Remember when E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey was first published and you would see that book everywhere, and I mean everywhere? It was such a success that people devoured the book. Regardless of where you stand regarding the content of the book, the truth is that the novel became one of the most read texts in the history of literature, even competing with The Bible. What James did with her saga was make the romance genre extremely popular once again leading to many rewritings and adaptations (yes, those terrible films that are still haunting us every once in a while). The interesting part of the book, if we were to analyze it in sociological terms, is both the openness and shame regarding the reading of it in public spaces. During that craze you’d see that grayish cover everywhere. Yet many readers wouldn’t dare to take it out of their houses due to the fear of being seen and judged for reading it. There were some really cool memes and images of people on the bus with fake covers wrapped around their book when it was, in reality, the one and only Fifty Shades.
So, when does reading become a shameful activity?
If you think about it, the issue here is the subject of the book, the story of a rich man with BDSM interests wasn’t something people wanted to be related to, and being such a well-known cover, they felt the need to conceal the true content of their books from the public’s judging eye. However, this phenomenon has happened for a while with so many different books. More than being worried about the content (it’s very hard to notice what someone’s reading on the streets, unless you’re very close to them) the covers are the ones who reveal our reading preferences. And it is precisely the editor’s choice of cover what gets us in a pickle some times.
While it’s true that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (I know it’s a cliché that doesn’t always apply), sometimes publishing houses make the job quite hard. Not so long ago, Penguin Modern Classics decided to give their list of titles a whole new image, perhaps more attractive to new audiences. However, it would seem that the one in charge of this duty didn’t really foresee the consequences of their art choices when they authorized the new cover of Roald Dahl’s beloved Charlie and the Chocolate Fabric. The cover consisted on a photograph of a doll-like girl wearing bright pink clothes and makeup, sitting on the legs of who appears to be her mother, of whom we only see her legs and part of her dress. The most unsettling thing about the cover is actually the girl’s face, who looks surprised and serious at the same time. Many argued that the cover was extremely sexualized, since it resembled the Lolita essence and was understood as creepy and inappropriate. Naturally, the editors didn’t take long to give an explanation, claiming that the cover had nothing sexually implied on it, but that they wanted to portray the unhealthy parent-children relationships depicted in the book.
The thing is that we often show how dirty our minds are and we constantly over-interpret images the way we like. That’s what we could claim regarding Dahl’s cover. But some of them, like the ones you’ve been seeing throughout the article, are clear as water. Why do publishers opt for this kind of suggestive and, at times, explicit covers? I would venture to say that it’s all a marketing ploy. If you think about it, we’re visual creatures, so the best way to get to us is through images. The contents of the book are not our main concern at first glance. We grab the one that catches our attention the most. Thus, these eye-catching covers are meant to be chosen by readers and make sales. The good thing about all this is that most of these books are actually great literary pieces written by important authors, so maybe we can deal with the shame of reading them in public. Here the content is what matters.
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Sometimes we worry more about what people might think about our reading choices than really worrying about what we want. That’s the reason why so many people lie about the books they have read. However, if you really want to become a true literature know-it-all, here are 51 classics you can’t miss.
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