[HN Gopher] Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Sons publish novel that late...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Sons publish novel that late author wanted
       destroyed
        
       Author : divbzero
       Score  : 34 points
       Date   : 2024-03-07 05:36 UTC (17 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
        
       | wryoak wrote:
       | Classic: authors trying to take their texts to the grave. We also
       | wouldn't have The Master and Margarita if Bulgakov's wife had
       | respected his death bed wish to have it burnt.
        
         | shrubble wrote:
         | Manuscripts don't burn, however...
        
       | neogodless wrote:
       | There's a free article on NPR about this:
       | 
       | https://www.npr.org/2024/03/06/1236246186/gabriel-garcia-mar...
       | 
       | There's also a related story about the author at the time of his
       | death (April 17, 2014):
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7606131 (160 comments)
       | 
       |  _Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Literary Pioneer, Dies at 87_
       | (nytimes.com)
        
       | nindalf wrote:
       | 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 wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | moralestapia wrote:
           | >believed it was important for the world to read it
           | 
           | Sure, if you also ignore the obvious economic reasons
           | attached to it.
        
             | fifilura wrote:
             | Or maybe his incentives were not purely economical? Why
             | should I have to assume that?
        
               | moralestapia wrote:
               | Because there's a thing called "the public domain" and
               | they didn't opt for that.
        
               | fifilura wrote:
               | 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 wrote:
               | 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?
        
             | quatrefoil wrote:
             | 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.
        
           | fifilura wrote:
           | 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_Kafk.
           | ..
        
         | CharlesW wrote:
         | > _But I feel like I'm being disloyal if I read something he
         | explicitly wanted no one to read._
         | 
         | He won't mind.
        
         | Almondsetat wrote:
         | 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 wrote:
           | Conversely why would I financially support the decision to go
           | against this man's wishes for his own work?
        
             | Almondsetat wrote:
             | 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 wrote:
             | Why should a dead person's wishes bind the actions of
             | living people?
        
               | csdvrx wrote:
               | > 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 wrote:
               | 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...
        
               | toyg wrote:
               | Would still have paid for a lot of university debt, food-
               | stamp, or Medicare...
        
               | Barrin92 wrote:
               | out of respect? Paraphrasing Chesterton, tradition is
               | refusing to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of
               | those who merely happen to be walking about.
               | 
               | If I respect an author enough to spend hours of my life
               | reading her work, why should I discard her opinion the
               | moment she dies? If you're going to honor one thing about
               | a person it probably ought to be their will.
        
               | Almondsetat wrote:
               | Is the profession of a historian inherently immoral then?
               | How many things we know and how many of them are of
               | crucial historical importance that were not supposed to
               | be known?
        
               | ozim wrote:
               | Idea is that historians don't deal with recently deceased
               | and they are not digging into their close relatives or
               | friends.
               | 
               | I do wish my close ones to obey my will. I don't care
               | about some random person 50 years later after I die.
               | 
               | I will also obey the will of my relatives and close ones
               | to show that I respect the will so when it is my turn to
               | go away others will treat me as I treated others.
        
               | cogman10 wrote:
               | Because it's nice to live in a society where the living
               | isn't tramatised by the knowledge of what happens to your
               | legacy after you die.
               | 
               | For example, it could be argued that the best way to
               | dispose of corpses is composting and not cemeteries or
               | cremation. With that in mind, should the state not impose
               | that everyone is composted?
               | 
               | Even though I personally wouldn't care if that's the
               | ultimate fate of my body, lots of people DO care about
               | that. There would be a harm done to society if something
               | like this was forced on the remains of their loved ones.
               | 
               | So the round about answer is, because it's a nice thing
               | to do that makes people feel good and that has value.
               | 
               | The fact that we are having this discussion sort of
               | underlines the issue with going against the wishes of the
               | dead. It makes people uncomfortable and upset.
               | 
               | That being said, it probably wouldn't feel nearly as
               | ghoulish if Garcia was dead for more than a couple of
               | years. The reason it feels uncomfortable is her family is
               | going against her wishes to publish his book ostensibly
               | for the money. That feels a little like grave robbing.
               | (Which, again, could be viewed in the same light. Why
               | does grave robbing matter?)
        
