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Burning Nabokov ...
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Past and Prologue
Because everything is connected.
http://pastandprologue.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/burning-nabokov/
Burning Nabokov
January 18, 2008 by stephengierach
Ron Rosenbaum’s article “Dmitri’s Choice” in Slate questions the nature of ownership in dealing with intellectual property, specifically literary works. Vladimir Nabokov supposedly asked his literary executor to destroy any unfinished works surviving after his own death. On July 2, 1977, the author of Lolita (1955) passed away leaving a body of unfinished writings, thus, creating a substantial literary dilemma. This is certainly not the first high-profile scenario where readers and academics are at the mercy of literary executors and their whims regarding the fate of an unpublished corpus. A similar, but more volatile and less amiable, situation concerning Irish author James Joyce was reported on in the New Yorker in 2006. With Past and Prologue’s recent interest in the Library of Congress’s image archive, these questions of ownership seem particularly relevant. Should works of art, research, or personal writings be destroyed at the insistence of a dead and rotting author or a living relative? Does the public have a right to these artifacts that extends beyond the wishes of authors and their friends and family?
In the case of Nabokov, Dmitri Nabokov, the author’s son and literary executor, is confronted with a difficult choice. The destruction of a literary superstar, despite Nabokov’s urgings, is a tremendous responsibility to entrust in anyone. Unlike, Stephen Joyce, grandson of James, who outwardly criticizes, provokes, and enrages the Joyce industry, Dmitri Nabokov appears much more responsive and respectful toward the throngs of readers and scholars who have taken interest in the life and works of his father, and D. Nabokov has been reticent to hastily warm his fingers over the flaming remnants of his father’s successful literary career (Stephen Joyce has been known to light his grandfather’s personal letters on fire in the presence of literary scholars, making a public spectacle out of protecting his family’s right to privacy).
The main issue at hand here, as I see it, is the nature of authorship and its relationship to works of art. Are authors individuals with certain legal and ethical rights to the words that they pen? Or are these unpublished texts, in part, social constructions that belong to a discourse that is “owned” by society as a whole? Literature is, no doubt, a social production. The author is constantly in conversation with editors, publishers, designers, and other authors. These conversations are not literal, but instead are a product of the writing and publishing processes. However, what authority does this give the literary public for requesting that an unpublished work be saved from the fires? Copyright law in America gives authors a limited control over a work for a set period of time, but while this sets a precedent concerning the ownership of intellectual property, it does not settle the debate.
In the case of Nabokov and Joyce, preservation seems to be the most prudent choice. A decision deferred may be a non-decision in many respects, but preserving the work without disseminating it to a wider public ensures that the texts will be available if future conditions reveal a necessity for these texts beyond the selfish wishes of authors, family members, or readers.
============================
Posted in interesting tidbits | Tagged James Joyce, literary estates, Literature, Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov | No Comments »
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Because everything is connected.
http://pastandprologue.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/burning-nabokov/
Burning Nabokov
January 18, 2008 by stephengierach
Ron Rosenbaum’s article “Dmitri’s Choice” in Slate questions the nature of ownership in dealing with intellectual property, specifically literary works. Vladimir Nabokov supposedly asked his literary executor to destroy any unfinished works surviving after his own death. On July 2, 1977, the author of Lolita (1955) passed away leaving a body of unfinished writings, thus, creating a substantial literary dilemma. This is certainly not the first high-profile scenario where readers and academics are at the mercy of literary executors and their whims regarding the fate of an unpublished corpus. A similar, but more volatile and less amiable, situation concerning Irish author James Joyce was reported on in the New Yorker in 2006. With Past and Prologue’s recent interest in the Library of Congress’s image archive, these questions of ownership seem particularly relevant. Should works of art, research, or personal writings be destroyed at the insistence of a dead and rotting author or a living relative? Does the public have a right to these artifacts that extends beyond the wishes of authors and their friends and family?
In the case of Nabokov, Dmitri Nabokov, the author’s son and literary executor, is confronted with a difficult choice. The destruction of a literary superstar, despite Nabokov’s urgings, is a tremendous responsibility to entrust in anyone. Unlike, Stephen Joyce, grandson of James, who outwardly criticizes, provokes, and enrages the Joyce industry, Dmitri Nabokov appears much more responsive and respectful toward the throngs of readers and scholars who have taken interest in the life and works of his father, and D. Nabokov has been reticent to hastily warm his fingers over the flaming remnants of his father’s successful literary career (Stephen Joyce has been known to light his grandfather’s personal letters on fire in the presence of literary scholars, making a public spectacle out of protecting his family’s right to privacy).
The main issue at hand here, as I see it, is the nature of authorship and its relationship to works of art. Are authors individuals with certain legal and ethical rights to the words that they pen? Or are these unpublished texts, in part, social constructions that belong to a discourse that is “owned” by society as a whole? Literature is, no doubt, a social production. The author is constantly in conversation with editors, publishers, designers, and other authors. These conversations are not literal, but instead are a product of the writing and publishing processes. However, what authority does this give the literary public for requesting that an unpublished work be saved from the fires? Copyright law in America gives authors a limited control over a work for a set period of time, but while this sets a precedent concerning the ownership of intellectual property, it does not settle the debate.
In the case of Nabokov and Joyce, preservation seems to be the most prudent choice. A decision deferred may be a non-decision in many respects, but preserving the work without disseminating it to a wider public ensures that the texts will be available if future conditions reveal a necessity for these texts beyond the selfish wishes of authors, family members, or readers.
============================
Posted in interesting tidbits | Tagged James Joyce, literary estates, Literature, Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov | No Comments »
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm