After Nyne spoke to author, and media commentator, Polly Courtney yesterday about Faber’s controversial new cover design for the 50th anniversary edition of Sylvia Plath’s classic The Bell Jar.
Courtney, who famously left HarperCollins in protest against unsuitable covers for her own novels, says
‘In my view, it is overly ‘girly’, mildly insulting and – most importantly – unrepresentative of what is inside, from what I have read of the contents. Why oh WHY must publishers assume that
(a)books written by women are only for women and
(b)women only want books that are about makeup and beauty?
I’m fairly sure Plath would be turning in her grave.’
Polly Courtney’s comments are added to the many dissenting voices around the globe, who are wondering how Faber, an esteemed publisher with a first class reputation, could have got this so wrong.
I quite like the cover actually. It’s feminine but there’s an undertone of darkness, coldness to it. I think the cover is about the idea of “façade of perfection” rather than literally about make-up. Nevertheless, that’s up to one’s interpretation. There’s something sinister about that 1950s-ish picture of a woman putting on make-up and a blood-red background. The woman’s reflection in the small mirror, even if it is only a reflection of her mouth and nose, looks rather austere, cold. there is no smile, there are no eyes.
Plath, if you listen to her interviews, seemed very confident, was a model student and had a rich, deep, womanly voice. But underneath all that, the lovely façade, there was darkness and a doll-like coldness towards her own herself. Some of her poems have a superficial air of coquettish darkness that is betrayed by the irony implicit in the poems.
I quite like the cover actually. It’s feminine but there’s an undertone of darkness, coldness to it. Plath, if you listen to her interviews, seemed very confident, had a rich, deep, womanly voice and had an awarely ironic coquettishness about her. but underneath all that, the lovely façade, there was darkness and a doll-like coldness towards her own herself. I think the cover is about the idea of “façade of perfection” rather than literally about make-up (that’s my interpretation, of course). Plath looked very perfect on the surface; she was a model student, she found fame as a writer early, she was married to another famous writer, she seemed very femininely graceful and had a sensually feminine voice. However, like I said, she had a lot of darkness and coldness inside, and sometimes amidst her confident tone in public interviews one could hear a slightly sinister undertone. And there’s something sinister about this edition’s cover, about that 1950s-ish picture of a woman putting on make-up and a blood-red background. The woman’s reflection in the small mirror, even if it is only a reflection of her mouth and nose, looks rather austere, cold. There is no smile, there are no eyes.
p.s is “awarely” a word? anyway.