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I’m conflicted about this. On one hand, I adore his books and I’m sure this would be great, even if he didn’t think so himself. Reviews I’ve read suggest it’s g

I’m conflicted about this. On one hand, I adore his books and I’m sure this would be great, even if he didn’t think so himself. Reviews I’ve read suggest it’s good, though not as good as his best work. But I feel like I’m being disloyal if I read something he explicitly wanted no one to read. On balance I think I’ll skip it. I got plenty of other books to read anyway.

shadowgovt 3y ago
This is an ancient conflict. IIUC, Kafka wanted his work destroyed. I think about half his published material is posthumous because his friends couldn't bring themselves to comply with his wishes and, in fact, believed it was important for the world to read it.
- fifilura 3y ago
  I was just about to post! I believe the world would not have been a better place without these books. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Brod#Publication_of_Kafka's_work https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Brod#Publication_of_Kafk...
- moralestapia 3y ago
  >believed it was important for the world to read it Sure, if you also ignore the obvious economic reasons attached to it.
  - jhgb 3y ago
    Economy is not a zero sum game. There's no reason why both sides can't benefit from it.
  - fifilura 3y ago
    Or maybe his incentives were not purely economical? Why should I have to assume that?
    - moralestapia 3y ago
      Because there's a thing called "the public domain" and they didn't opt for that.
      - fifilura 3y ago
        I don't know what the "public domain" discourse was in the 1920s, if was considered even an option. But there are other things you relinquish by giving it to public domain, not only money.
        moralestapia 3y ago
        The guy died in 1968. He slowly released the material among the course of 44 years; after his death, many of these documents remain unreleased. Kind of a weird behavior for somebody acting under the premise that "it was important for the world to read it". He then left everything in hands of his secretary, who proceeded to, among other things: * Sell plenty of Kafka's letters and postcards to private entities. * Attempting to smuggle (out) some manuscripts without filing photocopies to the Archives of the National Library of Israel, which is required by law and is also, again, kind of a weird behavior for somebody acting under the premise that "it was important for the world to read it". * Auctioned an original manuscript of The Trial, fetching about 2 million USD. I couldn't find evidence of one single piece of material that was willingly donated to a museum or similar entity by either Max Brod or Esther Hoffe during the 83 years (!) they had it under their possession. Even squinting very very very hard at the situation, it's hard for me to not see "the obvious economic reasons attached to it". >But there are other things you relinquish by giving it to public domain Like what?
        fifilura 3y ago
        Thank you for taking the time to add more information! What you relinquish when you release something into public domain is control over how publishes and possibly who edits it.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - quatrefoil 3y ago
    Kafka was virtually unknown during his lifetime. It's unlikely that there was any expectation of profit. They probably just liked the writings and thought it would be a shame to destroy them.
kansface 3y ago
Emily Dickinson likely intended that all of her works be destroyed after her death. Her sister disregarded her will and saw them published instead.
CharlesW 3y ago
> But I feel like I’m being disloyal if I read something he explicitly wanted no one to read. He won't mind.
Almondsetat 3y ago
Would you refuse to unearth an ancient roman villa just because we have a papyrus of an emperor saying he hated its design? There is a question about at which point personal belongings become part of history, i.e. get museumified, but we all know that at some point we stop thinking of those private endeavors as secrets to keep forever and they become part of public history.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  Conversely why would I financially support the decision to go against this man's wishes for his own work?
  - Almondsetat 3y ago
    Nobody is forcing you to buy it. I will though. Also this book will make its way into libraries and eventually become public domain.
  - TheCoelacanth 3y ago
    Why should a dead person's wishes bind the actions of living people?
    - csdvrx 3y ago
      > Why should a dead person's wishes bind the actions of living people? Let's start by looting rich dead people fortune the day they die: Steve Jobs money could have been used to reduce the US national debt!
      - tombert 3y ago
        It's a funny sentiment but I don't think Steve Jobs' entire fortune would put the smallest dent into the national debt. A quick google indicates he was worth about 8 billion, while the national debt in 2011 was around 15 trillion. 15 trillion minus 8 billion is still basically 15 trillion...
browningstreet 3y ago
This is how I look at it: a lot of artists say that once a work is "out there", it really belongs to the audience. Also, people start to get funny POVs when they get older. He may have been living with a bunch of contradictory energies. Did Pale King tarnish DFW's reputation? (Maybe a bad example, his demons did a bit of that) DFW's short stories and earlier novels seem to have stood well on their own and survived the publishing of the incomplete Pale King.
- bhelkey 3y ago
  > once a work is "out there", it really belongs to the audience. I wouldn't call a draft of an unpublished novel on a personal hard drive, "out there".
lizard 3y ago
I heard about this on NPR this morning (which is looks like someone already posted the link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39633900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39633900), and it sounds like the sons justification was that the book was good and the issues was that Gabriel García Márquez's wasn't in the right mind to recognize his own work anymore. "When he said it doesn't make sense he didn't realize it didn't make sense to him anymore." I'm not familiar with this work so have no stake in this particular game, but it sits uneasy for me anyways. For myself, I think it mostly comes down to the incentives for releasing it. Is this a valuable literary work that deserves to be published? How would we even go about deciding such a thing, without breaking the deceased's will anyways? Or, is this just the estate saying, "The money from the previous books is drying up! We can either get real jobs, or go against dad's wishes for free money." In which case, screw that. But even if you agree with the latter, given the complexity of the former, I feel like the fix there is that the rules for publishing works of the deceased should be different, e.g. it is immediately in the public domain so that there is no (or at least less) financial incentive since the original author has already decided not to profit from it. That would at least let us address the former questions more clearly and with reverence.
- hipaa_eng 3y ago
  > I feel like the fix there is that the rules for publishing works of the deceased should be different, e.g. it is immediately in the public domain so that there is no (or at least less) financial incentive since the original author has already decided not to profit from it. sometimes the plan is for the children/successors to benefit from the works. Some do ask for things to be published after they're gone
  - lizard 3y ago
    Yeah, I get it. There's a lot of complexity. I considered including something about "when the author has explicitly said not to release it" which draws up even more complexity in this case because the children argued 'Dad wasn't in the right mind.' So does that make it OK? But honestly, for my part anyways, I'm not sure any of that matters. I'm a big fan of creativity. It's probably the most valuable thing people have and it ought to be protected and rewarded. That's why this is even a dilemma for me because I would be disappointed to see a good creative work lost forever just because they didn't see the value of their own work. But that's also why I'm against that kind of inheritance. Children, especially those who have the luxury and of good upbringing, should be encouraged to pursue their own creativity and produce their own value, rather than riding on the coattails of their forebears.

