The afterlives of writers: two versions
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John J. Miller’s overview of the life of fantasy master David Gemmell in the Wall Street Journal this week demonstrates what 1,100 words can do in the hands of the right person. Miller provides a splendid introduction (that many of us, unfortunately, need) to a writer who made innovative revisions to the world’s old myths in his novels.
Miller starts out by describing the circumstances that led to Gemmell’s 1970s bestseller, ‘Legend’; he began writing the story of a mountain fortress under siege from barbarians while he awaited biopsy results that turned out to be non-cancerous. (The parallels between barbarian hordes and malignant cells is exquisitely apt.). In fact, Miller writes, Gemmell held off on the book’s ending until the results were in--he planned on tying the fortress’ fate to his own. But in giving us the full measure of Gemmell’s life and career, Miller’s piece also raises an old question: What happens to a writer’s final work when it is left unfinished at his death?
Gemmell’s last novel, ‘Troy: Fall of Kings,’ was published by Ballantine in December with the author’s widow, Stella, sharing the byline. She finished the book for her husband, who died in 2006, by drawing on his notes, sketches and conversations about the novel. Even if hard-core fans object, the book has successfully escaped oblivion.
Oblivion, however, is less threatening to other unfinished works: Rather than being consigned to a desk drawer for all eternity, they find limbo in pleasant enough places, like the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Recently, the Ransom Center announced new acquisitions of material from the estates of John Fowles, Henry Miller and Bernard Malamud, but also from the living--in this case, Tim O’Brien and Barry Unsworth.
The Ransom Center staff has its hands full, especially with Fowles’ material--volume upon volume of journals, unpublished poetry, an unpublished novel, notes and much else. His unfinished works will help to fill countless dissertations and provide future scholars with more territory to cross--a scholar-treatment that a bestselling author like Gemmell, however wonderful he may be, will likely never receive.
That’s an obvious conclusion to draw, I know, and has been raised many times before. But the Ransom announcement offers an interesting, and unexpected, coda to Miller’s fine piece--since even as Stella Gemmell was working to rescue her husband’s book from its unfinished state, the Ransom Center was celebrating the fact that being unfinished, for some author’s work, is just another phase in a career.
Nick Owchar