Judging a book by it's cover

 

I was pootling round that cornucopia of incorrect and ill informed opinion the other day that now calls itself X when I saw someone complaining that "they had put the film poster on the cover Emily Brontë's novel.  I thought this was the poster from some 70s adaptation but actually this is from the 2026 film which isn't actually released till next month.  I think the "Now A Major Motion Picture" tagline made me think it was a 70s book.  Of course as an exercise in olympic level snobbery this tweet had collected negative feedback at such an accelerating rate that it's cowardly author had said that they had blocked replies.  "Well, I'm sure that'll stop you looking a massive snob," I said.  I then got several more replied from nincompoops trying to defend snobbery as a lifestyle choice.  Ideas travel upwards, manners downwards.  If everyone was a snob, argued one correspondent, there would be no snobs because they would somehow all cancel each other out.  A nonsense argument.  Actually, if everyone thought they were more intelligent and better than everyone else literally nothing would get done and there'd be no cooperation because society would become extremely management top heavy.  

Some tried to argue that the cover was ugly.  I don't see anything except the two central characters.  Am I missing something?  As this was a hard sell someone came up with the alternative image below and asked "What is this?"

To which the answer is...  It's the two central characters and a tree.  The tree outside the window by which Heathcliffe is found dead perhaps.  Or a tree on the moor?  It's not my choice of design but it's the kind of cover school copies of the classics used to have in the 80s.  Really, what is wrong with these people?

Perhaps the problem is that the images are too functional and don't represent the Barbers Cartlandisation that goes on in some of these people's minds.  Or that it's too romantic?  After all, Wuthering Heights I always feel was meant as a fairly dark satire on abusive relationships... It's funny that it should become some benchmark for romantic fiction.  Then again, perhaps that's why it's so successful... You can read it on multiple levels.  Whatever... The function of book covers is to entice people who haven't read a book to read them, not to reflect back the experiences and feelings of past readers...

I was particularly amused when someone suggested I stop judging people I "knew nothing about".  Where's the fun in that? Man, your snobbery oozes from your comments like sweat.

I went to the Brontë Parsonage Museum once.  It's a creepy place.  The silent reverence of the visitors as they pass old dresses and spectacles is very sad.  To be fair perhaps this is because the Brontë's lived rather short lives, all having died of common diseases well under 40 that we can now easily cure but the atmosphere was notably different to that inside your average National Trust or English Heritage property.  It was more like a mausoleum.  I mean Dylan Thomas drank himself to death but when you visit his home you don't feel people are there to mourn like it's Princess Diana's funeral.  You have to wonder what they'd make of it all if they could see it.  I think they'd be amused.