shadowgovt 3y ago

This is an ancient conflict. IIUC, Kafka wanted his work destroyed. I think about half his published material is posthumous because his friends couldn't bring themselves to comply with his wishes and, in fact, believed it was important for the world to read it.

fifilura 3y ago
I was just about to post! I believe the world would not have been a better place without these books. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Brod#Publication_of_Kafka's_work https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Brod#Publication_of_Kafk...
moralestapia 3y ago
>believed it was important for the world to read it Sure, if you also ignore the obvious economic reasons attached to it.
- jhgb 3y ago
  Economy is not a zero sum game. There's no reason why both sides can't benefit from it.
- fifilura 3y ago
  Or maybe his incentives were not purely economical? Why should I have to assume that?
  - moralestapia 3y ago
    Because there's a thing called "the public domain" and they didn't opt for that.
    - fifilura 3y ago
      I don't know what the "public domain" discourse was in the 1920s, if was considered even an option. But there are other things you relinquish by giving it to public domain, not only money.
      - moralestapia 3y ago
        The guy died in 1968. He slowly released the material among the course of 44 years; after his death, many of these documents remain unreleased. Kind of a weird behavior for somebody acting under the premise that "it was important for the world to read it". He then left everything in hands of his secretary, who proceeded to, among other things: * Sell plenty of Kafka's letters and postcards to private entities. * Attempting to smuggle (out) some manuscripts without filing photocopies to the Archives of the National Library of Israel, which is required by law and is also, again, kind of a weird behavior for somebody acting under the premise that "it was important for the world to read it". * Auctioned an original manuscript of The Trial, fetching about 2 million USD. I couldn't find evidence of one single piece of material that was willingly donated to a museum or similar entity by either Max Brod or Esther Hoffe during the 83 years (!) they had it under their possession. Even squinting very very very hard at the situation, it's hard for me to not see "the obvious economic reasons attached to it". >But there are other things you relinquish by giving it to public domain Like what?
        fifilura 3y ago
        Thank you for taking the time to add more information! What you relinquish when you release something into public domain is control over how publishes and possibly who edits it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- quatrefoil 3y ago
  Kafka was virtually unknown during his lifetime. It's unlikely that there was any expectation of profit. They probably just liked the writings and thought it would be a shame to destroy them.

kansface 3y ago

Emily Dickinson likely intended that all of her works be destroyed after her death. Her sister disregarded her will and saw them published instead.

