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New Douglas Adams Book Planned
Cabby writes "The BBC and the Independant on Sunday have the news that all the remaining Douglas Adams material is going to be published later on this year, including the unfinished novel 'The Salmon of Doubt' and the proposed screenplay for the Hitchhikers Guide movie"
Come on, people! There are many great and famous works which have been left unfinished by the death of the author or artist, later to be distributed posthumously:
The Aeneid - Vergil
Requiem Mass - Mozart
The Art of Fugue - Bach
Pieta (Florence) - Michelangelo
"Unfinished" Symphony - Schubert
Tenth Symphony - Mahler
The Silmarillion - Tolkien
Some other famous works were complete but not published until after the author's death:
The Prince - Machiavelli
Billy Budd - Melville
Of course, not all posthumous works are great, but they are at least useful in understanding the work of the artist, and there really is the occasional masterpiece.
Sure, Adams' estate will profit from this, but that is no reason to be disappointed or jaded.
I get that feeling every time someone interesting dies who has any IP.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
"I'd hate to have any of my unfinished work thrust onto the public. The difference between finished and unfinished is that with the former I'm happy with it going for general release, the latter, i'm not."
That's what Franz Kafka thought too. He asked his wife and his editor to burn all his work after his death. Fortunately, his editor didn't, and that's why we have all of Kafka's stuff. Amerika, his unfinished novel, is still *great*.
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I like to watch.
Oh, it's certainly a creepy process. After my dad died, one of the tasks that fell to me was to trawl his PC for documents, bank account details, tax stuff, contacts who needed to be informed of his death and, indeed, any remaining unpublished material (he was an academic of fairly high standing in a rather obscure field), particularly the commentary he'd been working on for the previous 15 years and had very nearly finished. It took one of his ex-colleagues about a year to get it finished, but as his family we're all very happy with the fact that it's out there and will probably be a major text in the field for many years to come, a fitting tribute to his knowledge and learning.
If the material is good, then it's a memorial to the late author's effort and talent. If it's not up to scratch and not likely to enhance the author's respect, then it should probably go quietly to the grave.
all depends on the material and the decision of his heirs. But it's a far from pleasant experience, the trawl
TomV
Death does not mean you can stop selling crap... at least not in our culture. Why, I saw John Wayne hawking Coors Light just yesterday on that there TeeVee!
Department of Homeland Security: Removing the rights real patriots fought and died for since 2001
Here's a quote by Neil Gaiman, a popular fantasy and comic-book writer (Sandman, Good Omens with Terry Pratchett, etc.). This blogger entry was a sort of eulogy written just after Adams' death, and sums up why I think the unpublished stuff should remain so (unless the Hitchhiker's movie is finally made with no changes to Adams' script).
Well. It would have been nice had Slashdot SPELT HIS NAME RIGHT in the heading... "Douglas Adam" indeed.
(Same to all the stupid people who write phrases like "Douglas Adam's" or even "Hitchicker". Christ on a bicycle, have none of you ever read anything!)
The Salmon of Doubt. It would actually be interesting if all the drafts are present. It originally began in the early 90's (93?) as the third 'Dirk Gently' novel. Then the character of 'Dirk Gently' was written out. Some time later, it reappeared as the seventh Hitch-Hiker novel. Then it vanished altogether. Amazon were accepting orders for it for some time and ZZ9 were constantly having to tell people that no such book had been published!
Now it would be very interesting to see if any of this change survives.
It may seem like grave-robbing, but I'd rather they did this than have some hack finish off Adams' ideas in a faux-HitchHiker style. I'm very glad to see Ed Victor saying there is no question of having someone finish ideas off.
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
"Information wants to be paid"
You know, he's only spending a year dead for tax purposes. I'm sure that he'll maintain creative control.
I haven't read the book (obviously) but if its not particulary good then its only going to sour the memory of the other good books that he's done.
Live and let live. I'd hate to have any of my unfinished work thrust onto the public. The difference between finished and unfinished is that with the former I'm happy with it going for general release, the latter, i'm not.
(Anyone remember Gene Roddenberry's unfinished work? And how poor that was? Makes you realise why it was unfinished ...)
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I wish all you "let the man be" people would take a hint from classical literature.
Writers are their own worst critics...good writers esepcially. And great writers, of whom I think Mr. Adams squeaks into the fray quite nicely, are often so critical of their own work they don't recognize the genious in it. Alan Ginsberg sat on Kaddish for something close to a year before releasing it, and when he did he only made minor revisions. And Emily Dickinson didn't release anything during her life -- books of her work were only compiled after her death when her loved ones and associated exchanged poems she had written for them. Surely, E.D. would have complained about the publishing of her most personal thoughts, her rawest fantesies, into the general public. But she can't. That's one of the appeals of posthumous publishing, you can remove the complaints of the party post likely to be embarassed by their own genius. And I, for one, applaud the effort. The dead have no claim to our world, because they are totally uneffected by it. If some of us would like a chance to see Adams' final works published -- and I do, if even as a tribute to the editrial process Adams undertook -- then by all means we should be allowed to.
Unfinished does not mean "crappy," just as finishing a book does not imply it was done with any quality. Mostly Harmless was a mistaken book to most who read it, far too cynical and abrupt. An unrushed, paced novel with no thoughts of marketability or story length would be a gem from the often disjointed Adams -- it could be as brilliant as some of the unfinished symphonies. And those who would place blame on the future publishers, answer me this: won't you buy it if it is published? Won't you read it and complain when it lacks the genius of Dirk Gently? I know I will...money making or not, this is not "2pac' s poetry book"...this is Douglas Adams.
Hey freaks: now you're ju