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The Bell Jar: extended, revised and overblown
Authors’ intentions trumped by need for profit
By Joshua McCracken
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Chuck Palahniuk is probably just a little nutty/nihilistic, or that Sylvia Plath was probably a little depressed when she wrote “Tulips” (understatement of the century).
That’s it; it’s finally happened. The DVD revolution has penetrated the book world.
Earlier this year, I bought my first copy of “The Bell Jar.” I tore through the book pretty quickly, and was mildly confused when I got to the end but still had 30 some odd pages to go. After flipping through it, I realized that inside were numerous “special features” – biographical info about Sylvia Plath, original drawings, etc.
This was clearly a ploy thought up by some clever person to sell more copies of the book. After all, which would you rather have: a book or a super-special edition of a book? That’s what I thought.
A few months after buying the “Bell Jar,” I decided to buy “Ariel: The Funereal Cut” (also known as the Restored Edition). Inside were yet more special features, since both were published as P.S. Editions of the Harper Perennial Classics publication.
Just as was the case with “The Bell Jar,” these special features ranged from the mildly interesting to the inane. What do I care what the original manuscript looked like?
Now I love special features on DVDs. I like to learn more about how a film was made, what people involved felt about it, etc. However, this same principle does not apply to books because in my mind, every single thing you might want to know about the author is imprinted in the words they wrote.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Chuck Palahniuk is probably just a little nutty/nihilistic, or that Sylvia Plath was probably a little depressed when she wrote “Tulips” (understatement of the century). Books, unlike movies, are subjective bits of information that are meant to be interpreted subjectively, the same as most forms of art. Movies, sadly, leave very little to the imagination.
In case you hadn’t heard, Harper Perennial also released “special” editions of “On the Road,” “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” “Naked Lunch” and countless other works. My problem is that special editions are not necessary for these books.
Most DVD special features were made specifically for the DVD release, and most movies made prior to the advent of DVD technology might have a feature or two on the cultural relevance of a film.
If these P.S. books had something more along these lines, they wouldn’t bother me as much. My copy of “Brave New World” has an essay that Huxley wrote 20 years later about his book, and had Sylvia Plath lived 20 years after completing “The Bell Jar,” I would be interested to see her thoughts on it.
She didn’t, though; she died within a few months of publication, and the same goes for many writers whose works are now being published with these special features. They do not have any more perspective to offer on their works.
Besides that, writers are not movie stars. There are no middlemen to their works, with the debatable exception of editors. However, for the most part their thoughts survive as intended.
It did not take 50 people to bring a book to life. It took one, and they probably said everything they wanted to say in the text that has been provided. Do you really need to read the bitter rantings of a dead poet’s daughter in the preface to her mother’s book? Or the opinions of some academic blowhard?
Book reading, sadly, is on the decline. Readership is at an all-time low, and as a library employee I can tell you that for every book checked out, at least seven DVDs are checked out as well.
It’s sad, but that is no excuse to cheapen a book by adding worthless features that were not necessary to the understanding of the people who bought it when it was first published. Books are books; DVDs are DVDs. They are two separate mediums of expression.
I’ll leave you with this age-old question: If a red apple and a green apple mate, what color is the apple?
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