I was at Powell’s City of Books today and while perusing the shelves I noticed that some of books I was forced to read in high school had been redone with flashy new covers. What was disconcerting wasn’t so much that the covers were new–that’s just part of the “classics” sub-industry–but the kinds of covers. In particular was the cover for this edition of Lord of the Flies. If you click the link you’ll see that they’ve designed the cover with an enormous fly and a caricature of what I assume is an English prep-school boy.
Oh, and did I mention that this book was in the science fiction/fantasy section? It’s interesting, because while I can see some “fantastic” elements within this particular novel, I would never consider it to be fantasy or science fiction. Most people don’t, actually, and for good reason–it lacks much of what is typical of the genres. But the cover for this particular version gives the impression that the novel itself is perhaps part of the New Weird movement, or at least some sort of fantasy or strange novel. True, Lord of the Flies is certainly strange, but not that strange!
I suppose my problem with this is that the impression given by the cover doesn’t reflect well enough the novel itself. Maybe this is an illogical reaction to have. After all, perhaps giving a different impression of this particular book will bring more readers to the classics. That might be a good thing, or it might not (that depends on the reader).
What do you all think about misrepresentations on the covers of books? Are there other books you can think of where the cover did not match the book itself? Am I just being ridiculous?
