September 3rd, 2010 / 11:16 am
Snippets

Is opening a writer’s archives to the public after his or her death wrong, even if the author’s estate approves?

95 Comments

  1. Caketrain

      Dead writers have been universally silent on the topic, suggesting a passive acceptance.

  2. Matt Bell

      You know how grotesque this is going to be when people from our generation die? A bunch of PhD students sifting through the internet histories and google searches of the greats? The Facebook statuses? The tweets? Studying how often you google yourself or check your Amazon ranking? Ugh.

  3. rk

      depends on how supposedly the supposedly is. most writers probably start readying for posterity before their first publication and i have nothing wrong with that. but if someone says, ‘burn it all’ then you should burn it all. i never buy it when someone says ‘yes, he said burn it all, but he said it with a wink.’

  4. stephen

      would really like to see what’s in salinger’s vault

  5. Blake Butler

      i’m mainly thinking of Wallace, with his upcoming archives, and his particular privacy about these kinds of things, and the weird way it seems his estate has been handled thus far.

  6. Blake Butler

      jesus

  7. rk

      that’s hilarious. and true. thankfully some of us will never have to worry about it!

  8. Blake Butler

      hehe

  9. stephen

      somewhat related, i heard “the pale king” will have an accompanying website with drafts and things

  10. marshall

      “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.” -Ecclesiastes 9:5-6 [KJV}

      Word… Who gives a fuck… Dead people don’t care…

  11. herocious

      did he ask them to be burned? because if he didn’t ask them to be burned i think they should be burned.

  12. Blake Butler

      yeah, he should have probably totally worried about his looseleaf papers before arranging the noose.

  13. Blake Butler

      ugh

  14. lily

      fuck. here’s to hoping i amount to nothing.

  15. Lincoln

      I don’t have a coherent stance on this kind of stuff. There seems to be a lot of variables. Often writers seem to say they don’t want stuff published when they probably do. Other times people are publishing stuff that the writer clearly didn’t want seen.

      In general I’m happy to see stuff that increases our appreciation for an author (what would literary history look like if Kafka’s work had never been published?) and bummed to see work that might decrease it (did we really need to see a like 1/4th finished “novel” from Nabokov when he published plenty of great complete stuff in his life?)

  16. Lincoln

      Ugh, I was actually thinking about this yesterday and getting really bummed.

  17. alan

      Opening an archive and publishing its contents are two separate questions.

  18. alan

      Blake, are you opposed to literary biography?

      Speaking as a member of the public, I want to be in a position to know what there is to know about stuff that interests me.

  19. Blake Butler

      i don’t see how an archive is biography necessarily?

      i mean sure, it has context, and is interesting, but in certain cases it seems wrong.

  20. Owen Kaelin

      I don’t know; for some reason I’ve tended to hold the position that dying wishes are serious matters which ought to be respected as much as, say, somebody’s wish to die. One’s writing is a piece of one’s self, the writings don’t belong to anyone but the writer. We do not own Franz Kafka, Sylvia Plath, Richard Brautigan, Donald Barthelme or anyone else. We don’t have the inherent right to publish material they didn’t intend to publish.

      Diaries are not meant to be published (unless the author decides to publish it, of course). And… if a writer has stuffed away stories in a shoebox and never published them, there’s probably a good reason why he or she did so.

      (On a similar note, I’m always sickened when I read somebody’s comments on a writer’s death and they start complaining about “all the work that’s been denied us”.)

  21. stephen

      can they like find your redtube bookmarks?

  22. Dawn.

      I think it’s completely up to the writer’s stated wishes. Like Owen, I take the wishes of the dead seriously. Don’t open it if they didn’t want it to be opened.

  23. alan

      If we’re talking about Wallace here, do we know what his wishes were regarding access to his archives?

  24. zusya

      anonymity! makes the PhD crazies have to hunt just that much harder..

      and since i’m apparently all about quotes today: “’twas one of the least tolerable of Offenses in that era, the worst of Dick Turpin seeming but the carelessness of Youth beside it, — the Crime they styl’d ‘Anonymity.’….” <– that one should be a-googabaleble.

