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| No wonder Terry Pratchett wanted to avoid the Stieg Larsson treatment | No wonder Terry Pratchett wanted to avoid the Stieg Larsson treatment |
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| How many Terry Pratchett fans considered chaining themselves to the steamroller that flattened his last hard drives, or lying down in the mud to prevent the destruction of unknown treasures? I couldn’t help wondering how much those hard drives would have raised if they’d been auctioned, what price a devoted reader or eager academic would have been prepared to pay for a glimpse of the great man’s last unpolished thoughts? We’ll never know: Pratchett was adamant that no incomplete ideas should survive him to be finished by someone else, and left instructions detailing their characteristically dramatic end. | How many Terry Pratchett fans considered chaining themselves to the steamroller that flattened his last hard drives, or lying down in the mud to prevent the destruction of unknown treasures? I couldn’t help wondering how much those hard drives would have raised if they’d been auctioned, what price a devoted reader or eager academic would have been prepared to pay for a glimpse of the great man’s last unpolished thoughts? We’ll never know: Pratchett was adamant that no incomplete ideas should survive him to be finished by someone else, and left instructions detailing their characteristically dramatic end. |
| As a reader, it’s hard not to feel conflicted. It’s been reported that Pratchett had a tantalising 10 potential novels on that computer; anyone who loved his work must be itching to know what they contained. Even a rough outline and a few notes would have felt like a gift from beyond the grave. Pratchett knew this, and he had the advantage of time to settle his affairs; he chose what he wanted to share with readers (two posthumous novels) and what was not for public view. Perhaps, as the Alzheimer’s he wrote about with such clarity threatened his sense of control, there was comfort in knowing he’d taken care of the words he would leave behind. | As a reader, it’s hard not to feel conflicted. It’s been reported that Pratchett had a tantalising 10 potential novels on that computer; anyone who loved his work must be itching to know what they contained. Even a rough outline and a few notes would have felt like a gift from beyond the grave. Pratchett knew this, and he had the advantage of time to settle his affairs; he chose what he wanted to share with readers (two posthumous novels) and what was not for public view. Perhaps, as the Alzheimer’s he wrote about with such clarity threatened his sense of control, there was comfort in knowing he’d taken care of the words he would leave behind. |
| A novel in its formative stages is a remarkably private and frequently embarrassing thing. (This feeling often lasts beyond publication too.) I don’t know any writers who’d be happy with the idea of readers – even trusted friends – rootling through the mess of early drafts and judging them by it. Every time I start a novel I’m dogged by a very particular memento mori – the clause in my contract that says that if I should die in the middle of writing it, my family must either pay back the advance or agree to let someone else finish it. | A novel in its formative stages is a remarkably private and frequently embarrassing thing. (This feeling often lasts beyond publication too.) I don’t know any writers who’d be happy with the idea of readers – even trusted friends – rootling through the mess of early drafts and judging them by it. Every time I start a novel I’m dogged by a very particular memento mori – the clause in my contract that says that if I should die in the middle of writing it, my family must either pay back the advance or agree to let someone else finish it. |
| The prospect of anyone making sufficient sense of my scattershot notes to assemble a story that looks anything like the one in my head (even I have trouble doing that) is enough to make me turn in my future grave. Apart from anything else, there’s the intimate and personal relationship you have with your characters, especially if you write a series; to imagine someone else trying to get inside my character’s head feels like a grotesque infidelity. | The prospect of anyone making sufficient sense of my scattershot notes to assemble a story that looks anything like the one in my head (even I have trouble doing that) is enough to make me turn in my future grave. Apart from anything else, there’s the intimate and personal relationship you have with your characters, especially if you write a series; to imagine someone else trying to get inside my character’s head feels like a grotesque infidelity. |
| Not all authors get the choice, of course. Stieg Larsson died of a heart attack before any of his Millennium trilogy made it into print; he could never have predicted the books’ colossal success, much less the bitter legal wrangling over his estate as a result. Three-quarters of an unfinished fourth novel in the possession of his partner, Eva Gabrielsson, is yet to see the light of day; that didn’t stop his publisher commissioning sequels – using the same characters – from the author David Lagercrantz. Gabrielsson has been frank in her condemnation of the project, saying he would have been “saddened” and “furious” at the thought of anyone taking over his work. | Not all authors get the choice, of course. Stieg Larsson died of a heart attack before any of his Millennium trilogy made it into print; he could never have predicted the books’ colossal success, much less the bitter legal wrangling over his estate as a result. Three-quarters of an unfinished fourth novel in the possession of his partner, Eva Gabrielsson, is yet to see the light of day; that didn’t stop his publisher commissioning sequels – using the same characters – from the author David Lagercrantz. Gabrielsson has been frank in her condemnation of the project, saying he would have been “saddened” and “furious” at the thought of anyone taking over his work. |
