Book Review: Lover of Unreason
The Doomed Affair of Assia Wevill and Ted Hughes
In mid-1962, Assia Wevill and her then-husband, David Wevill, visited the Devon estate of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. This visit would result in two marriages being irretrievably fractured, a suicide, and an intense on-off relationship between Assia and Ted.
A book review by author and acquaintance Peter Porter in the UK newspaper The Guardian describes Assia as having “wit, charm and generosity, and while she could be wilful and self-dramatising, she was also natural and straightforward - never in my eyes the ‘femme fatale’.” The book Lover of Unreason gives a comprehensive background on Plath’s rival, Assia. For the first time, readers discover Assia’s childhood experiences, and read about the complex, often triangulated relationships in her early life. Assia’s diverse personal experiences undoubtedly contributed to many of her sometimes dubious relationship choices.
A Diverse Existence
Before immigrating to England following the breakup of a disastrous, ill-advised first marriage, Assia Wevill had fled with her family from war-torn 1940s Germany to Israel. Assia’s parents, a Russian-Jewish father and a German mother, gifted Assia with an education at a prestigious private school.
Assia became fluent in many world languages, and possessed linguistic gifts of her own. She married twice before falling in love (while still married) with Canadian poet David Wevill. By 1962, David was an up-and-coming poet, while Assia had a steady job as an influential advertising copywriter. The two had no idea what fate held for them as they embarked on a visit to two old London friends, who happened to be Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.
A Fated Affair
What happened after the two couples met is now part of literary history. Assia and Ted began a passionate love affair which neither party hid from view. The marital breakup sent Plath into a serious depression from which she would never recover; she committed suicide in early 1963. Because of Plath’s suicide, Assia was considered by many to be a Jezebel who destroyed a happy couple’s marriage, and was shunned by many in the London literary community.
Ted Hughes, for his part, was obviously distressed over his wife’s death; his relationship with Assia began to suffer despite the birth of a child. It has been speculated that the stubborn, controlling nature of both parties contributed to the ultimate breakdown of the relationship, and its violent conclusion. This book also gives shape to social issues of the 1960s; if Assia had been a single mother in 1970s (when feminism was changing female household roles), perhaps her situation wouldn’t have seemed as bleak.
A Book for Literary Junkies
Lover of Unreason will obviously appeal to Plath/Hughes completists. However, this book will also be of great interest to anyone who enjoys literary biographies. Lover of Unreason is a haunting portrait of a flawed but gifted woman who has been painted as one of the biggest villains in modern literary history.
Yehuda Koren and Eliat Negev, Lover of Unreason. NY: Carroll & Graf, 2007. 280 pages.
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