UD finds this Ted Hughes story – whose origin seems to be a chat Janet Malcolm had with A. Alvarez when she visited him while writing her book about Hughes and Sylvia Plath – strange. The story has been picking up steam for awhile – it’s repeated in Jonathan Bates’s new Hughes biography (see my headline) and in other reviews, and has been tweeted hither and yon, etc.
Do you believe it?
Not about the vomiting. The vomiting’s fine. Do you believe that she vomited from sexual desire?
The story itself is a bit shaky. Alvarez identified the woman simply as “this woman I knew,” who told him “many years later” about her lustful spew…
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I think it’s a case of one-upping. The woman must have known the famous story of Plath lustfully biting Hughes when she first met him, and in chatting about him with Alvarez the woman decided to come up with something better.
A few more of these and it’ll be like MadLibs:
When I first met Ted Hughes I __________________.
Bit him
Vomited
Evacuated my bowels
Shrieked Holy Himeros, collapsed, vomited, and evacuated my bowels
Bit him, vomited, evacuated my bowels, shrieked Holy Himeros, and collapsed
Und so weiter.
October 15th, 2015 at 2:06AM
UD, I take umbrage at what you seem to be implying. I’ve had several women vomit, evacuate, break out in rashes, speak in tongues, roll their eyes into the back of their heads, bake me a cake, levitate and need to be hosed down, all while in my presence. The cheap Mexican tequila had nothing to do with it….