Patrick White's papers found

[vili]

I don't know if there are any Patrick White enthusiasts on these forums (other than myself, that is), but since there doesn't appear to be a separate White forum I am posting this here.



White's literary treasure found
By David Marr, November 3, 2006

The old bastard. Patrick White told the world over and over again that none of this existed. "Don't bother hunting for drafts and manuscripts," he snapped when I asked years ago. "They've all gone into the pit."

They hadn't. Stuffed into cupboards and drawers in his house on the edge of Centennial Park was more literary treasure than anyone has unearthed in this country for decades. He kept drafts and sketches of novels, stories, plays and speeches. He kept an abandoned novel.

Every word of every draft of the memoir Flaws in the Glass was there when he died. And 10 precious notebooks crammed with jottings, research and verse going back to the 1930s.

...



To read the full article, go to The Age: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/11/02/1162339985898.html

It all makes one ask, though, whether we should be allowed to publish material that authors in their wills have ordered to be destroyed after they die.

[Logos]

Interesting.. haven't read any White but Franz Kafka (http://www.online-literature.com/franz-kafka/) is the first author that comes to mind that also had wishes that any unpublished manuscripts be destroyed upon his death. He had a *major* inferiority complex about his writing, but his friend and editor Max Brod (thankfully) chose not to heed and published The Trial less than a year after his death.

I suppose estate laws have changed a lot over the years, but an author should know that when they die someone will be finding their stuff, if they don't want it published/made public they should destroy it themselves :) or have very specific legal instructions as to how they want such things handled ie: only published by family, a journal only kept within the family and never made public etc although that isn't always a guarantee either.

Hazel Rowley's Tete a Tete, about Sartre and Beauvoir, quotes unpublished works/diaries and examines their rather tempestuous relationship despite all their 'free love' ideology, I wonder if Sartre is 'spinning in his grave' :p

[vili]

Yes, Kafka is indeed the classic example. White's case is in many ways similar in that he directed his literary executor to destroy all the remaining papers, but as it has now turned out, she didn't do so.

To be honest, I personally have very mixed feelings about these things -- if one cannot trust someone to carry out a task after you die, then who or what can you trust? And if you want to keep certain papers with you until you die, but don't want them to be published, how can you as an established writer guarantee it? I suppose it's better not become a famous writer at all, or then simply accept that your privacy will be invaded anyway. ;)

I actually haven't read Kafka's novels partly because of his own wishes not to have them published. Similarly, I usually stay away from literary correspondence unless it has been approved by the correspondents themselves. But with White, I must say that I am terribly tempted to get whatever will end up being published from this new find. The temptation is simply too much to bear, as he is the one writer I would probably be taking to that uninhabited island. :)

It also makes one think of Shakespeare, who never seemed to care about getting his works collected, unlike many of his contemporaries like Jonson who edited their own collected works. I still enjoy reading and seeing Shakespeare's works, so I suppose literary figures are not always the best judges concerning what to do with their works. After all, for many a writer the only work that matters is the one that they are working on at the moment, and anything else can just as well be burnt. We, as readers and scholars, don't necessarily agree. :)