               | chmod775 wrote:
               | Because it will put those who are still living at ease.
               | Dying is a touchy topic already, and the expectation of
               | having one's wishes _honored_ after one 's death can
               | inform decisions while still alive.
               | 
               | Also yeah. Disrespecting a perfectly reasonable wish of a
               | deceased and tainting their legacy is just a deeply
               | dishonorable thing and I will actively shun people who do
               | so.
        
               | Almondsetat wrote:
               | someone's legacy != someone's curated image
        
               | chmod775 wrote:
               | A writer's works is definitely their legacy.
        
               | Almondsetat wrote:
               | Also the unpublished works
        
               | chmod775 wrote:
               | Most definitely not if you have them destroyed like T.P.
               | 
               | What was even your point about "someone's curated image"?
               | Was that argument supposed to go somewhere or are you
               | planning to impart pieces of your wisdom one statement at
               | a time, hoping people will extrapolate some sort of
               | argument in the most charitable manner?
               | 
               | I really cannot be bothered, especially since it seems
               | like we're just splitting hairs here and arguing about
               | definitions.
        
             | adammarples wrote:
             | Because you want to read it? There's no other reason.
             | Personally I think once you're dead you don't get to decide
             | anything any more. That's just life.
        
             | lagadu wrote:
             | Legit question: Would you read it if it were free but still
             | against the creator's wishes?
        
         | kansface wrote:
         | Emily Dickinson likely intended that all of her works be
         | destroyed after her death. Her sister disregarded her will and
         | saw them published instead.
        
         | browningstreet wrote:
         | 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.
        
         | lizard wrote:
         | I heard about this on NPR this morning (which is looks like
         | someone already posted the link:
         | 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 Garcia Marquez'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.
        
       | MisterBastahrd wrote:
       | Life belongs to the living. If he really wanted his last novel
       | destroyed, he should have done it himself while he was still able
       | to do so.
        
       | Narretz wrote:
       | > Of course it's not a trashy romance novel, it is an amazing
       | work of art
       | 
       | Quote by the editor. Highlights a problem to me. Since Marquez is
       | so famous, they feel the need to put this novel on a pedestal,
       | even though it might just be "okay". Which of course is okay in
       | itself.
       | 
       | I also think the sons contradict themselves when they say that
       | their father lost the intellectual power to judge if the book
       | should be published, yet didn't he also write it during this
       | time? So I understand it like Marquez was aware of his mental
       | problems and that's why he decided not to publish.
        
       | joe_the_user wrote:
       | It's not unusual for authors to express a desire for their
       | unpublished works to be destroyed. Kafka wanted all his
       | unpublished works to be destroyed - consider these are most of
       | his known works now, we're quite lucky his executor, Max Brod,
       | defied his wishes.
        
         | csdvrx wrote:
         | > It's not unusual for authors to express a desire for their
         | unpublished works to be destroyed. Kafka wanted all his
         | unpublished works to be destroyed - consider these are most of
         | his known works now, we're quite lucky his executor, Max Brod,
         | defied his wishes.
         | 
         | Are we lucky, or was Kafka unlucky?
         | 
         | I find the lack of respect about authors' wishes very shocking.
        
           | drunkpotato wrote:
           | Why? They're dead. Not trying to be flippant, I honestly
           | don't get why the deceased's desires should be elevated over
           | the living's. It's a moral choice I don't agree with and
           | don't entirely understand.
        
             | hosh wrote:
             | This is less about the deceased's desires over that of the
             | living and more about creative control. Any creator will
             | want to polish their work. It's already difficult enough to
             | articulate and express the source of inspiration, and even
             | polished, the material expression almost never matches its
             | source.
        
