Vultures
Posted on January 29, 2010 | 27 Comments
After the death of a successful author, almost like clockwork, the speculation about whether or not they left behind any unpublished work begins. This may sound harsh, but such speculation almost always makes me think of vultures circling a literary corpse, and the recent death of J.D. Salinger has certainly brought out the vultures in droves.
If, upon their death, an author leaves behind a completed work without providing instructions regarding whether or not it should be published, I think it’s fair to assume that, had the author wanted it to be published, they would have done so during their lifetime. Far most disturbing, though, are the situations in which, although an author has made it clear that they do not want the work to be published or that they want it to be destroyed, their wishes are ignored by the executors of their literary estates.
Such is the case with Vladimir Nabokov’s The Original of Laura. Nabokov (pictured above) died before completing the novel and instructed his wife to destroy the manuscript after his death. She didn’t, though, and Nabokov’s son, now the executor of his literary estate, allowed the work to be published late last year.
Although I felt very conflicted about doing so, I did purchase The Original of Laura and am currently reading it. I suppose that, in this case, I let my curiosity win out. Reading it has only strengthened my feelings and thoughts regarding this issue, though. I cannot think of any way to justify the publication of The Original of Laura, and, although I’m certainly open to discussing the issue, I also cannot immediately think of any justifications for other instances of posthumous publishing, unless the author made it clear that they wanted the work to be published after their death.
When this issue is discussed (two recent examples come to mind, both from NPR’s On Point: a discussion about Salinger and one about Nabokov), those who are in favor of posthumous publishing, even when it directly violates the author’s explicit instructions, often argue that it is acceptable to ignore an author’s wishes if publishing the work that they left behind will greatly contribute to the world of literature.
However, no amount of potential benefit to the world of literature, to scholars, or to readers justifies ignoring an author’s instructions, whether implicit or explicit, regarding the posthumous publication of their work. Their wishes must be respected. If the works that an author released during their lifetime made us happy, expanded our knowledge, gave us a new perspective on the world, or provided us with inspiration and/or hope, don’t we at least owe them that?
I’m curious: what do you think about this issue? I’d love to discuss it.
Comments
27 Responses to “Vultures”
January 30th, 2010 @ 2:07 pm
I see you snuck in ‘implicit’, which strikes me as the easier case. For instance, what about where a content creator (artist, writer, etc.) has amassed a large body of unpublished work and then dies suddenly, as in the case of MJ? In the absence of clear intent what is the executor to do? Is the default position to publish the work?
And even in the explicit case, shouldn’t one exercise due diligence to determine that the artist or writer was of sound mind when he or she made the decision to not publish?
January 30th, 2010 @ 3:37 pm
I think Reed makes an important point, and then one has to invent a rule that says, in case of sudden death and no indication of wishes, release. I am sympathetic to the vultures, to a point. We’re not talking about the 20th posthumous Tupac release here. We’re talking about additional And previously unknown material from one of the West’s most celebrated authors. But in the end, we judge Nabakov by his *finished products* that he chose to release. That’s the man we celebrate. So I suppose that to force to light something he wasn’t prepared to reveal, thus not really “counting” as “Nabakov,” well, then Miranda’s position makes not just sympathetic sense, but cultural.
That said, I’ve never read anything by him, so maybe I should shut up.
January 30th, 2010 @ 4:24 pm
I’m going to look at this from a, perhaps, unorthodox perspective.
I don’t see how/why it matters. Like you, I’m an atheist. I don’t believe people have a soul that lives on after their death. Nor will they be aware of any goings on after they’re dead.
Personally, I don’t give a hoot what anyone may or may not do with whatever I leave behind. I’ll leave instructions, and in fact already have, within the limits of the law, to dispense my assets to particular persons, but whatever they do with them afterwards is entirely their decision.
If a famous author’s estate believes they can somehow benefit from publishing previously unpublished works (i.e. assets) of the creator of that estate, I see no problem with it. Individual potential consumers, such as yourself, will decide whether or not to support their decision.
