Sylvia Plath

Lips the colour of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like 'guilt, and guilt, and guilt': these are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom. 'But what is the ninth kingdom?' she asks a kind-seeming lady in her carriage. 'It is the kingdom of the frozen will,' comes the reply. 'There is no going back.' Sylvia Plath's strange, dark tale of independence over infanticide, written not long after she herself left home, grapples with mortality in motion.

Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom

Silje Løvli Lorentsen

anna haskins 

lala

This short story was written when Plath was only 20 years old and was rejected… The story itself is concise, only about 40 pages long, but it doesn’t fail in moving the reader through its pages. Mary Ventura is a girl who’s boarding a train, the ticket was bought by her parents, and her parents only dropped her off at the station, they said that the conductor will tell her when she has to get off, but no clue in her destination, despite it being The Ninth Kingdom. As the story goes, Plath drops hints on what the Ninth Kingdom is, through conversations that Mary Ventura has with a woman that she met aboard the train, who seems to know much more than she does. Past the halfway mark, the suicide allegory becomes much clear, and you can’t put down the book from then on. I won’t tell you how this book ends, but suffice to say, this book left a pretty good mark since I finished read it last July and still remember a good deal of it. I have to say that it’s not as quite literary forward as The Bell Jar, but it has all the defining qualities that Plath has.

aleksandra

3/5

Written by a woman, with brilliant writing, a short story with great meaning - although it made me look out the window a few times and think for a moment, even though it was only forty pages long.

Laura Rodrigues de Pina

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preparing myself for the great depression aka the bell jar

Never before published, this newly discovered story by literary legend Sylvia Plath stands on its own and is remarkable for its symbolic, allegorical approach to a young woman’s rebellion against convention and forceful taking control of her own life. Written while Sylvia Plath was a student at Smith College in 1952, Mary Ventura and The Ninth Kingdom tells the story of a young woman’s fateful train journey. Lips the color of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like “guilt, and guilt, and guilt”: these are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom. “But what is the ninth kingdom?” she asks a kind-seeming lady in her carriage. “It is the kingdom of the frozen will,” comes the reply. “There is no going back.” Sylvia Plath’s strange, dark tale of female agency and independence, written not long after she herself left home, grapples with mortality in motion.

A Story

“There are no return trips on this line,” the woman said softly. “Once you get to the ninth kingdom, there is no going back. It is the kingdom of negation, of the frozen will. It has many names.”
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The impending sense of doom and the crawling chill of others’ indifference growing faster and faster in step with the wheels of the train that is headed to the Ninth Kingdom… Although short and very fast-paced, this short story has a unique depth and realness that Plath does so well. A great short story, not to be missed.

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4.5/5

Ryan 

a purely allegorical and metaphorical book ambiguous enough to interpret many things about this book. usually not my cup of tea where i have a lot of questions about this story (including a lot of grammatical errors) but i wouldn't say that it's bad in its entirety.

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We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.

And human laws are made only for us to improvise the hell out of it. Let someone buy the ticket, take the ride, skip the forced consciousness expansion and go with whatever you had in mind. 

The other day my boss said that it is normal for one to make mistakes, that is part of being human, but to not act on a situation and let it carry them away, that is just pathetic. That's exactly how this one makes me feel. To be decisive, to manifest one's own destiny, to not surrender to fate.

I love how this short poetic romansbildung built such a journey with the slow train ride, and the frantic feelings of an anxious teenager. Heck, even if this is made for spunky teenagers, I think everyone could still read and enjoy this one.

renni

Ninguém realmente te prepara para crescer, para realmente estar no mundo. Estamos tão sozinhos quanto qualquer outro. O que é do destino pertence somente ao destino.

Nascer, crescer, recrescer, recrescer, recrescer, decrescer, morrer.

O conto pode ser visto como "sombrio" levando o contexto da vida da Plath na época mas o que ela traz aqui é a nata do crescimento, da descoberta, do medo e da independência. E no final de contas acaba sendo sombrio mesmo. Como muitos de nós passamos por isso é um mistério mas no final... a jornada é só nossa.

Rana Saleh

It’s a bit dark and symbolic, it hit me in the middle of the way when I began to understand what the Ninth Kingdom is.. 
After reading a little about Sylvia Plath and her death, the story makes so much sense now.

“It will be an easy trip. Everyone has to leave home sometime. Everyone has to go away sooner or later.”

“Mary sighed, “Well, at least the rest of the passengers seem content enough.”
“Yes, don’t they. That is the horror of it.”

I think this short story is about developing agency and finding independence as a young adult..? There is a lot of color symbolism and allusion that corporatism=hell / nature=heaven. Pretty good for a story written in Plath's undergrad years. 

Ashlyn

Aya kamel

I can't say i understood the symbols 100% but I loved it ❤️❤️ especially the narration

Kholoud Ayman

** spoiler alert **
           كتبت سيليڤيا بلاث هذه القصة في عمر العشرين وقامت بأول محاولة انتحار بعد كتبتها بعد أشهر والذي ساعد على فهم معنى القصة.
تبدأ القصة بوجود ماري مع والديها في محطة القطار وترددها في ركوب القطار وعدم استعدادها لهذه الرحلة يدفعها والديها لركوب القطار وإقناعها أن ذلك المصير المحتوم للجميع.
تقابل تلك السيدة ذات المعطف البني ومع مرور الوقت واجراء الحديث مع تلك السيدة تبدأ ماري بملاحظة شئ مختلف وبارد بخصوص القطار والركاب وعند سؤال السيدة عن وجهة القطار " المملكة التاسعة" تجيبها السيدة أنه مكان قاسي بارد لابد أن يتجه إليه الجميع ولا إمكانية للعودة من هناك، تصاب ماري بالزعر وتخبرها أنها لا تريد الذهاب هناك وأن والديها هما من ابتاع لها التذكرة، تقرر ماري أن تنزل من القطار قبل المحطة الأخيرة لتنجو من المصير المحتوم مجهول بوجهه آخري لا تعرف عنها شئ.
القصة تمثل الحياة والموت والخير والشر، فالقطار يمثل الحياة التي تبدأ منذ لحظة ولادتك بدون إرادتك واتجاهك المباشر نحو الموت مثل مسار القطار لا إمكانية للايحادة عن ذلك، واستمرار الزمن في المرور اي كانت الاحداث التي تدور مع متن القطار، واتجاه الجميع كالموتى الأحياء غير مبالين بالنهاية على الإطلاق، هروب ماري بإرادتها من القطار قد يمثل قرار الانتحار.
قصة جميلة وتحتاج لقراءة أكثر من مرة للتركيز على تفاصيل سيليڤا العظيمة، مثل تكرار وجود اللون الأحمر، الرفاهية التي قد تسعى بها على القطار والخدمات مقابل دفع الجزاء بالنهاية.

Jill Swan

I love Plath, and I'm always happy to discover prose of hers that I haven't read before.

Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom

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