{"id":120046,"date":"2018-01-10T11:00:59","date_gmt":"2018-01-10T16:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=120046"},"modified":"2018-01-09T18:04:17","modified_gmt":"2018-01-09T23:04:17","slug":"done-writing-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/10\/done-writing-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do We Bury the Writing of the Dead?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For over a hundred thousand years, we\u2019ve buried our dead. Broadly speaking, the act has no functional purpose; according to the World Health Organization, only bodies carrying infectious diseases demand burial. Instead, it offers us, the living, a resolute end: a body in the ground.<\/p>\n

We cannot always, or even often, give literature that same assurance. If a writer leaves behind unpublished, unfinished works after their death, only the fortunate find that work disposed of according to their wishes. Carrion fowl descend upon the still-warm body, picking at even the smallest scraps of flesh. And maybe that\u2019s not a bad thing. Vultures, though not the most welcome sight, fill an important ecological role. Who are we to let them starve, even if a body wished it otherwise?<\/p>\n

Many conversations about posthumous publishing center around this question: Which is more important when considering whether to release a work, particularly an incomplete one, posthumously\u2014authorial intent or obligation to the reader? More often than not, the latter wins the day.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

If we the readers had our druthers, we would have everything and more: a steady stream of singular works that possess all the qualities that first brought us to the author\u2019s door, and, once an author is gone, whatever is left of their body, mangled and lifeless though it may be. This corpse sometimes defines the author. Kafka\u2019s posthumously published works, including all three novels and countless short stories, are just as significant and refined, if not more so, than what he gave us in life; Jane Austen\u2019s catalogue feels incomplete without Northanger Abbey <\/em>and Persuasion<\/em>, published six months after her death; and we simply would not know of John Kennedy Toole were it not for his mother sending his textual body to Walker Percy at Loyola University.<\/p>\n

One thing is clear from these examples: words are difficult to bury. In the literal sense, anything less than the total physical destruction of a manuscript will only delay the eventual release of the work at someone else\u2019s hands. It also signals at \u00a0something within us, or at least those of us who are readers or writers. We\u2019re uneasy with this destruction of words. Fulfilling the wishes of someone now gone is both one of the most natural requests we can accept and sometimes the most difficult one to provide. The eradication of Terry Pratchett\u2019s unfinished works, the zeros and ones of his hard drive ground into the earth at the Great Dorset Steam Fair, is an imaginative exception to the rule.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Even well-preserved forms\u2014complete works whose publishing just happens to occur after a writer\u2019s death\u2014leave us wanting. They are the opening lines of a dialogue between reader and writer cut short. Sometimes, simply knowing that a writer will no longer grace us with more words or respond to our questions and criticism is enough to shift our view of the posthumous text itself. Still, we think of this as better than nothing\u2014better than if the work was lost forever. Through this belief, a second and more appropriate question arises: How should <\/em>we view these posthumous texts, alone and in the broader context of writers\u2019 works?<\/p>\n

After all, even writers who intend their works to be posthumously published must resign themselves to end products that differ from their original conception. One can presume David Foster Wallace was at least ambivalent about The Pale King<\/em> being published after his death. The work was, “not only preserved\u2026 but left\u2026 in the center of his desk.\u201d \u00a0But the resulting process saw Michael Pietsch of Little Brown<\/a> \u201cdiving into folders and spiral-bound notebooks,\u201d piecing together a cohesive narrative from the muddled drafts with the use of a master spreadsheet. The\u00a0New York Times <\/em>critic Michiko Kakutani described the resulting novel as \u201clumpy\u201d and occasionally \u201cboring,\u201d though also prone to fits of evocation (not the most unkind remark one could make about a novel detailing the life of an IRS employee).<\/p>\n

Characterizing J. R. R. Tolkien\u2019s posthumous works is a more difficult task. For one, the works he left us are numerous, in various states of completion, and many were intended to serve as scaffolding for the larger worlds he was creating. Likewise, their reception has run the gamut. His son and, until recently, estate executor, Christopher, served a prominent role in their publication. He had a larger claim than many to understanding the intent of J. R. R. himself. About The Silmarillion<\/em>, Tolkien\u2019s sweeping guidebook to the history of Middle-earth, Robert Adams mused, \u201chad [The Silmarillion<\/em>] been published earlier, it might well have laid a blight on the entire series [of the tales of Middle-earth]. For The Silmarillion<\/em>, despite the cuts that have evidently been made in the original materials, the selection and arrangement that have been imposed on them, remains an empty and pompous bore.\u201d Nearly<\/a> all<\/a> of Tolkien\u2019s works since his death, excluding the little-known children\u2019s book Mr. Bliss<\/em>, has faced this uneasy critical tension.<\/p>\n

