Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom: A Story

i love early plath for its clear connections with her later work, not for their own sake. mary's dread is much like esther's, but her release is complete. mary is accompanied by the woman in brown into the light while esther is alone. but both stories leave me with the same emptiness. maybe i should separate the art from the artist, but with plath it's impossible. if in life she found no exit, how can i trust her characters to find it?

I am so glad I bought this without knowing anything about it. An utter, absolute delight of craft and symbolism. (As you read it, remember that it has never been edited; it's exactly as she wrote it before she submitted it to Mademoiselle, which rejected it.) This one stays on my shelves.

Os diários de Sylvia Plath ultimamente têm me chamado para que eu os leia, já está na minha estante há anos, mas antes quis ler esse continho que foi primeiramente rejeitado para publicação sem razão de ser.
Claro que arte pode ser interpretada de diversas maneiras, mas a minha leitura desse conto respinga na jornada da morte, isso seria uma recorrência em Plath desde sempre e não tem porque eu tentar ler de outro jeito, mesmo porque desde sempre igualmente me identifiquei com isso. Psicanalticamente dá para desmontar como uma cebola.

I loved this story but I can confidently say that I'm not really sure what it was actually about. It was well written and spooky and I love trains and it left me with a lot to think about... Lovely.

Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom
by Sylvia Plath
2019
Faber & Faber
5.0 / 5.0

Mary Ventura, a young girl, tearfully says farewell to her parents before stepping onto a train, This journey should take her to the Ninth Kingdom- but which exit is it?? Will she ever find it?? You can feel the unease and dread as the train keeps going, nothing seems real on this journey.
Haunting and partly auto-biographical, this novella Sylvia wrote when she was young and although submitted to magazines, was never published. Until now, with publisher Faber & Faber celebrating their 90th birthday with a book series called Faber Stories. They will be released throughout the year and feature stories by well-known authors. I hope I can find more in this show more series. show less

Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom was written by Sylvia Plath while she was a student at Smith College in 1952. She submitted the story to Mademoiselle magazine, but it was rejected and is now being published for the first time.

Mary Ventura’s parents have purchased a train ticket and are putting her on a train to the Ninth Kingdom. She doesn’t want to go but is coerced by her parents. On the train, she is watched over by a kind woman who helps her in her discovery of independence.

It is not difficult to see why this piece was rejected for publication. It does not come close to Plath’s later writing. It is very simplistically written, almost juvenile. While the story was interesting, its length does not do justice to what I think show more it could have become if she had expanded upon her ideas. Symbolism and allegory abound. show less

Anything that is prose from Sylvia I am going to read eventually. Such a wise and mature voice for her age, such an old soul, wish there was more prose from her, she's so good!