               | vidarh wrote:
               | I've published two novels, and I have _tons_ of notes for
               | all kinds of things, and frankly while there is lots I
               | have written that I don 't want to publish until/unless I
               | rework it, and some things I don't want to publish at
               | all, I couldn't give a shit what gets published after I'm
               | dead _other than to the extent it 'd harm or embarrass
               | anyone I care about_. I don't think I have anything
               | that'd harm anyone, but I do have things that might
               | embarrass some. Like love poems written in my youth that
               | has sentimental value for me, but might be embarrassing
               | to my present or then girlfriend, for example.
               | 
               | Frankly, all I'd ask of a literary executor would be that
               | they 1) humor my requests while I'm alive, 2) respect the
               | wishes of my family. Other than that, whether they
               | _actually_ follow through on my wishes? Put it this way,
               | if I find myself in an afterlife, as an atheist, I doubt
               | whether my executor stuck my wishes will be high on my
               | list of things to care about. And without an afterlife it
               | 's not as if I'd be able to care. Or know,
        
               | ghaff wrote:
               | I can see both views. On the one hand, authors aren't
               | always the best judges of their own work and executors
               | can hire someone who may do a good job of polishing. On
               | the other hand, there are unfinished works that are
               | relatively mediocre (True at First Light) or just clearly
               | unfinished (The Last Tycoon).
               | 
               | Of course, a movie studio is almost certain to finish off
               | a movie if a director dies and may remove them for other
               | reasons.
        
               | hosh wrote:
               | It's true, a good editor or producer collaborates with
               | the creative to get it across the finish line, flawed as
               | it is.
               | 
               | It works better if there is mutual respect.
               | 
               | My point though is when generalizing and reframing this
               | about the deceased vs living, more often than not, it is
               | no longer about respecting (even respectfully
               | disagreeing) with the creative and more about
               | disrespecting the deceased.
        
               | ghaff wrote:
               | >It's true, a good editor or producer collaborates with
               | the creative to get it across the finish line, flawed as
               | it is.
               | 
               | If it's a studio film, they may well fire the director
               | and hire a new one. And, of course, screenwriters are
               | casually script doctored with or without their consent.
        
               | hosh wrote:
               | Sure, because it is funded by a commercial concern and
               | they are in the business of selling entertainment.
               | 
               | With books, the balance of power isn't so skewed to the
               | publisher, though I suppose it depends on what it is.
               | 
               | I don't know what circumstances Tolkien's unfinished work
               | was released, though it seems like his son toiled away at
               | them for years.
        
               | ghaff wrote:
               | True, and there's typically far less money (or big
               | expenses) involved with books.
               | 
               | I always assumed Christopher Tolkien had some sort of "do
               | with them what you think best" agreement with his father
               | although I don't actually know. Not that there's anything
               | particularly special in written word beyond Tolkien's
               | originals.
        
               | chasil wrote:
               | Well, I guess that we all need to stop listening to
               | Schubert's unfinished symphony.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._8_(Schubert)#E
               | arl...
        
               | westhanover wrote:
               | Do I have permission to desecrate your corpse? You are
               | dead after all.
        
               | jkestner wrote:
               | I'm donating my body to art, so sure.
        
               | pfdietz wrote:
               | Do what Steven Wright plans and donate your body to
               | science fiction.
        
             | itishappy wrote:
             | Does this apply to inheritance too? Why should we care what
             | happens to our kids once we die?
        
               | drunkpotato wrote:
               | While we're alive, we care. When we're dead, it's up to
               | our children to care. Inheritance wishes are generally
               | respected, but also can and do get overridden. I'm not
               | saying that an author's wishes shouldn't be taken into
               | account, the living still care about how they felt while
               | they were alive, but it shouldn't be the one and only
               | priority that gets respected. Again, the dead can't care
               | anymore. Only the living can.
        
