Comments on: The Debate on Posthumous Works http://www.cinecynic.com/2009/10/the-debate-on-posthumous-works/ A cynic's take on movies, books and everything else Sat, 12 Nov 2011 11:36:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Trinath http://www.cinecynic.com/2009/10/the-debate-on-posthumous-works/comment-page-1/#comment-446 Trinath Sat, 03 Oct 2009 06:24:54 +0000 http://www.cinecynic.com/?p=405#comment-446 Death calls for a re-reading of an author's works to find any profundity. Ordinary phrases/concepts/ideas from the author have a second chance before thrown into the bin. And yes, dead authors are more marketable than living ones. It is even better if he has died leaving some unfinished manuscripts, even half-burnt will do. Such is the romanticism associated with death. So, we tend to re-examine the dead. Even exhuming files from their hard drive is out of curiosity and economics. Another posthumous but important author's publication is "The First Man" by Albert Camus. The unfinished manuscript was extracted from the mangled remains of his car which met with an accident leading to his death. By the way Kafka's manuscripts (finished and also unfinished I think) are available online at http://www.kafka.org/index.php?manuscripts . I am not sure about availability of Fermat's rough note books, where he scribbled most of the theorems in margins. Death calls for a re-reading of an author’s works to find any profundity. Ordinary phrases/concepts/ideas from the author have a second chance before thrown into the bin. And yes, dead authors are more marketable than living ones. It is even better if he has died leaving some unfinished manuscripts, even half-burnt will do. Such is the romanticism associated with death. So, we tend to re-examine the dead. Even exhuming files from their hard drive is out of curiosity and economics. Another posthumous but important author’s publication is “The First Man” by Albert Camus. The unfinished manuscript was extracted from the mangled remains of his car which met with an accident leading to his death.

By the way Kafka’s manuscripts (finished and also unfinished I think) are available online at http://www.kafka.org/index.php?manuscripts . I am not sure about availability of Fermat’s rough note books, where he scribbled most of the theorems in margins.

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