Oct

More Kafka to be Published, and He’s Too Dead to Care

Danke, Max.

If you’ve enjoyed reading The Trial, do two things:

1. Thank Max Brod

2. Wipe your spit off Franz Kafka’s grave

I’m just kidding about number two– sort of. See, Kafka famously demanded on his deathbed that none of his fiction or letters ever be published. In fact, he implored his friend, Max Brod, to burn every last page of his remaining work.

But like we see fairly often, a great contribution to literature is borne from an act of personal betrayal. Brod went and had much of it published, and as a result we’ve had The Castle, Amerika, The Trial, and short fiction such as “The Metamorphosis.” Brod guarded the rest of the manuscripts– 40,000 pages– with his life, even smuggling them in a suitcase as he fled the Nazis. Encouraged by the public reception of his friend’s works, Brod went so far as to demand in his will that the rest of the surviving fiction and journals be donated to the public, preferably a library in Israel. His secretary’s daughters eventually ended up with the Kafka stacks, selling material here and there and insisting upon ownership because they were “a gift.”

But as reported yesterday by The Guardian, an Israeli judge ruled “no they weren’t,” and Ava Hoffe has to cough up the Kafka.

Maybe you react with unrepressed joy at the news of any archive releases or lost manuscripts, as in “Yay, More Books.” But allow me to inject some guilt into this conversation.

This is can be a sticky situation, ethically speaking. How seriously should one take a friend’s dying wish– the last thing he/she has on this earth? Also, how much should one value an artist’s control over his/her own legacy? We’ve run into this with Hemingway, Dickinson, Austen, and more recently David Foster Wallace– all authors with writings posthumously published without or against said author’s wishes.

If we’re going to be utilitarian about this, we’ll say screw your feelings, One Person: this is to the potential enjoyment of millions. But maybe– every now and then– authors are reasonable in holding back work they consider unfinished or subpar…

So the archivists, scholars, and editors will pore over the manuscripts for weeks to compile Kafka’s lost works and journals. What if, upon the project’s completion, we received a public statement from the National Library of Israel that went a little something like this:

We thought we knew better than the great Franz Kafka, that these lost pages would form a lasting tribute to world literature and mankind, or at the very least be publishable by some conceivable standard. We assumed the author’s reluctance toward releasing his own work was merely the result of a self-defeating neurosis. This, we have learned, is not so.

These writings are bad. Very, very bad. The National Library of Israel has reached a scholarly consensus that Kafka was not only justified, but morally obligated in his initiative to destroy the entire volume.

After endless shifts of panning through dense, unreadable bilge for so much as a silver nugget of artistry that would never emerge, the Library now makes these previously unreleased writings of Kafka available to the enquiring public. Realize, however, that the Library does so only in acquiescence to overwhelming popular demand and the desire not to invalidate its expenditures.

The Trial 2: Double Jeopardy is scheduled to print in December, with a new introduction by Philip Roth.

247 days ago Short URL Comments

Between Books

books/classics/franz kafka/library/literature/max brod/the trial

Oct

Book Blogs are “Bad for Readers”

Book blogs harm the integrity of serious literature? Read You Bastard cannot help but feel included in this indictment.

Last week The Independent interviewed Sir Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement and judge of this year’s Man Booker Prize. His comments set off a storm of controversy across the book blogosphere, which is generally what happens when you criticize the book blogosphere.

“It is wonderful that there are so many blogs and websites devoted to books,” Sir Peter said with some equanimity, “but to be a critic is to be importantly different than those sharing their own taste… Not everyone’s opinion is worth the same.” He elaborates on his views of blogging:

“…. Eventually that will be to the detriment of literature. It will be bad for readers; as much as one would like to think that many bloggers opinions are as good as others. It just ain’t so. People will be encouraged to buy and read books that are no good, the good will be overwhelmed, and we’ll be worse off. There are some important issues here.”

As they say: Snap.

This is not unlike the way traditional journalists have viewed news bloggers for more than a decade. Here comes amateur hour, pilfering the quotes I got from my interviews and forming half-baked opinions (or forming opinions, period). Which I’m doing with this story, by the way.

Blogging is the bridge over the moat. Pedigreed devotees like Sir Peter now have to share the castle keep with the motley rabble, who are more passionate than disciplined in their promotion of books.

“There is a widespread sense in the UK, as well as America, that traditional, confident criticism, based on argument and telling people whether the book is any good, is in decline. Quite unnecessarily.”

I hope he’s not under some powerful delusion that this decline is a new thing. When have literary critics not bemoaned, albeit justifiably, society’s diminishing appreciation for what they do? With all these noisy bloggers, they’re losing control of the conversation. They don’t feel they can effectively do their job of determining the works we ought to value as a culture.

Let’s consider where he’s coming from

…and have a peek at Stothard’s priorities in evaluating literary excellence:

He dismisses the readability tag as a “side issue” on judging novels and concedes the organisers may have chosen him as chair of the judges to avoid similar issues this year.

(I guess we can see another Wolf Hall this time, for better or worse.)

He and book bloggers both love to write about what they read, but the relatability likely ends there:

He cannot remember the last sporting event he went to and has no interest in films, admitting to only ever seeing six films in his lifetime.

This is quite telling. It’s a testament of his devotion to literature– he’s all-in. Of course, anyone who invests his every waking moment to the written word and nothing else is going to be incredibly sensitive to any perceived downtick in the societal value of books.

