Mary Ventura bids a reluctant farewell to her parents before embarking on a train journey to the mysterious Ninth Kingdom. But what is the Ninth Kingdom - and will Mary reach it safely?
Sylvia Plath’s short story sounds dreamlike and that’s exactly how it reads! The premise and overall atmosphere feels like Plath by way of Shirley Jackson/The Twilight Zone though unfortunately it’s nowhere near as good as either. Considering she wrote this as a 20 year old undergraduate at Smith, the prose is surprisingly strong and you can see her literary talents emerging. Still, I wouldn’t call it a gripping or even half-interesting reading experience.
Sylvia Plath’s short story sounds dreamlike and that’s exactly how it reads! The premise and overall atmosphere feels like Plath by way of Shirley Jackson/The Twilight Zone though unfortunately it’s nowhere near as good as either. Considering she wrote this as a 20 year old undergraduate at Smith, the prose is surprisingly strong and you can see her literary talents emerging. Still, I wouldn’t call it a gripping or even half-interesting reading experience.
The deliberate vagueness and allegorical style intentionally lends itself to various interpretations. Is it simply a nightmare? A symbolic representation of Plath’s state of mind? A metaphor for the afterlife? Is the maternal woman on the train an angel or God? Is the train conductor Death? Is Mary dead – who killed her; her parents? Is the story a metaphor for Mary’s struggle to regain control of her life and destiny? An allegorical coming-of-age story? A metaphorical battle against the seeming inevitability of depression?
It’s impossible not to read the increasingly tense atmosphere and ominous tone of the story contextually, given Plath’s most famous for killing herself. Her first suicide attempt would shortly follow the completion of this story; she would fail for the last time ten years later.
I like aspects of the story – the strange train people, the doom-laden journey, the odd place names (Seventh Kingdom, Ninth Kingdom) – but, like a fleeting dream, Mary Ventura: Fret Detective was a little too insubstantial to leave much of an impression. Which is probably why Plath succeeded as a poet – that subtlety lends itself perfectly to the medium. And it’s fairly well-written, particularly considering her age at the time.
But it’s still a largely dull and unsatisfying read – like The Bell Jar, her prose leaves me cold and indifferent despite the potentially compelling subject matter. I find with Plath it’s more interesting thinking about her writing afterwards than it is reading it.
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