Literary Archives

People who control information wield a great deal of power, whether to manage the historical "truth," legal rights, or literary legacies—as Elif Batuman’s piece in the Sunday Magazine of the New York Times on Franz Kafka’s papers and the international disputes over who owns them attests.

Batuman, a Russian literary and language scholar (as well as a damn good writer), points out that those in possession of the Kafka papers are “doorkeepers” who provide (or chose not to provide) access to Kafka—whose story isn’t “owned” by any one person, but owned collectively (well, maybe). In this case, two elderly sisters inherited the papers from their mother, who in turn had inherited them from Kafka's friend and sometimes editor, Max Brod. They have the papers, and the sisters have over the years allowed a very few scholars and institutions glimpses of these very sought-after documents.

Her piece is like a modern day Bohemian/Czech/Israeli/German remake of Henry James’s short story "The Aspern Papers." Here an unscrupulous literary biographer gains access to the household where the last manuscript papers of “the poet” reside.* (It's a convoluted story--like any Henry James story, and it's complicated to briefly summarize--so bear with me, or read the "cliff notes" version on wikipedia). The ruthless biographer lies his way into the confidence of an old woman and her ward and then rifles through her ancient love letters in the night to gain access to the last biographical papers that he hasn't readabout the “the poet.”

The biographer might have justified his actions in the same way the National Library of Israel claims Kafka’s papers: the papers didn’t really belong to the woman (who, like the elderly women in possession of Kafka’s papers, lives in squalor), they belong to the world. The fact that these women (fictional and real) couldn’t care "properly" for these valuable literary documents—in houses full of cats or moldy Venice apartments, or whatever kind of domestic disarray is necessary to justify archival intervention—is only part of the story of how literary legacies are shaped by individuals and collecting institutions.

On Becoming a Docent...

I recently took the last step to become a volunteer docent at the Rosenbach Museum and Library here in Philadelphia. For years now, I've been visiting historic houses, and thinking snide thoughts about those terrible docents (none of which you'll find at the Rosenbach, BTW). The docent who told Seth and I at Monticello that there were no special passageways, doors, or "servant" spaces built into the house, the docent who goes on and on about rope beds and the origins of "Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite," the docents who insist that we all think back to that simpler time in the past--all the times I wanted to break away from the drone and explore the house on my own.

Now I'm one of them. Despite all my academic training and deep knowledge that the past was, and is, never simple, I think the mode of the house museum tour is hard to break (see Linda Norris's excellent "What Makes Historic House Tours So Boring"). I found myself, on my test-tour, slipping into "this painting was painted by a famous and important painter," which of course reflects no critical reflection on what made Thomas Sully a sought-after portraitist in his day or what makes him interesting today...and what the heck counts as "important?" Thankfully, the education coordinator at the Rosenbach pointed out when I was stuck in the meaningless "way-back-machine" mode of the historic house tourguide.

I think I finally felt the "trap" of the tourguide in Henry James's "The Birthplace." I suddenly have new sympathy for the long-time live-in guide at the Poe House (before it came to the NPS) that told people in a hushed voice, quite incorrectly, that, "This is the doorknob [added in 1920, long after his residency] that Edgar Allen Poe touched." Perhaps she couldn't help herself?