And if anything, that’s why he’s not the best person to listen to on what the public should be reading. Where’s his perspective? A twelve-year-old could condescend to him on the principles of cinematography and what a corner kick is.

At the risk of sounding democratic, I believe that if someone’s making decisions on what passes and what fails in the literary canon, his agenda should more closely resemble that of an enlightened human being than an antisocial android. I have a towering respect for someone like Stothard in his dedication to literature, but can someone this isolated from the general reading public, as he seems to be, truly be effective in promoting good books? When you champion an author’s achievement while ignoring standards of enjoyability and readability, rather than seeking some combination of these, of course the reading public will find you increasingly irrelevant. If no one wants to read the works you’re preserving, they will not be preserved.

I can think of only one proper fashion of settling this debate. As he is a knight, I beseech Sir Peter get himself armoured and saddle his steed: I would fain meet him in the lists.

261 days ago Short URL 12 Comments

Between Books/What We Talk About When We Talk About Talking About Books

book blogs/books/literary criticism/literature/man booker prize/sir peter stothard

Sep

Watching Margaret Atwood Sing a Hymn in Church

The cultural divide was vast. Between her references to being a “Girl Guide” instead of a Girl Scout and all of those unnecessary u’s Canadians add to words like “color,” we could hardly understand a word she was saying. It was worth the effort, of course.

She came to Shove Chapel at Colorado College

Friday night Margaret Atwood came to Colorado Springs on invitation from our library district. The Pikes Peak Library District, which enjoys one of the largest patronages in America but not the deepest administrative wisdom, selected her book for its All Pikes Peak Reads for 2012.

The regrettable part wasn’t that they chose a work of Atwood’s. Canada’s best (“still living,” as she emphasized) author is definitely good enough for us. One might argue that the regrettable part wasn’t even their choice of book provided one ignores the awkwardness presented in the fact that The Year of the Flood is a sort-of sequel.

It’s that every year, the All Pikes Peak Reads program hinges on a theme. In 2008, for example, it was the Dust Bowl, for which the book our whole community was encouraged to read was The Grapes of Wrath and a local theater company staged an adaptation of the novel. 2009′s was space exploration, for which the book was Rocket Boys, and the associated play was… Our Town. That’s right. The play we put on– for the theme of space exploration– was Our Town.

This year’s theme was survival. “Hot damn,” said the head of the planning committee. “We gotta get Margaret Atwood in for that.”

And that’s what we compelled her to talk about– survival. Of course, like any work concerning a pandemic, The Year of the Flood deals in survival, but not as profoundly as the topics of environmental stewardship, the risks of genetic experimentation, or the dangers of religious fanaticism. So having Margaret Atwood come speak on survival– not in the aspect of mental and emotional adaptability, but in the aspect of Bear Grylls– is a strange situation.

My town would just as eagerly get Salman Rushdie to visit and then confine him to the subject of basketball. The fact that I would still go see Salman Rushdie give a lecture on basketball is not the point. It would be a slight misapplication, is what I’m saying.

(In celebrating the theme of basketball our theater company would proudly stage Twelve Angry Men)

Yukon Maggie

Atwood began by listing basic environmental hazards brought on by weather, terrain, lack of nutrition, etc., in the most superficial sense. She stressed the importance of proper clothing. And the risks of having improper clothing.

Learn which mushrooms can kill you, she advised.

Don’t stand up in a canoe.

She recalled her early childhood in the Canadian wilderness, growing up with her brother “One-Match Atwood,” nicknamed for his ability to make a fire under any conditions with just a single match.

She touched on rabbit starvation– the condition brought on in the wild by eating only small game, which gives you protein but no fat, causing your body to consume itself Atkins-diet style.

As you can well imagine, knowing Atwood, this all had a wryness about it. I think she was enjoying this offbeat topic as something apart from the gender politics and writing processes she’d been demanded to speak on ad nauseum for forty-plus years. Instead, she was now reminding everyone that when you’re in the throes of rabbit starvation, it’s time to dig up an ant hill.

What we want to hear

In spite of that, people were most eager to hear those ad nauseum topics once she finally got around to them. When you’re a famous writer, your fans are mostly waiting for you to talk about being a writer.

She recalled her very first book signing. For her debut, The Edible Woman, they arranged a table for her in the mens’ sock and underwear department of The Hudson Bay Company. The browsing men were understandably frightened to see her there. “I sold two copies that day.”

Once she gained some notoriety in the ’60s and ’70s she’d be asked a set of typical of questions during Q and A’s.

“Do you hate men?”

“And I’d say,” Atwood remembered with a kind smile, ”‘Which ones?’ Hitler and Stalin I wasn’t too keen on… but Albert Schweitzer? [nods, gives a thumbs up]“

“Do men hate you?”

“And again I’d say, ‘Which ones? And maybe you should be asking them.’”

Then there was the expectation female poets had to fulfill: ”When are you going to kill yourself?” She reminded everyone that she was living in the age of Sylvia Plath.

“Is your hair naturally like that, or do you get it done?”

“If I got it done, do you think I’d have them do it like this?”

To conclude, she treated everyone to her own vocal rendition of “We Praise the Tiny Perfect Moles,” one of the hymns she wrote for The Year of the Flood.

I must say, she seemed delightful– not a mean bone in her body but nonetheless radiating boldness. With her trademark lively eyes and wild hair, you could picture Margaret Atwood riding on the back of somebody’s motorcycle despite her age, across New Mexico and with a big orange scarf blowing in the wind.

And yes, she stayed to sign every last book.