Subject: Re: An About Town Republican
From: Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Date: Mon Mar 13 2000 - 13:12:51 EST
On Mon, Mar 13, 2000 at 09:14:57AM -0800, citycabn wrote:
> The not wanting/willing to let go of the manuscripts to the public, the
> what-after-death question of publication--all of a sudden the ghost of Franz
> Kafka stopped by.
Precisely!
> >I'm not sure I get it; in what way? (Your remark sent me nervously
> >scurrying to the New York Times online to see if there was some
> >newsbreak I should see.)
> >
>
> I just meant what IF 1965 was the real end ("as if he were dead"--The
> Writer, that is); that Seymour's glimpse in_Hapworth_ of Buddy's eventual
> release from it all was true ("career that is definitely closed-out"); that
> there really isn't anything beyond scenes, notes, lists, doodles ("no
> further work extant") in that room-size safe.
Indeed, that is a chilling thought. (Not unlike the bit in "The
Shining" when we, and his wife, see what Jack's manuscript contains.)
> Of course I want all of this to be a bad dream and that a Max Brod exists
> for JDS's _hopefully_ copious unpublished fully wrought works.
Yes, yes, yes! A Brod we need. But something in me imagines that
Salinger would not rely on a handshake, but would have an elaborate set
of instructions. Let us hope he has a sensible, generous literary
executor who will serve his work well, as opposed to, say, the executors
of James Joyce, Dawn Powell, Edward and Jo Hopper and all other artists
whose work gets into the over-cautious or over-careless hands of people
who don't care about the creative heritage.
I imagine it would be his wife and/or his son; it would be foolhardy, at
the age of 81, to expect one's contemporaries to do the job well.
William Shawn would have been a fine executor, for instance.
I'll be happy as long as I know there are no manuscripts piled up in
snow-covered boxes out behind the woodshed.
--tim
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