Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
So, UK publisher Faber released a 50th anniversary edition of The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's classic meditation on descending into mental illness, and it decided to give the cover a bit of an update--by decking it out with a portrait of a chicklit-tish Devil Wears Prada-esque material girl. That's the update next to the original, above. Faber, apparently hoping to modernize the book's appeal, should have seen it coming: complete and instantaneous online backlash.
However, the fracas has given rise to a fine exercise in literary remixmanship; internetters first submitted their own modern trend-aping Bell Jar updates, then moved on to other literary classics. Here, finally, is a way to get the young'uns--all they know is social media and video games and memes, after all--to take an interest in Flaubert and Joyce. Thanks, internet.
First, The Bell Jar as Hunger Games:
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
And this is actually probably is what someone who actively considers himself a young artist looks like about now, because My Chemical Romance are poets, man:
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
But the best for last, obviously; sorry Emma, it's maddeningly dull online, too, I'm afraid.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
