Book at Lunchtime: Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life

[@alisonwinter9022]

Very grateful that this discussion has been uploaded. Currently reading the book now and very much enjoying it.

[@laylacordall7654]

Thank you all so much for being here, i have been a on a bi polar journey since childhood and am now in my 60th year caught in the ring cycle, to arrive at the hope for the future of mankind that Ted Hughes spoke of, by resonant vibration I have met with Sylvia in Lorelei and sank to the depths and wept ever since I heard her read 'daddy', her story meets my own like the river meets the sea, we learn how to love at this juncture, whoever would have imagined that their story was here waiting for me...peace be upon the author and family and all here at this panel who spoke so wisely and wonderfully.. Thank you.

[@jackjohnhameld6401]

I am revisiting this discussion having just purchased Jonathan Bate's new book on Keats and Scott Fitzgerald.

[@BUKCOLLECTOR]

Enjoyed your discussion. I’m a poet specializing in Japanese forms of poetic endeavor: haiku, tanka, haibun, kyoka, senryu. I hope you don’t mind me sharing a tanka and my haiku a tribute poem to Bashō’s frog with commentary by the late Jane Reichold who also considered my poem among her top 10 haiku of all time. What an honor. Here’s the Bashō poem and commentary: Bashō,s frog four hundred years of ripples - -Al Fogel “At first the idea of picking only 10 of my favorite haiku seemed a rather daunting task. How could I review all the haiku I have read in my life and decide that there were only 10 that were outstanding? Then realized I was already getting a steady stream of excellent haiku day by day through the AHA forum. The puns and write-offs based on Basho's most famous haiku are so numerous I would have said that nothing new could be said with this method, but here Al Fogel proved me wrong. Perhaps part of my delight in this haiku lies in the fact that I agree with him. Here he is saying one thing about realism-ripples are on a pond after a frog jumps in, but because it refers back to Basho and his famous haiku, he is also saying something about the haiku and authors who have followed him. We, and our work, are just ripples while Basho holds the honor of inventing the idea of "the sound of a frog leaping is the sound of water". As haiku spreads around the world, making ripples in more and larger ponds, its ripples are wider-including us all. But his last word reminds us all that we are only ripples and our lives are that ephemeral. It will be the frogs that will remain”. My tanka/kyoka: returning home from a Jackson Pollock exhibition I smear my face with paint and I turn into art -All love in isolation from Miami Beach, Florida. Al

[@JuracyRibeiro]

Fantastic event! I would like to read Ted Hughes' biography in Portuguese. Please!

[@jameswhitehead1016]

Absolutely fascinating ...

[@arthurfrancisd.murphy1643]

excellent discussion

[@daisy7066]

I cant wait for Oxford to have a day on The Nurse's autobiography!

[@Andy-lm2zp]

Dark and remarkable book, needs to be tempered by reading the poems that are referenced , otherwise could be quite a depressing read.

[@daisy7066]

Highly subjective that he was "gorgeous", I know contemporaries who differed....

[@daisy7066]

Funny how unartistic relatives suddenly appear out of the woodwork after death.... she keeps referring to Assia's death so matter of fact.... three times...… as if an object.... no thought for those who knew her.... which may be how TH saw her... .no mention of how he saw her then.... all TH cared about was himself.

[@lizziebkennedy7505]

Very very true. But Celia was Assia’s sister and they were close. Assia confided in her, she didn’t come out of the woodwork

[@davis7099]

Came here after reading an article about Hughes. Are you a Phillist ( Larkin ) or a Teddist ? Both are post war English poets, both Oxbridge, one taking the pithy truths out of the day to day and the other re-channeling the primitive nature of hunters and hunted. One man awkward and bespectacled, the other a hawk in a leather jacket. Much of the interest in Hughes is about him as a high priest of seduction. Let's be honest.` I prefer the wit and glumness of Larkin to the slightly show-offy Heathcliffe Hughes. Larkin thought Plath the better poet.