  25. zusya

      you read that article in the NYer about the immediate lead-up to his death? apparently, that’s pretty much what he did, w/r/t to Pale King anyway..

  26. Roxane Gay

      I find it really troubling. I don’t know why but it is not something I would want. My ridiculous natterings to myself aren’t evidence of genius or profundity. They’re just ridiculous and private and meant to stay that way. This notion that we deserve to see the private intellectualism (or not) of famous writers is absurd and it drives me crazy. I also don’t give a damn. I love Nabokov, for example, but his diary interests me not.

  27. zusya

      i’d wager that ‘nothing’ will be the new ‘something’ in the coming years. down with fugacious hype, i say.

  28. alan

      I thought you were objecting to letting people see diaries, letters, and other personal papers.

      You don’t mean you want to bar interested readers from examining notes, drafts, and unpublished works, do you? The whole point of having an archive is to provide access to that material.

  29. Doug

      This is tricky. I agree there are probably reasons for shoebox-stuffed stories – but I don’t know what I’d do without a few posthumously published novels – Forster’s Maurice, most notably.

  30. John Minichillo

      It’s really egotistical to think anyone here would ever be considered ‘great.’

      I mean I wish you all luck, but greatness may be a relic of the Modern.

      Maybe the question is, do you want your family members to control your work? I think it started with Cheever, but that’s the precedent. How well do you get along with your spouse, your brother, your parents, your kids?

  31. Caketrain

      Dead writers have been universally silent on the topic, suggesting a passive acceptance.

  32. Matt Bell

      You know how grotesque this is going to be when people from our generation die? A bunch of PhD students sifting through the internet histories and google searches of the greats? The Facebook statuses? The tweets? Studying how often you google yourself or check your Amazon ranking? Ugh.

  33. rk

      depends on how supposedly the supposedly is. most writers probably start readying for posterity before their first publication and i have nothing wrong with that. but if someone says, ‘burn it all’ then you should burn it all. i never buy it when someone says ‘yes, he said burn it all, but he said it with a wink.’

  34. stephen

      would really like to see what’s in salinger’s vault

  35. Blake Butler

      i’m mainly thinking of Wallace, with his upcoming archives, and his particular privacy about these kinds of things, and the weird way it seems his estate has been handled thus far.

  36. Blake Butler

      jesus

  37. rk

      that’s hilarious. and true. thankfully some of us will never have to worry about it!

  38. Blake Butler

      hehe

  39. stephen

      somewhat related, i heard “the pale king” will have an accompanying website with drafts and things

  40. Guest

      “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.” -Ecclesiastes 9:5-6 [KJV}

      Word… Who gives a fuck… Dead people don’t care…

  41. herocious

      did he ask them to be burned? because if he didn’t ask them to be burned i think they should be burned.

  42. Blake Butler

      yeah, he should have probably totally worried about his looseleaf papers before arranging the noose.

  43. Blake Butler

      ugh

  44. lily hoang

      fuck. here’s to hoping i amount to nothing.

  45. Lincoln

      I don’t have a coherent stance on this kind of stuff. There seems to be a lot of variables. Often writers seem to say they don’t want stuff published when they probably do. Other times people are publishing stuff that the writer clearly didn’t want seen.

      In general I’m happy to see stuff that increases our appreciation for an author (what would literary history look like if Kafka’s work had never been published?) and bummed to see work that might decrease it (did we really need to see a like 1/4th finished “novel” from Nabokov when he published plenty of great complete stuff in his life?)

  46. Lincoln

      Ugh, I was actually thinking about this yesterday and getting really bummed.

  47. alan

      Opening an archive and publishing its contents are two separate questions.

  48. alan

      Blake, are you opposed to literary biography?

      Speaking as a member of the public, I want to be in a position to know what there is to know about stuff that interests me.

  49. Blake Butler

      i don’t see how an archive is biography necessarily?

      i mean sure, it has context, and is interesting, but in certain cases it seems wrong.

