This week it's all about judging books by their covers! Pick a book--any book, really--and search out multiple book cover images for that book. They could span a decade or two (or more)...Or they could span several countries. Which cover is your favorite? Which one is your least favorite? Which one best 'captures' what the book is about?
"If I know a song of Africa, of the Giraffe, and the African new moon lying on her back, of the ploughs in the fields, and the sweaty faces of the coffee-pickers, does Africa know a song of me?" Karen Blixen
Organizing books this week, I discovered I have multiple copies of Out of Africa, Karen Blixen's memoir of her time in Kenya as an aristocratic owner and operator of a Kenyan coffee plantation. The many covers of this book that have appeared since its publication in 1937 seem to reflect three different themes in the text: the exotic appeal of the "otherness" of Africa; a pastoral and familiar ideal to Western sensibilities that reflects the intrusion of colonization; or a photo of the author signaling that this piece is biographical. A few odd covers including the movie tie-in seem to suggest that there is a love story between these covers but that is actually the stuff of the Academy award-winning movie and not this book.
Also interesting is the fact that most US editions list Isak Dineson (pen name) rather than Karen Blixen as the author. An attempt to link the book with the successful fiction products from the author? And finally, the title in French, Danish, and several other languages translates to The African Farm rather than Out of Africa. This focuses the text on a static location and an appreciation of Kenya rather than the possibilities of movement or exodus suggested by the Western title.
My favorite two covers are the first two featured in the mosaic at the top of this post. The first actually reflects an accurate landscape complete with workers, and the handwriting suggest the journaling that will be found inside. The second is the original cover from 1937 that has been re-released in recent years. The colors suggest the traditional and a pastoral ideal of the time but elements of Kenya are still represented there. I also have a weakness for the nostalgia of original covers.
Today in Literature posted an interesting piece this week about a lunch hosted by Carson McCullers in 1959 so that Karen Blixen could meet Marilyn Monroe. For those of you who would not be caught dead with a tabloid or People magazine in your hands but enjoy a bit of literary gossip, you should check this out. The eccentric Blixen makes for a great story.
