Covering The Bell Jar

The internet sort of exploded last week with the release of the anniversary edition of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. In an interesting choice, Faber, who publishes the book, opted for what can only be described as a pretty fucking garish cover - one that really doesn't match the content. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's first and last novel, focuses on a woman in sixties America who grows increasingly disillusioned and dislocated from society and follows her spiral into depression. It's a beautiful study of character and femininity in an era that had very strong constraints on both. The protagonist, Ester, is both a mirror for what Plath herself felt, and really, one of the most compelling female characters ever written.


I have Strong Feelings on book covers generally. A cover should never just be about selling a book, but about encompassing and enhancing a written narrative. It's why a great cover is, well, so great and it's also why a bad one can undermine a great story. There's been a lot of conversation of late as to the difference in selling a female author and a male one, particularly in literature, as there is a reluctance to sell female authored books to the masses, regardless of the content. In particular, women who write domestic stories are seen to be writing 'chick lit' (Barbara Kingsolver, Jodi Picoult) whilst men who write domestic stories are high lit (Jonathan Franzen, Jeffrey Eugenides). It's a really interesting juxtaposition, and one that demonstrates the high levels of sexism still prevalent in the literary world. Lionel Shriver, author of We Need to Talk About Kevin wrote a pretty brilliant article on the issue back in 2010 and I'd encourage everyone to check it out.

Back to the issue at hand though, The Guardian UK blog has a pretty good sum-up of the new The Bell Jar cover and why it is so disconcerting - noting also though that Faber is brave to include a woman on the cover, given that so few publishers are willing to do that these days (the gentlemen clearly is not familiar with the Aussie genre rural romance). His case is pretty on-point, but the thing is, it's not even just that the cover condescends and belittles the subject matter and literary significance of the novel, it's a bad cover. From the violent red  to the strange woman who, from what little we see of her face, looks like she's smelling something especially bad, it's ugly, does nothing to sell the work and totally misrepresents the content. It's a shame too, as The Bell Jar has had some brilliant covers historically that could have been adapted or used better as inspiration for this new edition.

All that said I'm a strong believer in combating shittiness with humour, which is what makes the wide, parody response so great. In other words, check those out and feel better.