No personal harm can come to the individual. They’re dead. The only thing that might possibly be harmed is the person’s reputation. But that is inconsequential and irrelevant when the person no longer exists. The estate itself might also be harmed, but that is the risk the estate holder takes.
January 30th, 2010 @ 4:41 pm
@Reed E: Good points. Although I really don’t have a specific reason for thinking so, I’d say that the default position would be not to publish it. I greatly sympathize with authors who want to have as much control as possible over their final products/over what gets published, and, if the author didn’t make clear their wish to have the work published upon/after their death, my first reaction would be not to publish it.
But with a case like MJ, it’s much, much more ambiguous and tricky, as you say. One would hope that authors like Salinger and Nabokov, who die in old age, will have made their wishes known (although, in the Nabokov case, his wishes were unfortunately completely ignored, which illustrates the point that the literary executor really does have all the power in most of these cases), but if someone suddenly dies at a youngish age, it certainly does complicate things. I’m a bit surprised that MJ hadn’t made his wishes clear, as there was so much money at stake and as he seemingly wasn’t the healthiest of people (or, at the very least, seemed to have had a drug problem), but I imagine that one wouldn’t necessarily want to think about those things, even if there is a great deal at stake.
And the “sound mind” thing is definitely important. Nabokov, as far as I know, was of sound mind when he made his wishes known, but there could be cases in which the author wasn’t. I guess if I were a published author, especially an older one, I’d want to have a part of my will solely dedicated to this issue so that its legality and the issue of being of “sound mind” couldn’t be doubted.
I don’t know- it’s a tricky issue. And I fully admit that I’m mostly going off of my feelings here, which I don’t like to do, as I try to “think with my gut” as rarely as possible. I suppose I’m trying to fully figure out my thoughts on the issue. It’s interesting stuff.
I’ll be back to answer the other comments asap :)
January 30th, 2010 @ 5:17 pm
A bit of related fun:
An author these days can place her unpublished work (“Miranda’s Most Nasty Limericks”, e.g.) beyond the reach of her good-for-nothing executor by using a ‘cryptographic time capsule.’
It involves simply encrypting one’s work with a sufficiently complex key, destroying all cleartext copies and discarding the key. Optionally, one can memorize the key should one reconsider.
Those who wish to read (or publish) the work will have to wait for Moore’s Law to provide the sufficient CPU power to brute-force the decryption. That could defer access a decade or more, but still make the work available at some point.
It won’t work for original oil paintings though. Only digital works. :^)
January 30th, 2010 @ 8:44 pm
I think I kind of agree with Rob here. If Salinger’s family goes against his will and publishes, will he be offended or hurt? Can you betray a dead person?
I mean, according to Suetonius, Virgil wanted the Aeneid burned after he died – think of what an incredible loss that would have been. Should his wish have been honored?
January 30th, 2010 @ 8:59 pm
The people we know, and those we know of, live as avatars in our imagination. Your family may be in the next room. You know they are there and can imagine what they are doing. You love them, but the target of your love at that moment is your virtual avatar. When someone makes the transition from being alive to being dead, the avatar lives on as our memory of them. It is not appropriate IMHO to say, “I respected you when you were alive, mate, but now you’re dead you can bugger off.” We insult our shared humanity by behaving like that. So I’d agree with your sentiments, Miranda.
January 30th, 2010 @ 10:45 pm
@Paul Fidalgo: Yeah, I am beginning to think about this issue in a larger context, which brings up all sorts of new things to consider. I’m a bit surprised by the strength of my emotional reaction to all of this. That Salinger episode of On Point that aired on Friday made me really crabby, and I very, very rarely get crabby about much of anything. I also wonder if The Original of Laura‘s crappiness has influenced my feelings on this in any way. Perhaps if it had been a long-buried work of brilliant beauty I’d feel less icky about it. I hate to think that that would be the case, but perhaps so. Anyway, it’s an interesting issue and a much broader one that I had ever before realized.
