You may have read about the tussle between James Joyce‘s heirs — in particular, his grandson — and the scholars who want more and freer access to Joyce’s writings — including, of course, his personal writings.
Here’s a Globe and Mail article about it, linked today by Booksquare.
It’s an interesting conundrum, but on balance, I’m on the grandson’s side. I daresay he’s a curmudgeon. But I don’t believe, for a second, the claim made by those he’s fighting that this will “drive young scholars away from marvels of James Joyce’s writing.” That’s a red herring — it’s intended to make this sound like a noble fight, when really it’s just a bunch of guys who are irritated that there’s a bump in the road to prestige and tenure.
Joyce wrote books. He wrote them for the public. Anyone who wants to marvel at his writing can just read his books.
Ironic that deconstructionist scholarship opens the door to inhuman attitudes toward writers’ personal lives. Nobody can just leave Joyce’s books to stand as discreet works of art. Nooooo. They have to be dissected, all their parts pinned to a board and labeled and cross-referenced to minutiae about his personal life.
I nearly burned all my journals, once. I didn’t do it. But I might, yet. I can understand the impulse to frustrate the inappropriately curious, the people who assume an entitlement without regard to another’s dignity or privacy . . . or, even more heretical yet, another’s wish to control his own life’s narrative . . .
Dang, K. You’ve kept journals?
My blog is all that passes for a journal of my life. And somehow I don’t see anyone ever wanting to know about my “personal” thoughts. ‘Course, I don’t really consider myself an “artist” either. My writing is intended to entertain, not necessarily stand the test of time and be studied in schools.
Just the thought of that is a hoot!
John
I’ve kept journals since I was a teenager. Fortunately my handwriting is atrocious so even if I kick before I’ve burnt them it’s unlikely anyone will be able to read them . . . also for years & years I didn’t date them (I got the idea as a teenager that dating was uncool, lol) so they’re all mixed up — boxes of illegible spiral notebooks with no dates, LOL — on second thought maybe I SHOULD leave them intact, will probably drive anyone who tries to read them to the loony bin!
I have kept journals since I was 12 years old. I’d hate it if they ever became the focus of some “scholar.” I also have a large collection of family papers. A few of these papers have scholarly interest, but they are family papers. It would take a very persuasive argument to make them available.
Scholars have the right of curiosity; they don’t have rights to personal papers. The San Diego Historical Society has family photos that they acquired in what I believe to be an unethical way. They sell them. They were provided to a researcher back in the 1930s for her personal use. No one from the family gave any permission for them to be duplicated, sold, or stored in a historical society archive. I’ve learned a lesson from this. The few occasions when I’ve let a “scholar” use material I own have been governed by a signed permission that limits exactly how they can use it and limits their rights to circulate copies.
If you don’t want your family papers out there, don’t let them go to a public archive.
How awful, Rachel. They sell them????
:-(
A related problem is that, after you’re dead, it doesn’t much matter what your wishes were in these matters. It’s like the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia (20th century art). Albert Barnes put in his will that it was to stay in one particular location. But the trustees who control his foundation now have had it moved.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A135-2004Dec14.html
So suppose, as a writer, you leave it in your will that your personal papers are to be kept private — who knows whether the legal system would uphold your wishes?
Better off burning them . . .
They sell the photos for a fee to anyone interested. They require you to credit them for publication. All these photos came from our family either as loans or for the use of those rebuilding an adobe way back about 1934. My father tells me that the family briefly considered suing. But what’s the point? The Historical Society is, however, profiting from our family’s generosity to an individual. There’s more to the story too. There was supposed to be a will leaving the entire archive to one of my dad’s grandaunts. It’s a very long, complex story. We finally decided, so my dad says, to let it go.
But it taught me a lesson. I considered placing my large personal collection of papers in an appropriate university library. (There’s material that goes back to the late 1700s.) I won’t. You can’t trust them. For a period I negotiated with a college library over my personal book collection. I collect a very narrow field of religious history. Some of the books I own are nearly unique. A few manuscripts are. I went as far as including them on my bequest list. (This all makes it sound like I’m close to the grave. I’m not. But one must be prepared.) I’ve taken them off my bequest list. What led me to remove them was an off-handed explanation that they gave away most bequests.
Another factor was in the treatment of the material, as they anticipated it. Some items need restoration. What they anticipated doing was turning them over to a library bookbinder, and having them rebound in buckram. This is not good librarianship. It’s not good conservation. I have a first edition of William Whiston’s A New Theory of the Earth. It needs conservation. I can’t see some college library, no matter how much I respect the school’s academic standards, rebinding it in buckram.
If my library won’t stay intact, why leave it to them? I’ve worked hard, and I’ve spent more money than I should . If it’s going to be broken up, why not let my children do it and reclaim the money?
Institutional libraries (I mean colleges, universities, and national libraries) are useful, but they have an attitude that is sometimes unfathomable. So, I’ve decided to give this to my kids. Or I may sell it myself when I reach my old age.
That’s an amazing story, Rachel. I’m sure this is something that few people appreciate. I agree, you’re better off selling your collection yourself. (I wouldn’t be surprised, either, if individuals who have to pay hard cash for your books will treat them a bit more respectfully, as well ;-))