               | hosh wrote:
               | That really depends upon your beliefs and understanding
               | of the cosmos. Not everyone agrees with that.
               | 
               | To be fair, I have practiced shaivasana ("corpse pose"),
               | specifically including "corpse don't care" as a response
               | to existential anguish arising and passing. But I also
               | know quite a good bit about what it means to regret and
               | long for second chances or a path not taken. I think it
               | is quite rare for anyone (regardless of beliefs) to die
               | without regrets. If you are able to pull that off for
               | yourself, I'm glad for you.
        
               | hosh wrote:
               | It's interesting you bring up kids.
               | 
               | In a belief system where there is a Creator, and the
               | Creator is a Mother, all of Creation are her children.
               | Thus, as humans, raising and nurturing a child is as much
               | of an act of creation as art, music, etc. And conversely,
               | our artistic creations tend to develop a life of its own.
        
             | nottorp wrote:
             | But but... our copyright lords at the Mouse's castle have
             | decreed that copyright lasts 75 years after the author's
             | death.
             | 
             | That means it's illegal to not respect the dead person's
             | wishes. The copyright is theirs, not their descendant's.
        
               | pfdietz wrote:
               | Copyright lasts for that period, but it doesn't continue
               | to belong to the dead person.
        
             | jzb wrote:
             | They weren't deceased when they expressed the desire. You
             | usually don't know when, exactly, you're going to die.
             | Nobody would argue, I hope, with "I'm going on a trip,
             | don't publish anything I'm not done with until I get back
             | and finish it." This just happens to be a very long, one-
             | way trip.
             | 
             | That said, I do think once someone is dead, there's some
             | argument whether you have to respect that. But I at least
             | understand the desire.
        
           | joe_the_user wrote:
           | Aside from "they're dead, how can it hurt them" factor,
           | there's the point that if an author well and truly wants a
           | given work out of the public eye, they can destroy it
           | themselves when they're alive.
        
             | jl6 wrote:
             | Usually we're talking about things like the author's
             | private notes and rough drafts, which they may well wish to
             | keep around while they are alive (because they are useful).
        
           | kryptiskt wrote:
           | He put them in the care of Brod, who had told him that he
           | would refuse to burn them. If he really wanted the work
           | burned he wouldn't have put it in the hands of his biggest
           | fan.
        
         | chasil wrote:
         | Virgil's Aeneid is the most famous example that I know...
         | 
         | "According to tradition, Virgil traveled to Greece around 19 BC
         | to revise the Aeneid. After meeting Augustus in Athens and
         | deciding to return home, Virgil caught a fever while visiting a
         | town near Megara. Virgil crossed to Italy by ship, weakened
         | with disease, and died in Brundisium harbour on 21 September 19
         | BC, leaving a wish that the manuscript of the Aeneid was to be
         | burned. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors, Lucius
         | Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca, to disregard that wish, instead
         | ordering the Aeneid to be published with as few editorial
         | changes as possible. As a result, the existing text of the
         | Aeneid may contain faults which Virgil was planning to correct
         | before publication. However, the only obvious imperfections are
         | a few lines of verse that are metrically unfinished (i.e., not
         | a complete line of dactylic hexameter). Other alleged
         | "imperfections" are subject to scholarly debate."
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneid#Virgil's_death,_and_edi...
        
           | nescioquid wrote:
           | It was the first example I thought of, as well.
           | 
           | I don't really mean this as an accusation, but I suspect
           | these death-bed demands are simply a pose. Not that they are
           | essentially insincere, but rather a final gesture of
           | conscientiousness that should be ignored.
           | 
           | What is lost to the world by retaining the imperfect,
           | incomplete?
        
             | virgildotcodes wrote:
             | Presumably the image that the dead person was attempting
             | cultivate about themselves and their work.
        
             | csallen wrote:
             | I think a better explanation is that authors and other
             | creators of public works are concerned with how they will
             | be perceived.
             | 
             | Otherwise, they wouldn't spend months and years
             | meticulously editing and improving their works before
             | release.
             | 
             | It's uncomfortable, embarrassing even, to have your
             | unfinished work consumed and reviewed as if it were
             | finished, and as if it were an accurate measure of your
             | intentions and talent.
        