January 30th, 2010 @ 10:51 pm
But I want to be clear, I generally think you’re right. Particularly if someone has said “Don’t do it,” well, don’t! But my principle is that a complete work is what contributes to our understanding of an artist, really. Discarded half-sketches from a painter might be fascinating, but they are incomplete and unfair to “officially” associate with the artist, so it is for this book. That said, I’m not saying that no one must ever lay eyes on these things–I think to scholars and whatnot there is real value to this kind of thing, but *publication*, as though this is something the artist in question *wanted* us all to see, is the wrong way to go. Today, I suppose, once something is available to one small group, it’s essentially available to everyone, but it doesn’t mean you go out of your way, publish the book, go into big printings, and say “HEY! LOOK AT THIS NEW BOOK FROM THAT LOLITA GUY!!!”
January 31st, 2010 @ 3:36 am
I’d agree that such half-baked stinkers should merely end up among the dead author’s papers when they are donated (or sold) to an institution. However, with the way the copyright laws are structured, the inheritors have the discretion to make a cheap buck if they so choose. We can respond in kind by spewing bile upon them in our Amazon reviews.
But I find it refreshing that even great authors like Nabokov struggle like the rest of us, producing inferior works as part of a creative process that can produce an occasional great one. If one of those crappy works does get published, especially in a situation that would be contrary to the author’s wishes, it need not detract from his or her better works.
February 1st, 2010 @ 9:33 pm
@Rob: I understand what you’re saying. There’s part of me, though, that doesn’t understand why it’s any more acceptable to violate an author’s wishes/instructions when they’re dead than it was when they were alive. Obviously they’ll never know that their wishes were ignored, but it just strikes me as disrespectful both to their memory and to the body of work that they published while they were alive. But it’s a messy issue, definitely, and it’s one that I am trying to sort out my thoughts on.
February 1st, 2010 @ 9:34 pm
@Reed E: I didn’t know that, re: the ‘cryptographic time capsule’. Interesting stuff! This issue just keeps getting more and more complex :)
February 1st, 2010 @ 9:42 pm
@ponka: I understand what you’re saying, and I agree that a dead person can’t be betrayed, and they obviously won’t know that their wishes were ignored/violated, but it still somehow strikes me as disrespectful both to the author and to their body of published work. But I know that I’m mostly going off of my feelings there, and I’d like to have a more rational basis for my assertion. I suppose that I’m just trying to sort out my thoughts on all of this.
@carbonblogger: Lovely comment, thanks! :)
@Paul Fidalgo: Excellent point about a complete work vs. something like a half-completed sketch/painting/etc. I hadn’t thought of it in that way. And, unfortunately, with The Original of Laura, the marketing campaign has mostly been “you can pull out and rearrange the index cards!” and, like you said, “HEY! LOOK AT THIS NEW BOOK FROM THAT LOLITA GUY!!!” Sigh. It’s just depressing.
@Reed E: Yes, definitely. And I’m definitely very susceptible to/can easily be swayed by my curiosity when it comes to some authors, as in this case. And yeah, it is fascinating to see Nabokov’s creative process and to see what’s basically a first draft of a novel. What’s disheartening is that it’s being presented as a finished novel when it’s so far from it.
February 1st, 2010 @ 10:53 pm
I think the key phrase in your response to me is “author’s wishes/instructions”. Once the person is dead, they no longer have the ability to wish or instruct anything. As a society, we’ve put certain laws into effect which allow some control over what happens to whatever we’ve amassed over our lifetimes. But there is a limit, e.g. Leona Helmsley tried to leave $12M to her dog, but it was reduced to $2M.
What if a particularly wealthy person wished that, upon her death, the entirety of her estate was to be liquidated into two parts: diamonds and a check made out to NASA to cover the cost of launching the diamonds into the sun on a rocket. Illegal? No. Immoral? Arguable, but probably not. Should it be done? If so, why? Because that’s what they wished?
