| | Thomas,
Thanks for taking the time to post this.
Personally, I found the Marginalia interesting, if not earth-shaking, as background for some of the things Rand had to say about various subjects in her already published writings.
I got a real chuckle from your "dead body" analogy. What an image! But I'm not sure it really works. Maybe half way. Even the most absent editor does make choices about what to include, what to line edit, and so "pulls some strings". But, of course, the original work is the author's, not the editors. And, if the editors are careful, the results can throw some light on the choices that the author makes.
As an example not related to Rand, I enjoyed immensely reading through Dostoyevsky's notebooks for "Crime and Punishment". As an aspiring writer at the time, I found them educational as well. What a thrill to see the choices made to produce that masterpiece.
In the case of Rand's Journals, I got the same thrill. In fact a large part of the editing process here was the choice to include mostly this kind of material -- the excerpts that show how Rand's early formulations of character, plot and background got included or excluded in the final masterpiece. It gave this reader, at least, a wonderful sense of Rand's method of mental functioning. I could say the same for the Letters.
In fact, one of the things that is most remarkable to me about the edited volumes is how much Rand comes off as "of a piece." Far from distracting or disturbing the image she created, they serve as a re-enforcement, as least for this reader, of a woman I had the pleasure of seeing and hearing often in New York in the 60's. Third party exegesis, on the other hand, while it can be useful, IS, it seems to me, exactly the pulling of strings to make someone say what you want them to say for the purposes of your agenda (not that there's anything wrong with that; some of my best friends are string pullers ;-)).
Peikoff, et al, do, of course, have an agenda, but so far as I can make out, the agenda is benign and they are careful to separate their various ideas from Rand's work. This is a very difficult line to maintain, I think, as some of the members of this forum are quick to point out, but I think that, on the whole, the line is well-maintained. Some of the readers of this forum might, indeed, be surprised at some of the content of the various "official" sites, blogs, forums, and newsletters. I'm not, since I never bought a good deal of the Branden's portrait.
I'm comfortable with the idea that a good deal of this is a matter of taste, rather than a serious matter of philosophical principle. Frank once said to me that some things have no consequences the next morning and thus are matters of taste. This appears to be one of them.
Would love to read your further thoughts on this, if you care to post.
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