

Not only is this book the story of Assia and Ted Hughes, it also takes the reader on a wonderful trip back in time to pre-Hitler Germany. I love biographies which tell not only the life of the main character but begin with the subject's "beginning", including parents and grandparents and the world they faced during their lives. This approach reveals the forces and influences which formed the main character; in this case, Assia. This is a tragic story - a story which breaks your heart by the time you turn the final pages. The writing is intelligent and informative without being pedantic and carries the reader along as though you are there on the journey with Assia. Never gets bogged down with theory or analysis - just unfolds as it happens to a beautiful, sad, bright woman with fatal flaws.

Enriching

I found Assia Wevill a spellbinding, quite moving figure and couldn't stop reading. And between her and Sylvia I grasped much more about women than I ever knew before. This book enriched me. I commend it to all readers, though it's much less about poetry than about why and how people -- especially two unique poets -- love and act. Assia becomes a green-eyed flame on the page. You wish you'd known her, though she'd be a tough friend to console through her choppy rhapsodies with Ted and miseries with Sylvia's ghost stuck to her. The authors are clear-eyed about Ted as well with his self-inflicted dooms and wavering recoveries.