February 5th, 2010 @ 4:43 pm
All three Kafka novels were all unfinished and all published against his wishes after his death. I believe he wanted them burned. All three are unsurpassed in quality and “importance.” I think it’s baffling you are not able to understand that circumstances change when someone’s dead. That you would pretend a dead person’s wishes carry weight anywhere but your own head is strange to me. If you feel a author wanted their work destroyed and the responsibility falls on you, don’t pretend they are making the choice for you. If YOU decide to go ahead and destroy it: that was your choice. Your precious babbling about respect and humanity and your black and white thinking (the need to refer to them as vultures) are illuminating to the horror of this blog. There is no author’s memory. Only your memory of the author. Why does someone need to protect your memory of him? Do you in contrast to the unpublished work being “too important” feel the author’s current reputation is too important to risk on new work? If someone is only concerned with the spoils of someone’s death while that person is alive, go ahead and call them a vulture. But if someone is dead, open the vault and publish it or burn it (remember it’s your decision) and let’s get on with the mourning. Don’t carry his goddamn ashes around just so you feel more civilized. Phony.
By the way, you are being like, totally irrational. And rhetorician, it’s like, totally disturbing me!
February 5th, 2010 @ 4:52 pm
@errant troll: If you think my blog is a “horror,” why do you keep reading it and keep posting nasty comments on it? I’d respect your nastiness a little bit more if you’d at least use a name or a real email address instead of hiding behind a pseudonym. I won’t ban you from commenting unless you start throwing around personal insults against me or anyone else on here, but, if you dislike me and my blog so much, why not just stay away from it?
February 5th, 2010 @ 5:24 pm
1) you didn’t respond to (and haven’t responded) to any of the criticisms I made.
2) This bit of logic: “why don’t I stay away” is self-defeating in your case as your blog is full of posts on people you disagree with. People whose writing you think is “vile.”
3) I don’t dislike you personally. In any way. Or at least in any real way. I realize I called you a phony, but given the context (Salinger) I felt it was appropriate as satire/commentary.
4) My problem with the blog rest on the gross rhetorical nature of the writing. For example the strings of adjectives: such and such is vile, evil, ignorant and mealy-mouthed and what they wrote is cancer, bile, stupid, and horrible. This is among countless other examples.
5) Your free to ban whoever you want, but that you went to that right away, I find suspect. You seem somewhat buddy buddy with most of commenters. If this is a private friend party where no criticism is welcome you should just say so. Please don’t say “yes, criticism is welcome.” Respond to criticism. The debate on this blog often resembles the quibbles of cute married couples.
“Nasty comments” by the way feels ironic given the tone of your rhetoric. That mine is sloppy is a fair criticism but so is that yours is humorless.
6) That I’m hiding behind a pseudonym has to do with I’m uncommitted to commenting on this blog. That I found it somewhat haphazardly. And that I’m uncommitted to commenting on the internet in general. Also that I decided to post a comment by whim more than personal commitment usually leads me to say to myself to not bother anymore and that this comment will be the last comment. Hopefully if and when I’m more committed I’ll return to the internet a new person full of joy and reveal my true beautiful identity to all comers. In other words I’m obsessive compulsive (feel free to satirize).
February 5th, 2010 @ 5:43 pm
@Errant Troll:
Your pomposity is tiring. This is a “buddy-buddy” blog only because Miranda has earned the respect and admiration of her readers for her writing. Nonetheless, I congratulate you on the self-perception of rhetorical perfection you have clearly attained and now wish to broadcast by pestering small-but-thoughtful blogs like this one, one at which the moderator is obviously too classy and kind hearted to react in a way that suits the harsh, needlessly personal way you have behaved.
Don’t bother revealing your true identity, we could not care less.
February 5th, 2010 @ 6:12 pm
Paul Fidalgo: You as well have not responded to my original criticism. You instead chose to “white-knight” the blog’s author. So I in turn congratulate your chivalry. I said she seemed buddy-buddy with the commenters (not the blog) to point out maybe she wasn’t interested in criticism. I said my rhetoric was sloppy, not perfect. If I made some actual–quotable–error (and I’m sure I’ve made plenty) you should be so kind (as you are chivalrous) to point them out–Dad.
Not to mention I explained why I used the word phony and said I don’t have a “personal” problem. And if you could explain how what I said is more or less “personal behavior.” Which is Ironic since she won’t take anonymous criticism seriously, which is again why I explained about why I chose NOT TO reveal it.
“We could not care less.” Who are you speaking for?
