“You can’t judge a book by its cover”
I ran into that old adage in a newspaper article yesterday. It has always struck me as one of the silliest things ever said.
Oh, I understand the intent. Don’t look at a woman’s hairstyle or hemline and think you can place her; don’t take a man’s handshake or skin color as hallmarks of his character. Fine.
But of all the ways to suggest that the superficial is not the essential, the worst analogy of all must be book covers and books. Because book covers are expressly designed to convey a sense of the contents.
A gold police badge, with a black mourning band; a backdrop of a cityscape, fire-red and smoking. Romance novel? Cookbook? Police thriller?
A lemon yellow cover with a cartoon wedding cake, a knife plunged into it oozing red icing. Auto-maintenance how-to? Civil War history? Village mystery with a woman sleuth and a few recipes tossed in?
A black background with two slanted, glowing green eyes; raised silver lettering. Belles lettres? Comedy of errors? Horror?
A beautiful woman in a torn dress on a windy tor at sunset, tattered cloth exposing an ample bosom and supple thighs… sorry, lost my train of thought there. But you get the point.
The message is valuable. The adage is bewildering.
— Frenulum