  50. Owen Kaelin

      I don’t know; for some reason I’ve tended to hold the position that dying wishes are serious matters which ought to be respected as much as, say, somebody’s wish to die. One’s writing is a piece of one’s self, the writings don’t belong to anyone but the writer. We do not own Franz Kafka, Sylvia Plath, Richard Brautigan, Donald Barthelme or anyone else. We don’t have the inherent right to publish material they didn’t intend to publish.

      Diaries are not meant to be published (unless the author decides to publish it, of course). And… if a writer has stuffed away stories in a shoebox and never published them, there’s probably a good reason why he or she did so.

      (On a similar note, I’m always sickened when I read somebody’s comments on a writer’s death and they start complaining about “all the work that’s been denied us”.)

  51. stephen

      can they like find your redtube bookmarks?

  52. Dawn.

      I think it’s completely up to the writer’s stated wishes. Like Owen, I take the wishes of the dead seriously. Don’t open it if they didn’t want it to be opened.

  53. alan

      If we’re talking about Wallace here, do we know what his wishes were regarding access to his archives?

  54. alan

      Better than having to accept some market-minded editor’s version as the final word on what might have been.

  55. Roxane Gay

      I find it really troubling. I don’t know why but it is not something I would want. My ridiculous natterings to myself aren’t evidence of genius or profundity. They’re just ridiculous and private and meant to stay that way. This notion that we deserve to see the private intellectualism (or not) of famous writers is absurd and it drives me crazy. I also don’t give a damn. I love Nabokov, for example, but his diary interests me not.

  56. alan

      I thought you were objecting to letting people see diaries, letters, and other personal papers.

      You don’t mean you want to bar interested readers from examining notes, drafts, and unpublished works, do you? The whole point of having an archive is to provide access to that material.

  57. Doug

      This is tricky. I agree there are probably reasons for shoebox-stuffed stories – but I don’t know what I’d do without a few posthumously published novels – Forster’s Maurice, most notably.

  58. I. Fontana

      My niece and I are pretty tight ever since I gave her a Jean-Michel Basquiat t-shirt and a Joy Division mix

  59. John Minichillo

      I had to look up Basquiat. I pulled up Google images and my 2-year-old kept saying MORE! The kid approves.

  60. John Minichillo

      It’s really egotistical to think anyone here would ever be considered ‘great.’

      I mean I wish you all luck, but greatness may be a relic of the Modern.

      Maybe the question is, do you want your family members to control your work? I think it started with Cheever, but that’s the precedent. How well do you get along with your spouse, your brother, your parents, your kids?

  61. alan

      Better than having to accept some market-minded editor’s version as the final word on what might have been.

  62. Matt K

      Devil’s advocate here – if a writer was/is concerned about the fate of his or her work after they’re gone, they should take steps to get rid of what they don’t want to be publicly available. IE Kafka asking that his papers be burned rather than burning them himself. This has nothing to do with being denied writing, only that if there’s money to be made after a writer is dead, somebody’s going to try to make it, so if a writer is concerned with his or her privacy, then they need to destroy the stuff or make sure it’s 100% legally clear what’s to become of their work after they’ve died.

  63. Blake Butler

      that makes sense for a person of sound mind at the end of life. in the instance of suicide, i don’t know that one is thinking about their estate and paper.

  64. Matt K

      Ha, hopefully poststructuralism will still be popular enough that scholars will continue not to give a shit about that stuff.

  65. Matt K

      I agree, but then, what to do? Not publish it because it’s unclear? I might agree with that, but I’m not sure. If there’s money to be made, and it’s unclear when a writer dies what he or she wanted, then it’s going to come out. You could just as easily make the argument that the writer wanted everything published, but wasn’t in a state of mind to make THAT clear. I don’t know the answer, only that I don’t think there’s an easy answer.

  66. Matt K

      I hear what you’re saying Blake, but there’s absolutely no way of knowing his intent unless he left clear instructions, and even then those close to him could easily make the argument that that’s not what he really wanted – I’m not saying he should have been worrying about his loose papers, but you could just as easily make the argument that he was too depressed to arrange for publication as easily as you could that he wanted them burned (or shredded, or whatever) – and his family (or agent or whoever) could easily make the argument that he really didn’t want them destroyed, that he wanted them published. We don’t know what he wrote or said to any of those people nor do we have any idea what was going on in his mind, so to assume one thing or another is just conjecture. A caveat, I have no idea the controversy surrounding and posthumous DFW publications, so this is more a general statement than an explicit argument about Wallace.

  67. I. Fontana

      My niece and I are pretty tight ever since I gave her a Jean-Michel Basquiat t-shirt and a Joy Division mix

  68. John Minichillo

      I had to look up Basquiat. I pulled up Google images and my 2-year-old kept saying MORE! The kid approves.

  69. Owen Kaelin

      Well, Kafka did burn a lot of his stuff. What was left over, I imagine, he might’ve kept because they were still a part of him, he still felt some attachment to them. Once he died, therefore, the writings would lose their meaning.

      There is, of course, the possibility that The Castle and The Trial were written for reasons other than ultimate publication.

  70. Matt k

      Maybe, but you don’t know. Maybe he didn’t burn them because he wanted somebody to read them. Maybe not. At this point a more interesting question would be whether anybody refuses to read them because they think it went against kafkas wishes.

  71. Mike Meginnis

      The other side of this is that people are probably going to get to a point, precisely because of all this, where they don’t really care. Scarcity makes biography attractive. When all our biographies are available in such detail, the presentation is the interesting part, right? Fiction actually becomes more valuable because it goes to the trouble of being arranged, and beautiful.

  72. Mike Meginnis

      Man, I don’t respect anyone’s wishes, living or dead. I would look through the diaries and the toilet trash can of anyone interesting in half a second if I could get away with it. (I guess I’m saying don’t let me use your restroom if you think I think you’re interesting.)

  73. alan

      Why is everyone talking about publication?? Opening an archive has nothing to do with publication.

      Btw, a lot of writers sell their papers during their lifetime. More people should visit the archives of writers they like. It can be very interesting.

  74. alan

      Have you ever read the biography of a writer you’re interested in? Have you ever used a critical edition that drew on drafts and original manuscripts?

  75. Hank

      I’m a janitor and I always look through the trash of my office-workers for good eats. You never know what you might find!

  76. Matt K

      Devil’s advocate here – if a writer was/is concerned about the fate of his or her work after they’re gone, they should take steps to get rid of what they don’t want to be publicly available. IE Kafka asking that his papers be burned rather than burning them himself. This has nothing to do with being denied writing, only that if there’s money to be made after a writer is dead, somebody’s going to try to make it, so if a writer is concerned with his or her privacy, then they need to destroy the stuff or make sure it’s 100% legally clear what’s to become of their work after they’ve died.

  77. Blake Butler

      that makes sense for a person of sound mind at the end of life. in the instance of suicide, i don’t know that one is thinking about their estate and paper.

  78. Matt K

      Ha, hopefully poststructuralism will still be popular enough that scholars will continue not to give a shit about that stuff.

  79. Matt K

      I agree, but then, what to do? Not publish it because it’s unclear? I might agree with that, but I’m not sure. If there’s money to be made, and it’s unclear when a writer dies what he or she wanted, then it’s going to come out. You could just as easily make the argument that the writer wanted everything published, but wasn’t in a state of mind to make THAT clear. I don’t know the answer, only that I don’t think there’s an easy answer.

  80. Matt K

      I hear what you’re saying Blake, but there’s absolutely no way of knowing his intent unless he left clear instructions, and even then those close to him could easily make the argument that that’s not what he really wanted – I’m not saying he should have been worrying about his loose papers, but you could just as easily make the argument that he was too depressed to arrange for publication as easily as you could that he wanted them burned (or shredded, or whatever) – and his family (or agent or whoever) could easily make the argument that he really didn’t want them destroyed, that he wanted them published. We don’t know what he wrote or said to any of those people nor do we have any idea what was going on in his mind, so to assume one thing or another is just conjecture. A caveat, I have no idea the controversy surrounding and posthumous DFW publications, so this is more a general statement than an explicit argument about Wallace.

  81. Owen Kaelin

      Well, Kafka did burn a lot of his stuff. What was left over, I imagine, he might’ve kept because they were still a part of him, he still felt some attachment to them. Once he died, therefore, the writings would lose their meaning.

      There is, of course, the possibility that The Castle and The Trial were written for reasons other than ultimate publication.

  82. Matt k

      Maybe, but you don’t know. Maybe he didn’t burn them because he wanted somebody to read them. Maybe not. At this point a more interesting question would be whether anybody refuses to read them because they think it went against kafkas wishes.

  83. Mike Meginnis

      The other side of this is that people are probably going to get to a point, precisely because of all this, where they don’t really care. Scarcity makes biography attractive. When all our biographies are available in such detail, the presentation is the interesting part, right? Fiction actually becomes more valuable because it goes to the trouble of being arranged, and beautiful.

  84. Mike Meginnis

      Man, I don’t respect anyone’s wishes, living or dead. I would look through the diaries and the toilet trash can of anyone interesting in half a second if I could get away with it. (I guess I’m saying don’t let me use your restroom if you think I think you’re interesting.)

  85. alan

      Why is everyone talking about publication?? Opening an archive has nothing to do with publication.

      Btw, a lot of writers sell their papers during their lifetime. More people should visit the archives of writers they like. It can be very interesting.

  86. alan

      Have you ever read the biography of a writer you’re interested in? Have you ever used a critical edition that drew on drafts and original manuscripts?

  87. Hank

      I’m a janitor and I always look through the trash of my office-workers for good eats. You never know what you might find!

  88. Hillis

      Is asking a question a blog post?

  89. Hillis

      Is asking a question a blog post?

  90. Owen Kaelin

      I used to think I was destined for greatness. To quote Alan Sparhawk of the band Low, “I had so much to say.”

      Then I grew up and found I still hadn’t published anything.
      So much for greatness.

  91. ryan

      Pretty sure Wallace took his working manuscript of TPK and arranged it into a neat little stack on his desk before he committed suicide. . . at the very least it seemed clear he didn’t mind it being published.

      I have no problem at all with archives, posthumous publications, any of it. I’m not particularly interested in reading Walt Whitman’s Collected Grocery Lists, but if we’ve got ’em, keep ’em. Why not?

      I think honoring the don’t-publish wishes of dead authors is kinda. . . pointless. Their insecurities and personal hang-ups don’t matter once they’re dead, and if they wrote anything great, no one cares how much dreck they wrote. I hear Ellison’s Juneteenth isn’t exactly great reading, but who cares? Invisible Man is still incredible, and because of it I would rather there be more Ellison material out there than less.

  92. Owen Kaelin

      I used to think I was destined for greatness. To quote Alan Sparhawk of the band Low, “I had so much to say.”

      Then I grew up and found I still hadn’t published anything.
      So much for greatness.

  93. ryan

      Pretty sure Wallace took his working manuscript of TPK and arranged it into a neat little stack on his desk before he committed suicide. . . at the very least it seemed clear he didn’t mind it being published.

      I have no problem at all with archives, posthumous publications, any of it. I’m not particularly interested in reading Walt Whitman’s Collected Grocery Lists, but if we’ve got ’em, keep ’em. Why not?

      I think honoring the don’t-publish wishes of dead authors is kinda. . . pointless. Their insecurities and personal hang-ups don’t matter once they’re dead, and if they wrote anything great, no one cares how much dreck they wrote. I hear Ellison’s Juneteenth isn’t exactly great reading, but who cares? Invisible Man is still incredible, and because of it I would rather there be more Ellison material out there than less.

  94. Owen Kaelin

      Hey, stop it, you’re blowing my mind!

      (kidding)

  95. Owen Kaelin

      Hey, stop it, you’re blowing my mind!

      (kidding)