DuckRabbit
Well-Known Member
Is anyone else amazed at how differently a work of art can be evaluated across different eras? Below are two contrasting responses - dismissal of vs. rhapsodies for Sylvia Plath's 'The Bell Jar':
http://mentalfloss.com/article/64891/10-facts-about-sylvia-plaths-bell-jar
5. THE BOOK WAS REJECTED BY AMERICAN PUBLISHERS.
When Plath received a $2,080 novel-writing fellowship associated with publishers Harper & Row, she must have thought that publication was a sure thing. But Harper & Row rejected The Bell Jar, calling it "disappointing, juvenile and overwrought." While British publisher William Heinemann accepted the book, Plath still had trouble finding an American publisher. “We didn’t feel that you had managed to use your materials successfully in a novelistic way,” one editor wrote.
Cf.
From various online sources:
"The 100 best novels: No 85 – The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1966)" ... "acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that..." ... "The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic"... "The woman clearly knew how to write, and the imagery is utterly mind-blowing"... "The Bell Jar is so carefully constructed and considered. Despite the messy tangle of subject matter, Plath never rambles; and for all it's flowery and poetic language there is not an unconsidered word in the entire book."
I guess the opposite happens too - a work that is fulsomely praised at the time then sinks into obscurity in the fullness of time. Does anyone know of any such examples?
What does this suggest? That we are unequipped to judge contemporary artworks in our own day and age? They are subjected to social-political processes that have nothing to do with their creative or artistic properties? We can only judge artworks by looking back in history? (We need the distance of time) That views of artworks are fundamentally subjective? That we project our own psyches onto whatever artworks we are judging?
One review online said they prefer "childbirth" to reading 'The Bell Jar'; I personally found it full of dry wit e.g.,
"I had read one of Mrs. Guinea’s books in the town library— the college library didn’t stock them for some reason— and it was crammed from beginning to end with long, suspenseful questions: ‘Would Evelyn discern that Gladys knew Roger in her past? wondered Hector feverishly’ and ‘How could Donald marry her when he learned of the child Elsie, hidden away with Mrs. Rollmop on the secluded country farm? Griselda demanded of her bleak, moonlit pillow.’ These books earned Philomena Guinea, who later told me she had been very stupid at college, millions and millions of dollars."
~ Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/64891/10-facts-about-sylvia-plaths-bell-jar
5. THE BOOK WAS REJECTED BY AMERICAN PUBLISHERS.
When Plath received a $2,080 novel-writing fellowship associated with publishers Harper & Row, she must have thought that publication was a sure thing. But Harper & Row rejected The Bell Jar, calling it "disappointing, juvenile and overwrought." While British publisher William Heinemann accepted the book, Plath still had trouble finding an American publisher. “We didn’t feel that you had managed to use your materials successfully in a novelistic way,” one editor wrote.
Cf.
From various online sources:
"The 100 best novels: No 85 – The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1966)" ... "acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that..." ... "The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic"... "The woman clearly knew how to write, and the imagery is utterly mind-blowing"... "The Bell Jar is so carefully constructed and considered. Despite the messy tangle of subject matter, Plath never rambles; and for all it's flowery and poetic language there is not an unconsidered word in the entire book."
I guess the opposite happens too - a work that is fulsomely praised at the time then sinks into obscurity in the fullness of time. Does anyone know of any such examples?
What does this suggest? That we are unequipped to judge contemporary artworks in our own day and age? They are subjected to social-political processes that have nothing to do with their creative or artistic properties? We can only judge artworks by looking back in history? (We need the distance of time) That views of artworks are fundamentally subjective? That we project our own psyches onto whatever artworks we are judging?
One review online said they prefer "childbirth" to reading 'The Bell Jar'; I personally found it full of dry wit e.g.,
"I had read one of Mrs. Guinea’s books in the town library— the college library didn’t stock them for some reason— and it was crammed from beginning to end with long, suspenseful questions: ‘Would Evelyn discern that Gladys knew Roger in her past? wondered Hector feverishly’ and ‘How could Donald marry her when he learned of the child Elsie, hidden away with Mrs. Rollmop on the secluded country farm? Griselda demanded of her bleak, moonlit pillow.’ These books earned Philomena Guinea, who later told me she had been very stupid at college, millions and millions of dollars."
~ Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar.