I think we should celebrate the publication of Orwell’s diaries. The publication of personal texts by other authors might smack of cheap opportunism, purely a money-making ploy. But I think publishers got it right with Orwell, just like I think they got it right with Burroughs and would do well to publish a diary (or even biography, PLEASE SOMEONE) of Vollmann’s. Authors like these have works and lives that reflect each other, like two opposing mirrors, showing us a strange and comforting illusion of infinite complexity.