               | david-gpu wrote:
               | _> It 's uncomfortable, embarrassing even, to have your
               | unfinished work consumed and reviewed as if it were
               | finished_
               | 
               | Yes, but when the unfinished work is published, it is
               | well known that it was incomplete.
               | 
               | That said, I can understand the author not wanting it to
               | be published. If is a shitty thing to publish it against
               | the author's will when they are alive, it is equally
               | shitty to do it when they have died.
        
           | Jerrrry wrote:
           | >most famous
           | 
           | >It is unlikely that Marcus Aurelius ever intended the
           | writings to be published.
           | 
           | It is lore that one of his jesters burned himself to save the
           | writings from a fire.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditations
        
         | rzzzt wrote:
         | Add Chopin to the, ahem, list: https://youtu.be/x93pwAvUkAA
        
           | perihelions wrote:
           | Brahms was successful at destroying large parts of his work
           | product [0]. Kuhlau was too [1], thought he didn't intend to
           | --his house burned down.
           | 
           | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Brahms#Works (
           | _"...once claimed to have destroyed 20 string quartets before
           | he issued his official First in 1873... "_)
           | 
           | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Kuhlau
        
         | TheCaptain4815 wrote:
         | Roberto Bolano wanted 2666 to be 5 split novels
        
       | COGlory wrote:
       | What if he did want it published, and this is just marketing?
        
       | FourHand451 wrote:
       | Terry Pratchett had a plan for things he was working on at the
       | time of his death:
       | 
       | > Pratchett told Neil Gaiman that anything that he had been
       | working on at the time of his death should be destroyed by a
       | steamroller. On 25 August 2017, his assistant Rob Wilkins
       | fulfilled this wish by crushing Pratchett's hard drive under a
       | steamroller at the Great Dorset Steam Fair.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett#Unfinished_tex...
        
         | msie wrote:
         | That's too bad. Kinda selfish in a way.
        
           | aqfamnzc wrote:
           | How so?
        
           | ghaff wrote:
           | It's what's more important? Doing fan service for fans who
           | will revere your grocery list because it brings them joy? Or
           | leaving behind a body of work you're really proud of and is
           | widely respected?
           | 
           | I make it black and white but it's not obvious to me you
           | always want to publish things just because some people will
           | devour them.
        
           | magospietato wrote:
           | I get where you're coming from in a way. But speaking
           | personally, the idea of people peeking at my creations before
           | I'm ready for them to is anathema. Like, some fundamental
           | violation of the self.
        
           | natebc wrote:
           | I think it's perfectly fine for last wishes to be a little
           | selfish.
        
         | Narretz wrote:
         | I think that was the right call. Pratchett's works after the
         | Alzheimer onset weren't bad by any means, but they became very
         | formulaic and didn't have the creativity of his best books.
         | They're not helped by Moist van Lipwig being imo his most
         | boring protagonist.
        
           | johncalvinyoung wrote:
           | I don't love Moist the way I do Sam Vimes, but the last
           | handful of Industrial Revolution-themed Discworld novels are
           | among my favorites. Maybe it's because I'm a software
           | developer who trained in economics, but the discussions of
           | monetary systems and public policy in satire is much
           | appreciated.
        
         | glimshe wrote:
         | Good call. You can hardly find cases where the heirs of great
         | authors didn't simply leech off the estate, normally with
         | little to no regard to artistic integrity.
        
           | sonofhans wrote:
           | Christopher Tolkien is, as always, the exception that proves
           | this rule.
        
             | xeonmc wrote:
             | Considering that the creation process heavily involved
             | Christopher in that their father-son story time inspired a
             | large part of it, one could probably qualify him as a
             | coauthor in terms of non-financial attachment to the works.
        