[@lizziebkennedy7505]

Larkin was miles better than Ted

[@WitoldBanasik]

I do apologize for bringing this up but Ted Hughes appears to me like another embodiment of the Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hyde syndrom. Having been a poet myself I can't entirely disconnect Hughes as an artist- however prophetical, brilliant and passionate he might prove to be- from the horrible persona that he proved to be in real life; I mean certainly his egomaniac behaviour and lack of sympathy towards Sylvia Plath and towards his second partner who comitted suicide as well a couple years later. Ted admitted somehow cinically that the death of Sylvia had been unavoidable (sic!), because of her alleged mental illness; while the passing of his second almost-to-be wife could have been preventable- what a satanic megalomaniac ! Well, William Shakespeare led an exemplary life privatelly, Van Gogh, Newton and Sylvia Plath were at least decent people, yet at times difficult personas to be with. Ted Hughes was kind of a human insensitive individual in private life. I hardly managed to get through his poetry... he is one of very few men of letters I can't find likable in any way. I know, I am strange, biased and intollerant; not to mention an unprofessional literary critic. True. That's why I have been preferring writing to reading.. at least since 1990. I leave an extensive reading to professional critics and poetry aficionados- with all due respect. "One must be drunken with poetry, wine or... whatever- in order to oppose the pressure of time..." Agreed 100% Mr. Baudelaire !

[@gavinreid8351]

Witold W. Banasik alleged mental illness! She did have treatment and was hospitalized due to mental health problems.

[@eleutherialekona]

He was a psychopath.

[@monicaangelini3324]

Alleged?

[@WitoldBanasik]

Thank you for your comment. Sylvia. . I admire Her very much. .. well she had been diagnosed with a bipolar disease as far as I remember.

[@daisy7066]

she wasn't a manic depressive!

[@daisy7066]

stop blaming Sylvia

[@NedGough]

Tempting though it be, it really isn't a good idea to take sides in this matter. No one should "blame" anyone. If you want to be harsh, you could say they deserved each other! They were both in their twenties. Both ambitious. Probably both a nightmare to live with. He probably didn't know how disturbed she was, because no one was in a hurry to tell him, but he soon found out. Let's just say he didn't leave her because he simply fancied a change. . .

[@lizziebkennedy7505]

@@NedGoughtake sides? How shallow. How about, weigh the immense primary evidence. Hughes was a charlatan. If he had any ethics, he wouldn’t have cashed in on her oeuvre after her desth, when they were separated.

[@lizziebkennedy7505]

@@NedGoughhe did fancy a change. He did the same thing to Assia, Brenda and Carol, for,the rest of his life. He even called them his ABC’s. You clearly haven’t read much.

[@NedGough]

@@lizziebkennedy7505 There’s no need to get personal. You really don’t know how much I have or haven’t read. I’ll withdraw the last sentence if you like, that wasn’t the important bit. I stick to the rest.

[@juanvelez8564]

This is a fascinating panel discussion. I thought at first that Anne Farrar Donovan would not have much of interest to contribute, but she gives a picture of Hughes's life that none of the others could do. I was very moved by her description of Hughes's daughter Frieda, whom I had seen in another documentary. From the short "Tribute" documentary, where comments were blocked: "The Iron Man" -- an oblique look at masculinity? Could Spenser's Talus be indirectly behind it? Hughes had the misfortune to be the Byronic Orpheus of his time. And of course the feminist Maenads exacted their revenge.

[@deborahpixley99]

QJuan Vélez

[@deborahpixley99]

Juan Vélez yuh gnu

[@tjo1984]

Strange opening to this discussion, objectifying Hughes, then doing the same about "American undergraduates".

[@lizziebkennedy7505]

What an ignorant remark.

[@Andy-lm2zp]

Can't see it about Ted being gorgeous, charismatic, striking but I don't see what they see, just a blokey bloke

[@lizziebkennedy7505]

Women said it, not blokes. Idiot.

[@xyzllii]

This 'great nature poet' from Yorkshire was passionate about hunting , shooting and fishing. Say no more. (((

[@gavinreid5387]

The people who I know that understand wild animals most deeply are hunters. They track every move, every sound ,and have a deep knowledge of animal behaviour. I do not hunt.

[@DarkAngelEU]

Scruton is also deeply in love with nature, but thinks hunting is a great tradition... Maybe it's a British thing? In Belgium we prefer to be scientific.

[@eleutherialekona]

A psychopath.

[@lizziebkennedy7505]

@@gavinreid5387what absolutely bollocks. Lying rubbish. Hunters should and will be banned. Most ignorant venal people on earth.

[@lizziebkennedy7505]

@@DarkAngelEUIf the English used science, they’d implode. They can’t even manage basic logic.

[@PK-re3lu]

Interesting discussion. Really wish 'intellectuals' would leave off with all the hyperbole... Everything is a masterpiece, brilliant etc. today. Meh! Sounds like an exercise in self-congratulation.

[@Philmebatty]

Bit of a pseudo intellectual circus

[@sandraglass2865]

She sounds South African.

[@lizziebkennedy7505]

So?

[@Phil-p7p]

Great discussion