| Perhaps writers are not necessarily the best judges of their own legacy, though, and there’s a case for disregarding an author’s last wishes for the sake of posterity. Franz Kafka famously wrote to his friend Max Brod before his death in 1924, asking Brod to burn all his manuscripts, diaries and letters unread. If Brod had not ignored him, we would not now have The Trial, The Castle or Amerika, and Kafka’s place in the canon of 20th-century literature would look very different. | Perhaps writers are not necessarily the best judges of their own legacy, though, and there’s a case for disregarding an author’s last wishes for the sake of posterity. Franz Kafka famously wrote to his friend Max Brod before his death in 1924, asking Brod to burn all his manuscripts, diaries and letters unread. If Brod had not ignored him, we would not now have The Trial, The Castle or Amerika, and Kafka’s place in the canon of 20th-century literature would look very different. |
| “The last work of a modern master, however fragmentary, is a matter of public interest and scholarly importance,” declared the New York Times in 2007, when Dmitri Nabokov decided to ignore his father’s deathbed instructions to destroy the notes for his last novel, The Original of Laura, on the grounds that Vladimir couldn’t really have meant it. Dmitri invoked Brod in his introduction, though some critics felt he had not done his father any favours. | “The last work of a modern master, however fragmentary, is a matter of public interest and scholarly importance,” declared the New York Times in 2007, when Dmitri Nabokov decided to ignore his father’s deathbed instructions to destroy the notes for his last novel, The Original of Laura, on the grounds that Vladimir couldn’t really have meant it. Dmitri invoked Brod in his introduction, though some critics felt he had not done his father any favours. |
| By contrast, fans of David Foster Wallace would surely not wish to be without The Pale King, his final, posthumous novel that was pieced together by his editor. However flawed, it offers a glimpse of Wallace’s preoccupations before his suicide, and is a worthy companion to its completed predecessors. | By contrast, fans of David Foster Wallace would surely not wish to be without The Pale King, his final, posthumous novel that was pieced together by his editor. However flawed, it offers a glimpse of Wallace’s preoccupations before his suicide, and is a worthy companion to its completed predecessors. |
| But is everything an author scribbles a “matter of public interest”? The notorious case of our time has been the 2015 publication of Harper Lee’s first novel, Go Set a Watchman, the prelude to To Kill A Mockingbird. A deep sense of discomfort vied with natural curiosity at the idea that the then 89-year-old Lee – blind, deaf and post-stroke – should have suddenly decided to allow publication of her early work just after her protective sister died. | But is everything an author scribbles a “matter of public interest”? The notorious case of our time has been the 2015 publication of Harper Lee’s first novel, Go Set a Watchman, the prelude to To Kill A Mockingbird. A deep sense of discomfort vied with natural curiosity at the idea that the then 89-year-old Lee – blind, deaf and post-stroke – should have suddenly decided to allow publication of her early work just after her protective sister died. |
| Lee’s involvement with the process of publication seemed remote at best, and though the book was undoubtedly a fascinating glimpse into the author’s development, it was hard to escape the sense that commercial rather than literary interests were the driving force here, and that the author’s wishes had been incidental. There’s a difference between publishing a lost work 30 years after its author’s death, and doing so while they’re in a nursing home, being spoken for by lawyers. | Lee’s involvement with the process of publication seemed remote at best, and though the book was undoubtedly a fascinating glimpse into the author’s development, it was hard to escape the sense that commercial rather than literary interests were the driving force here, and that the author’s wishes had been incidental. There’s a difference between publishing a lost work 30 years after its author’s death, and doing so while they’re in a nursing home, being spoken for by lawyers. |
| Perhaps Philip Larkin had the most healthily cynical approach to his legacy. In his poem Posterity, he pictures his future biographer, “Jake Balokowsky”, grumbling over Larkin’s words in a US university. Sending a poem to his lover Betty Mackereth in 1976, Larkin wrote: “Flog it to Texas if it seems embarrassing”. This joke about the voracious appetite for British literary manuscripts of certain archives was not entirely a joke – he knew the commercial value of his poems. | Perhaps Philip Larkin had the most healthily cynical approach to his legacy. In his poem Posterity, he pictures his future biographer, “Jake Balokowsky”, grumbling over Larkin’s words in a US university. Sending a poem to his lover Betty Mackereth in 1976, Larkin wrote: “Flog it to Texas if it seems embarrassing”. This joke about the voracious appetite for British literary manuscripts of certain archives was not entirely a joke – he knew the commercial value of his poems. |
| So maybe it’s fruitless for writers to try to control what happens to their work after they’re gone; someone will try to make money from it, so you may as well make sure it’s the people you love. Besides, it’s not so simple as burning manuscripts these days. Hard drives are notoriously indestructible; Pratchett’s survived the steamroller and had to be put through a stone-crusher. It’s not impossible that some further fragment might surface in years to come, and this will all turn out to have been an elaborate joke on Pratchett’s part. I wouldn’t put it past him. | So maybe it’s fruitless for writers to try to control what happens to their work after they’re gone; someone will try to make money from it, so you may as well make sure it’s the people you love. Besides, it’s not so simple as burning manuscripts these days. Hard drives are notoriously indestructible; Pratchett’s survived the steamroller and had to be put through a stone-crusher. It’s not impossible that some further fragment might surface in years to come, and this will all turn out to have been an elaborate joke on Pratchett’s part. I wouldn’t put it past him. |
| • Stephanie Merritt is an author and former deputy literary editor of the Observer | • Stephanie Merritt is an author and former deputy literary editor of the Observer |