       | tombert wrote:
       | After Dr. Seuss died, they started publishing his unpublished
       | stuff. "Daisy-Head Mayzie" is the one that comes to mind. At a
       | certain point in my life I used to think that was bad, but to be
       | honest I feel like it's naive to think we have any control of our
       | legacy after we die.
       | 
       | I think it's best to publish these things, but treat them as more
       | archival biographical than anything else, like a journal. I
       | honestly don't think "Daisy-Head Mayzie" is bad, or even the
       | worst thing with Dr. Seuss' name on it, and it's an interesting
       | look into his opinions on becoming famous. I'm glad it was
       | published, even if he wouldn't be.
        
         | petre wrote:
         | They probably wanted to publish the work but couldn't do it, so
         | they left it up to chance. If one really wants to destroy their
         | work, they throw it into the fire like James Joyce did with
         | _Stephen Hero_ , or what became _Portrait of the Artist as a
         | Young Man_. Fortunately his wife Nora was quick enough to save
         | it, helped by his sister. I tried to read it but only made it
         | to chapter three.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | See also (but no comments there, as we merged the thread hither):
       | 
       |  _Gabriel Garcia Marquez Wanted to Destroy His Last Novel. It 's
       | Being Published_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39630173
        
       | wly_cdgr wrote:
       | A disgrace. I will never buy or even read these. None of us
       | should.
        
       | 7thaccount wrote:
       | This reminds me of the amazing Kentucky Route Zero game, which
       | references a bunch of magical realism authors like Marquez.
        
       | dhosek wrote:
       | There's the famous story about the scholars who broke into
       | Beethoven's tomb hoping to rescue some lost pieces that were
       | buried with him. When they opened it, they found him furiously
       | erasing the manuscripts.
       | 
       | "What are you doing?" the horrified scholars asked.
       | 
       | "Leave me alone," Beethoven replied. "I'm decomposing."
        
         | grugagag wrote:
         | That was a good one.
        
       | nottorp wrote:
       | Careful there.
       | 
       | Could be another masterpiece... or it could be one of the 3480
       | new "Dune" novels allegedly written from Frank Herbert's notes.
       | Quality stuff, that.
        
       | jl6 wrote:
       | Personally I think it is right to respect the reasonable wishes
       | of the recently deceased, but there's a time limit on everything.
       | Eventually, the deceased pass into history and become fair game.
       | There's no sharp boundary, but 10 years isn't that long.
        
       | bena wrote:
       | We are often our own harshest critics.
       | 
       | I think you should have someone you trust to gauge the quality of
       | your work and let them make the call.
       | 
       | Because like people here have pointed out, some authors wanted
       | their works destroyed when they died, but for some that is the
       | work we most know them by.
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | > _" We did think about it for about three seconds - was it a
       | betrayal to my parents, to my father's [wishes]?_
       | 
       | > _" And we decided, yes, it was a betrayal. But that's what
       | children are for."_
       | 
       | Haha, fucking brilliant. I love this. Certainly the children of
       | the man. I think this is a good thing they have done. There is no
       | harm done to the man, since he no longer exists. Truly
       | philosophical descendants of Diogenes of Sinope.
        
         | soperj wrote:
         | I think Gabriel Garcia Marquez would have been fully on board
         | with that thinking.
        
       | mseepgood wrote:
       | How is this ethical?
        
       | selimthegrim wrote:
       | I can't remember if it was Warhol or Zappa who strictly enjoined
       | (with no legal force) his heirs/descendants/family from putting
       | his image/words on coffee mugs and it happened anyway.
        
       | cvalka wrote:
       | Good call.
        
       | kouru225 wrote:
       | As someone who deals with art and artists on the regular, the
       | thing most people don't realize is how much our perception of
       | them and their art is built on top of an illusion. It's the
       | artist's job to create an illusion of a cohesive narrative.
       | Sometimes that gets into artists' heads and they're overly afraid
       | of breaking down that narrative, but sometimes that fear is
       | absolutely justified. It's a hard judgment call that
       | unfortunately gets even more confused by the prospect of making
       | straight bank
        
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