The’books never written’ thread reminded me of how I did not purchase “21” when it was published. “21” was the Aubrey-Maturin novel Patrick Obrien was working on at the time of his death.
To me, it seemed wrong to publish this unfinished work, as the author would almost certainly have been opposed to its publication. I guess I can understand how many of his fans would want ‘one last taste’ of his writing - even if it means the narrative is left frustratingly unresolved, but in the balance of things I’m not convinced that desire should trump the creator’s vision/control of his work post-mortem. Kinda like publishing “Free as a Bird” after John Lennon’s death.
Bottom line: it’s tough to balance the whole archival value vs commercial value thing. If something is too unfinished it’s almost a blemish on an artists’ name, but at the same time it can be argued the world is still richer for being able to see even the unfinished insights of great creative minds.
Blind Voices by Tom Reamy was mostly completed when Reamy died of a heart attack while editing it. It was published and you could see it needed a little more work (one character is left in a difficult situation which is not resolved), though the book is excellent. Not publishing it would have been a major loss.
Neither option is particularly desirable, but If I* had *to choose between the two, I’d say the unfinished work in it’s unfinished form is preferable, if for no other reason than it maintains a certain artistic integrity. Sure, someone else might be able to rough off edges in a way they think is fit or pleasing, but then it’s really not the original creator’s work at that point.
I understand Prince left quite a volume of unpublished recordings behind. It will be interesting to see what happens to these recordings. There will probably be a huge legal battle, and the quality of those recordings is unknown, but you KNOW there’s going to be considerable commercial pressures to release them in some form or other.
Obligatory Onion link: Disappointing Prince Vaults Found To Contain 37,000 Hours Of Billy Joel Covers
In general, I’m fine with unfinished creative works being made available to fans, provided they are clearly labeled as such, are not considered “canonical,” and any contributions (finishing, editing, etc.) by another person are openly acknowledged.
Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony is a fine piece of classical music, that works perfectly well as is … but that’s mostly due to the nature of the symphony, where each movement is relatively independent of the others. The fact that it only has 2 movements instead of the standard 4 is not a deal-breaker.
I put off reading “21” for a long time for just those reasons. I finally broke down and got it and, in fact, it is a pretty satisfying end to the series. I doesn’t really feel unfinished because most of the other books kind of left the characters in mid-air anyway.
Me too, except that there probably ought to be an option to see the “contributed” version separate from whatever the creator had made prior to their demise.
I mean, the “21” version that I have is some proportion typeset pages, and some proportion scanned pages in O’Brien’s handwriting. If anything, it was interesting, because the handwritten pages had corrections/edits included, so you could see how he worked as he went, rather than just seeing the finished product. Plus, it was interesting to get just a little bit more info about Aubrey and Maturin beyond where Blue at the Mizzen left things.
I’m a big fan of releasing the unpublished works. I don’t even mind letting someone else finish it, as long as 1) there’s some kind of footnotes to distinguish what was changed/added and 2) the author left enough of an outline to follow. If not, just release it unpublished.
In part, I say that because there’s always an editorial process in any creative work. Fans are rarely made aware of it, but editors can have an enormous impact on the final release. To say that one editorial process is more authentic than another seems born from the misconception that inspired authors churn out a perfect novel in one draft. (Even if the unfinished work is released without further editing, it should still be interesting to see that snapshot of an in-progress work.)
It also seems wrong to assume the author wouldn’t want it released. Maybe this goes back to the creative fiction I just mentioned - it’s very common for creative disputes to occur where a final version differs from the original creative intent. Material from the cutting room floor is often released as a director’s cut, an expanded edition, stand-alone novellas, whatever. (Now, if an author actually said “This should never be released” then we ought to honor that.)
J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Silmarillion” was the product of his son Christopher going through decades’ worth of his father’s writings, and attempting to pull together the most coherent narrative possible.
There’s of course the case of Franz Kafka who asked his friend Max Brod to burn everything written by him to the least document in a testamentary direction. Thankfully for the world, Brod famously didn’t comply and put out Kafka’s unreleased works, which was virtually his whole work because he had published almost nothing in his lifetime. Much was fragmentary, the novel “Das Schloss” famously ends mid-sentence, but what a gift to the world thanks to Brod! I wouldn’t want to live in a world without those texts.
And again, Dangerous Visions III. Ellison has had all the manuscripts in hand for many decades and will neither move forward nor quit on the project.
I have a copy on my shelf that freaks out knowledgeable SFians.
I have nice hardcovers of DV1 and DV2, so I found a slightly fatter junk book and mocked up a matching cover for 3. There they sit, waiting the next gullible passerby.
In comics there’s Big Numbers by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz which was supposed to be a 12 issue (large format) series but they only finished the first two.
Sunset at Blandings * was a posthumous P G Wodehouse book . Set at Blandings Castle , it contains his preliminary text for the first part of the novel along with his notes for the rest of the plot . An interesting insight to the creative process .
After the success of Thick as a Brick, Jethro Tull attempted to record their follow-up at Château d’Hérouville Studio in France. Due to a variety of problems, the recordings were abandoned before completion. The demos were eventually released decades later as The Chateau d’Isaster Tapes.
Similarly, in 1979, Yes went to Paris to record a new album. The sessions were so acrimonious, Jon Anderson & Rick Wakeman ultimately quit the band. (The rest of the group basically teamed up with The Buggles and started a new album from scratch.) The Paris Tapes have never been officially released, although they’re widely available in bootleg form.
Ah yes I’ve read this too. I wasn’t impressed, but my understanding is that Wodehouse would do s lot of rewriting before publishing a story. Makes me wish I could have seen the eventual result.
I would love to see Antonio Gaudi’s masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona finished. It was started over a hundred years ago, and is still being worked on, although there is apparently a possibility that it will never be completed, but left as a monumnent to Gaudi.
If you are in Barcelona, see this wonder! I saw it in 1965, and it was the main reason I went to Barcelona. Unforgettable.