late work and the ends of lives

Here we have an article suggesting - with qualifications - that old writers having exhausted the possibilities of their work might do well to throw in the towel before embarrassing themselves.

The examples of Murdoch and Updike are cited. I have yet to finish reading any of Murdoch's novels past Nuns and Soldiers, and Updike's various doorstop-like compendia of essays are a pleasure for anytime I'm tired and want to see opinions, wrong or right, stated with succinct precision. (But the point stands for his fiction.)

As for Murdoch, what an interesting case! I've only seen a couple of her books called outright duds (Jackson's Dilemma, maybe The Red and the Green?). The later ones seem too heavy with dialogue, not too interesting in their scenarios. But then a bunch of her early novels didn't draw me in at all - I read last week The Italian Girl, something of a bore.

Edward Said in one of his own last works makes a case for the idea that late work can be subtler, richer, distinct from anything that's come before. Of course it's impossible to think of Updike writing "late work" in any real sense of the word, he's working against time and has steadily refused to evolve as an artist to any extent. But what about V.S. Naipaul? Last year in a paper for class, I made a case I'm not sure I believe, that the novels Half a Life and Magic Seeds aren't in fact irredeemable, that they represent the sundering of a life in the midst of modernity and so on. But most would say he too should probably give up.

Henry James, an exception, wrote the three best novels of his career at the end, then spent a few years obsessively polishing up old work. Another troubling case: it's not like he saved it all up for big statements, in terms of publication he was pretty prolific. I think it's bizarre to approach writers' reputations as this article does. Let them worry about that at the time. One never knows what the likes of Doris Lessing might suddenly yield. Reputations will sort themselves out in history.