Camille Sophia Landon '21

Sylvia Plath wrote Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom when she was a 20-year-old student at Smith College, and it was originally rejected from magazine publication and forgotten in her archives until it was published posthumously in 2019. It's a metaphor-heavy short story about a young woman's journey on a sinister train towards an unknown destination, and it concludes with the heroine, Mary, pulling the emergency brake and escaping the train station by ascending stairs towards a bright light. The mysterious train ride represents Mary Ventura moving towards her uncertain future, and it reflects Plath's own anxieties about growing into an adult and entering society. I see many of the fears that I have felt as a young woman reflected in Plath's voice in this story, so it felt appropriate to add this piece to the library collection, since it so clearly parallels how scary it can be to grow up far from home and unsure of where the future will bring you.

Beyond the allegory of this story, though, I love this piece because it was clearly written by a 20-year-old. The metaphor is heavy-handed and the plot lacks subtlety in some places, but it still has the bones of Sylvia Plath's developing literary voice. I think it's lovely to be able to look at a piece that is imperfect in many ways and to view it as a piece of the writer that Plath had yet to become. More generally, it's a nice reminder that college, and the things we create while we're here, are oftentimes less than perfect but are always important and unique.

I am a Linguistics major and Psychology minor here at Dartmouth. Beyond my academic experience, though, college has taught me so much about how to grow into a young adult and watch the people around me do the same. I've worked at the library as an information assistant since my freshman fall, and it's been amazing to come back to the library each term as a space to learn and connect with people. The library provides a physical plant that's consistent, even as Dartmouth terms feel like 10-week whirlwinds that are over before you know it. 

Having senior year and graduation amidst a pandemic has taught me not to take experiences for granted. In many ways, I wish our senior year could have happened under more precedented circumstances, but I've also learned that growing up and out of college is always an imperfect process, and it's best enjoyed when appreciated for all of the rocky parts as well as the highs.