CharlesW 3y ago

> But I feel like I’m being disloyal if I read something he explicitly wanted no one to read. He won't mind.

Almondsetat 3y ago

Would you refuse to unearth an ancient roman villa just because we have a papyrus of an emperor saying he hated its design? There is a question about at which point personal belongings become part of history, i.e. get museumified, but we all know that at some point we stop thinking of those private endeavors as secrets to keep forever and they become part of public history.

forgetfreeman 3y ago
Conversely why would I financially support the decision to go against this man's wishes for his own work?
- Almondsetat 3y ago
  Nobody is forcing you to buy it. I will though. Also this book will make its way into libraries and eventually become public domain.
- TheCoelacanth 3y ago
  Why should a dead person's wishes bind the actions of living people?
  - csdvrx 3y ago
    > Why should a dead person's wishes bind the actions of living people? Let's start by looting rich dead people fortune the day they die: Steve Jobs money could have been used to reduce the US national debt!
    - tombert 3y ago
      It's a funny sentiment but I don't think Steve Jobs' entire fortune would put the smallest dent into the national debt. A quick google indicates he was worth about 8 billion, while the national debt in 2011 was around 15 trillion. 15 trillion minus 8 billion is still basically 15 trillion...

browningstreet 3y ago

This is how I look at it: a lot of artists say that once a work is "out there", it really belongs to the audience. Also, people start to get funny POVs when they get older. He may have been living with a bunch of contradictory energies. Did Pale King tarnish DFW's reputation? (Maybe a bad example, his demons did a bit of that) DFW's short stories and earlier novels seem to have stood well on their own and survived the publishing of the incomplete Pale King.

bhelkey 3y ago
> once a work is "out there", it really belongs to the audience. I wouldn't call a draft of an unpublished novel on a personal hard drive, "out there".

lizard 3y ago

I heard about this on NPR this morning (which is looks like someone already posted the link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39633900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39633900), and it sounds like the sons justification was that the book was good and the issues was that Gabriel García Márquez's wasn't in the right mind to recognize his own work anymore. "When he said it doesn't make sense he didn't realize it didn't make sense to him anymore." I'm not familiar with this work so have no stake in this particular game, but it sits uneasy for me anyways. For myself, I think it mostly comes down to the incentives for releasing it. Is this a valuable literary work that deserves to be published? How would we even go about deciding such a thing, without breaking the deceased's will anyways? Or, is this just the estate saying, "The money from the previous books is drying up! We can either get real jobs, or go against dad's wishes for free money." In which case, screw that. But even if you agree with the latter, given the complexity of the former, I feel like the fix there is that the rules for publishing works of the deceased should be different, e.g. it is immediately in the public domain so that there is no (or at least less) financial incentive since the original author has already decided not to profit from it. That would at least let us address the former questions more clearly and with reverence.

hipaa_eng 3y ago
> I feel like the fix there is that the rules for publishing works of the deceased should be different, e.g. it is immediately in the public domain so that there is no (or at least less) financial incentive since the original author has already decided not to profit from it. sometimes the plan is for the children/successors to benefit from the works. Some do ask for things to be published after they're gone
- lizard 3y ago
  Yeah, I get it. There's a lot of complexity. I considered including something about "when the author has explicitly said not to release it" which draws up even more complexity in this case because the children argued 'Dad wasn't in the right mind.' So does that make it OK? But honestly, for my part anyways, I'm not sure any of that matters. I'm a big fan of creativity. It's probably the most valuable thing people have and it ought to be protected and rewarded. That's why this is even a dilemma for me because I would be disappointed to see a good creative work lost forever just because they didn't see the value of their own work. But that's also why I'm against that kind of inheritance. Children, especially those who have the luxury and of good upbringing, should be encouraged to pursue their own creativity and produce their own value, rather than riding on the coattails of their forebears.