The Guardian view on posthumously publishing Joan Didion: goodbye to all that | Editorial
JOan Didion entered the battle in the publication of the final manuscript of Ernest Hemingway in an article entitled “An title” Latest words In 1998: “You think something is in good condition to be published or not, and Hemingway did not do.” You think the work of the unpublished writer is a fair game after their death or did not, and it seems that Didion – apparently – did not do it.
The discussion was ignited on the ethics of the post after his death again, this time with Didion in its position. After the writer’s death in 2021, about 150 pages were found in a file next to her office. These were accurate accounts of the sessions with her psychiatrist, from 1999 to 2003, mainly focused on her adopted daughter Quintana, who was escalating in alcohol addiction. Addressed to her husband, screenwriter John Gregory DonThis magazine was published under the title John notes. “No restrictions were placed on access,” we were told in an unknown brief introduction, and her ghost hand is supposed to be for her literary property.
The history of business after his death is a long and controversial history, from AENEID in Virgil to the publication of Gabriel Garcia Marquise Until August last year. Marquez’s sons are their excuse “The verb of betrayal” In publishing this abandoned novel against the desires of the Nobel Prize as a service for its readers. In 2009, Ibn Vladimir Nabokov published his father’s last work, The origin is Laura30 years after his death, despite his instructions that were destroyed.
Harper Lee “Lost” manuscript Go appoint a guard (It was discovered in a safe deposit box) caused a feeling when it was published in 2015. I had 89 and in very bad health. become A fastest -selling novel In HarperCollins History. But the decisive judgment on all this “re -explore” was that the authors had good reasons for the unwillingness to publish them.
However, it is not always a case of publication and cursed. The most famous, we did not have the Kafka trial, Menner did not ignore, Max Broad, his demand for burning it. Do not pull the Max Brood-Kafka trick It is said He warned his friends.
Henry James presented a “giant fire” for his archive. Thomas Hardy follow up. Philip Larkin’s notes were more additional, committed to a tear machine and then Hull University’s kettle. “What he wanted to remember will remember him,” Larkin books From Hardy. “What he wished to forget.”
How many notes of John was you supposed to forget? Didion wrote notes: The year of magic thinkingAfter the death of Dan, the surprise in 2003, and then, Blue nightsAbout her relationship with Quintana, who died in 2005 at the age of 39. In both, her daughter’s addiction has been safely addicted.
Delaon was America Literary celebrities. The 80 -year -old, famous for her sunglasses, has become the author The face of the luxury fashion house Celine. Today, her image is printed Load bags For the vitality of jazz. John’s notes is another view of the Joan Gate. What can be more irresistible from her treatment notes?
It seems unlikely that Didion, that most people, and the most exciting book have welcomed these intimate, elected magazines that see the daylight. But it is unreasonable that she was not aware of the inevitability of publishing it. In the notes of John, we see Didion’s face. We see her pain. But it is still a mystery.
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