Then there is The Original of Laura<\/em>, Vladimir Nabokov\u2019s focus at the time of his death in 1977. It\u2019s less a cohesive text than it is scattered fragments. Nabokov left behind, for his family to find and destroy, 138 of the index cards on which he drafted his novels. His son, Dmitri, was directed by Vladimir to destroy any of these incomplete works, just like Franz, Virgil, and Emily before him. And, just like Max, Lucius and Plotius, and Lavinia, Dmitri didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

What distinguishes Laura<\/em> from other posthumous works is the honesty of the executor and the troubling response it engendered from critics. Rather than allow the notes for Laura<\/em> to be transformed into a Frankenstein\u2019s monster at the hands of an editor, Dmitri insisted Laura\u2019s<\/em> viewing should take place in an honest way\u2014that is, almost exactly as his father left the work. The published form even allows the reader to rearrange the cards as they see fit. Some were not impressed. William Skidelsky concludes his review<\/a> in the Guardian<\/em> by stating, \u201cIt seems likely that this book will have a more significant impact on the size of Dmitri Nabokov\u2019s bank balance than it ever will have on the world of letters.\u201d In Slate<\/em>, Aleksandar Hemon argues<\/a>, \u201cThe Original of Laura<\/em> can\u2019t escape the musty air of an estate sale \u2026 Too sick to destroy the notecards that contain The Original of Laura<\/em>, the master is now eternally exposed to a gloating, greedy world of academics, publishers, and other card-shuffling mediocrities titillated by the sight of a helpless genius.\u201d Others supported the work being published in its incomplete form, but it\u2019s not unreasonable to think that had Dmitri managed to conjure up a completed facsimile of Laura<\/em>, or at least a halfway decent one, the supporters would have outweighed the critics.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Here lies our willful ignorance. Underneath it is the belief that we can\u2014must\u2014have the best of both worlds when giving our favorite writers a second life: the authentic, unaltered voice of the writer and a clean resulting work, no matter its state at the time of their death. In other words, an impossible paradox. In judging posthumous work, readers rarely consider the state of the work at the time of the author\u2019s death, its objective quality to begin with, or the intentions of the writer. The only thing we recognize is whether the end result is a text that fits the writer\u2019s existing body of work.<\/p>\n

An alternative exists\u00a0that isn\u2019t terribly radical. We could simply not publish these works. Leave the drafts in a set of filing cabinets at a liberal arts university where, most likely, even the most modestly successful writer will find academic patrons to carry on their memory. Or, we could allow the creation of statuesque remembrances, without attributing them as the authentic voice of the deceased author. Bring in one of the most prominent writers of the time, or a group of them, to finish and edit the text by committee. As long as we separate the result from the body of work created by the writer in their lifetime. After all, we don\u2019t mistake the statues in public squares for an exact replica of the person who once lived. We could even allow both to exist, but rest apart. Perhaps in concert, the two will breed an honesty in expectations and criticism of the work. But don\u2019t soak the unfinished manuscripts in paraffin, dress them in their Sunday best, and parade them around town as if the synapses were still firing. The well-worn Faulkner line \u201cthe past isn\u2019t dead. It isn\u2019t even past\u201d is as true for literature as it is for history. But sometimes, it\u2019s still worth acknowledging the smell of death.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adin<\/span>\u00a0Dobkin<\/span><\/a>\u00a0is a writer and journalist in Washington, D.C.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  For over a hundred thousand years, we\u2019ve buried our dead. Broadly speaking, the act has no functional purpose; according to the World Health Organization, only bodies carrying infectious diseases demand burial. Instead, it offers us, the living, a resolute end: a body in the ground. We cannot always, or even often, give literature that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1354,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[154,32442,5657,300,11389,26669,5418,32444,9348,2076,32443,967],"class_list":["post-120046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-david-foster-wallace","tag-dmitri-nabokov","tag-j-r-r-tolkien","tag-jane-austen","tag-kafka","tag-northanger-abbey","tag-persuasion","tag-posthumous-publishing","tag-robert-adams","tag-the-pale-king","tag-the-silmarillion","tag-vladimir-nabokov"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow Do We Bury the Writing of the Dead?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Unless the manuscripts are physically destroyed, the unfinished works of famous writers are inevitably published.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/10\/done-writing-dead\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Do We Bury the Writing of the Dead? by Adin Dobkin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 10, 2018 \u2013   For over a hundred thousand years, we\u2019ve buried our dead. 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