To Shill a Mockingbird.
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On Tuesday the literary world was rocked by the news that Harper Lee, author of one of the most celebrated American novels of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird, is going to publish a second book after 55 years. And the book, Go Set a Watchman, is coming out this summer. And it was written over a half-century ago. And it features Mockingbird's Scout as an adult! The first reaction was one of near universal joy. Who wouldn't be excited about a second book from one of America's greatest novelists? But pretty soon cold water was thrown on the world's jubilation.
The story smelled a little fishy. That a fully completed Harper Lee novel appeared out of thin air and then was rushed to publication struck many as suspicious. Lee never tried to publish a second novel, and her sister — who guarded the author's estate for decades — passed away only a few months ago. Lee has been in poor health since a stroke in 2007. In the span of a day, the book went from the most celebrated recent literary news to being labeled Lee's "controversial second novel" and potential "elder abuse."
Did HarperCollins sit on this book until Alice Lee passed away, knowing that she'd block it? Are they exploiting a senile woman in a blatant money grab? And, if the book is good, does it even matter?
Bookstores are filled with unfinished drafts and unauthorized biographies of famous writers. We publish every scrap, diary entry, and shopping list we can find. If we love an artist enough, we demand the right to everything, no matter how private. To Kill a Mockingbird is a canonical novel, and many will claim there's a vested public and scholarly interest in Go Set a Watchman. Even if Harper Lee wanted the book destroyed — something we have no evidence of, currently — many would still want it published. Sure, maybe we should wait until she's dead to put it out, but since people want to read it they ought to be able to.
It's easy to cry public value, but most of the time these unfinished drafts or apprenticeship works add little. Was the world enhanced by the widely panned publication of Nabokov's unfinished The Original of Laura ? Were his dozens of finished novels, story collections, plays, and other works composed across multiple languages not enough? Nabokov requested that all his unfinished work be destroyed after his death — his wife did not honor his wish — and it's hard to see The Original of Laura as anything more than a cynical and needless book.
Even more importantly, what right do people have to go against an artist's wishes? Most writers I know are horrified by the idea of even showing close friends their rough drafts, much less having that work be published for anyone to read. Especially now that we live in an age of rampant piracy and the regular trampling of artists' rights, I think it's important to stand on the side of artists. To say that their rights and desires should trump the public's, even if that means we are denied a few books we might have enjoyed.
But then there's Franz Kafka.
Putting my cards on the table, I'll say that no writer has meant more to me than Franz Kafka. There's no one I return to more, no one more influential to my own writing. Like Nabokov, Kafka asked for his unfinished work to be destroyed. Unlike Nabokov, Kafka didn't have dozens and dozens of completed books. He hadn't even finished a single novel. It's easy for me to look down on the publication of The Original of Laura when I still get to read Pale Fire and Lolita. But a world without unfinished Kafka is essentially a world without Kafka, and that's not one I want to live in.
Put another way, I was thrilled by the news that smuggled, unpublished Kafka works had been been found hidden in a cat-invested apartment, so how can I fault anyone's excitement over a new Harper Lee novel?
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Harper Lee And Exploitation In The Name Of Literature