February 5th, 2010 @ 6:55 pm
Fidalgo speaks for me on that point, for what it’s worth.
Criticizing (or attacking) others in a public forum while deliberately concealing one’s identity won’t cut it here. Such may be acceptable conduct in e.t.’s world, but that is a bleak and inconsiderate place we don’t wish to visit.
Stay classy e.t.
February 5th, 2010 @ 7:16 pm
Reed E: I explained why I posted anonymously. But I don’t understand how that changes the content of a criticism. Notwithstanding your personal preference for revealed identities. (Though paradoxically you chime in to proclaim your disinterest in mine.)
February 6th, 2010 @ 1:32 pm
So, to summarize this exchange: I commented in a way that was critical of the post/blog. Miranda responded to me with an ad hominem (my comment can’t be taken seriously because it was posted anonymously).
Paul Fidalgo (white knighting) responds with an ad hominem you too (my criticism can’t be taken seriously because I’m guilty of the same shortcomings.)
He also believes respect grants immunity from criticism (appeal to authority). And that a blog’s size (in this case small) is relevant to it’s ability to fail.
He says I’ve been unduly harsh and personal, but does say how. This is not helpful. Well, it may effectively shut down criticism, but it is not IMHO conducive to rational debate.
Reed E aslo ignoring any arguments I have made, responds with yet a THIRD (hat trick?) ad hominem. A vague assertion that there is something wrong with anonymous criticism because it is anonymous: it does not “cut it.” Perhaps his reference to a public forum means that because you all chose to use your presumably real names you can’t afford to respond to anonymous criticism because your reputation is more important than rational debate.
He than goes on with an ambiguous statement: is it my “world” that is bleak and inconsiderate or an anonymous internet that constitutes a bleak and inconsiderate “world?” He justifies his ad hominem with his social goal of a brighter? more considerate internet/world.
You, like Paul, btw employed the anonymous rhetorical “we” to bolster your claim.
If I was pompous and tiring (and I am), I might suggest it would have been more productive to simply respond (or not respond) to my original post’s claims and to make a second post about the virtues of an internet where everybody knows one’s name and why it is justified to use ad hominem to further this cause.
February 6th, 2010 @ 1:37 pm
About Paul Fidalgo that should have read, “does not say how.”
February 7th, 2010 @ 6:30 am
I should also mention that Paul Fidalgo’s ad hominem is based on a straw man (as I never made any claims to “rhetorical perfection”) Perhaps this is a psychological projection. Though if you read through his blog you can find many instances of sloppy and biased reasoning. Bravo on a lack of self-perception.
Miranda’s suggestion that she won’t ban me, unless I start throwing around “personal” insults, allows her to suggest that this is something that I’m likely to do without actually making any claims she would have to back up with reasoning. This allows her to undermine her “opponent,” effectively poisoning the well against them.
Reed E says I’m deliberately concealing my identity. What other ways besides deliberately are there to conceal one’s identity? Unintentionally? Accidentally?
Let me give an example of the purely rhetorical writing I complain about.
Miranda wrote:
“However, no amount of potential benefit to the world of literature, to scholars, or to readers justifies ignoring an author’s instructions, whether implicit or explicit, regarding the posthumous publication of their work.”
No amount? Why? No reason is given.
“Their wishes must be respected.” Certain are you. Again why? No reason is given.
“If the works that an author released during their lifetime made us happy, expanded our knowledge, gave us a new perspective on the world, or provided us with inspiration and/or hope, don’t we at least owe them that?”
Appeal to pity. Bravo.
I wonder why someone who later admits to “going by her gut,” would use such bold, certain language?
Stephen Colbert’s white house correspondents speech comes to mind.
I would think amassing such a massive amount of fallacies in such a short time would warrant a response from three self-proclaimed rationalists and skeptics. For example Reed E in his blog warns that “we must be vigilant against cognitive bias.” Touche, my “classy” friend.
There is also the irony of the “Regression” post’s making fun of the Tea Partier’s “we.” Regression, indeed.
We must be vigilant against gratuitous “pompous” rhetoric. Because? Well, it’s a little tiring?
September 9th, 2010 @ 4:51 am