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Brilliant first novel relies on Huck Finn: Powerful case for the public domain
March 2, 2007 | 9:51 am
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By David Rothman
U.S. Rep. Mary Bono, a big advocate of eternal copyright, DRM and gems like the current DMCA, should read the Washington Post’s review of Finn—”Jon Clinch’s haunting first novel.”
Inspired by characters in the public domain, Finn delves into the twisted psyche of Huckleberry Finn‘s father.
Very creative borrowing
Clinch “relies on Twain’s details, sometimes borrowing whole scenes and patches of dialogue,” says reviewer Ron Charles, “but he reorders the characters completely, setting that eager little boy and his unconscious irony far into the background and forcing us to concentrate instead on the anguished man who sired him. Admittedly, part of the dark thrill here is ‘finding out’ the back story that fans of Huckleberry Finn have long wondered about — Who would ever have had a child with Pap? How did he end up naked and dead on that floating house? — but this isn’t just a creative appendix to an American classic. Clinch reimagines Finn in a strikingly original way, replacing Huck’s voice with his own magisterial vision — one that’s nothing short of revelatory.”
Five Stars at Amazon
As I write this, Finn is #490 at Amazon.com and drawing Five Star raves from readers, at least one of whom says that Clinch, now an adman in Philadelphia, is a better writer than Mark Twain—I hope that Twain‘s ghost isn’t too vain. Well-crafted derivative works such as Finn are a powerful argument against the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act named in memory of Mary’s late husband. Of course, one of the most accomplished users of the public domain is Disney, a stalwart advocate of the act.
Clinch’s publisher is Random House, and I have no idea how Random currently feels about Bono, although I suspect that the lawyers there would support it, alas. Among Random House’s authors is Elizabeth Edwards (via the Broadway Books imprint), whose husband, despite his advocacy of populist causes, has been resolutely silent on important copyright issues such as Bono.
My own ‘tude toward Bono
Yes, I want the damn thing repealed. At the same time, as a writer with a sick wife and a project that potentially could have a long lifespan, I don’t have a problem with posthumous copyright. The trouble with Bono is that “life+70″ is too long and will add billions of dollars in costs for schools, public libraries and society in general. The extension is part of a long-term process to realize Mary Bono’s unfortunate dream of eternal copyright. We need balance—not just to make it easier for adapters of public domain works, but also encourage the reading of free classic on the Net for the education of future Twains and Clinches.
The main purpose of copyright is to promote the arts and sciences, not create a new American gentry. Society spends far too little on books and the rest, but the best way to address this issue isn’t through term extension but through literacy programs and initiatives such as well-stocked national digital library systems that would benefit society along with creators. In an era when video games and the rest are drawing people away from books, many young readers will need “free” to tempt them. Teachers count, too. But standard classics may not appeal to all readers, and the more free classics are online, it’s easier to match up students with their exact interests. The teenage boy who hates Austen may love Verne or certain works of Dickens.
The guillotine factor
One other reason exists for repeal of Bono. The political climate on copyright could change eventually as more and more young people go on the Net. If Mary Bono loves 28-year copyright, then the current act and other Net-hostile laws are a great way for this to come about. Watch out for those guillotine blades, Mary. You may be safe, representing towns like Palm Springs, but not everyone on the Hill is in your shoes, and ultimately an overreaction to Bono could be an off-screen disaster for Hollywood.
Related: Clinch’s Finn Tackles Literary Challenge in Pubguy, as well as a fascinating interview with Jeff Kleinman, his agent, who discusses topics ranging from the Net-related discovery of Clinch to the effect that a POD novel can have on your literary career. Also see the Random House Web site on the book, Clinch’s backstory in the Backstory blog and more Clinch-related items.
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Comments:
An interesting post–and a book that bears looking into–except I searched both Fictionwise and Mobipocket and couldn’t find it from either distributor.
I agree that the purpose of Copyright was, and should be, to create a balance between author rights to the fruits of their work and the public’s right to achieve access to knowledge. I don’t know exactly where that balance should be held–although the pre-Bono balance seemed about right. I truly believe that copyright was one of the great innovations of the US Constitution and its transformation into eternal property is ultimately a mistake both for the country and for those of us who write and publish and wish to appeal to a well-educated public.
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com
It’s also interesting to note that if Mark Twain, one of the strongest proponents of perpetual, “natural” copyright, had his way, this book could never have been published.
Surely the best form of copyright protection is that actually adopted by the US during the middle years of the 20th Century. Make copyright require a work to be registered and a small registration renewal fee to be paid at regular intervals – one year, five years, or whatever. This has three big advantages:
a) Companies like Disney can have their work in perpetuity as long as they want to keep paying for it, while my laundry list automatically goes in the public domain immediately.
b) It generates an accurate up-to-date record of who owns what, and makes it much easier to trace copyright holders and identify public domain material.
c) It penalises dog-in-the-manger copyright holders who are ‘squatting’ on material they don’t intend to distribute but who are hoping for a film or TV deal to suddenly make it saleable.
The plan could be refined in various ways – for instance, the fee could increase gradually year by year – but it’s fundamentally fair, sound and sensible.
So there’s not much hope for it in the current political climate…
One problem with your plan, Jon, is that books like this one that are rewritings of old books are based off of books that would be in copyright permanently. Look at “The Wind Done Gone”; personally, I think that was a copyright infringement on “Gone with the Wind”, and that later courts might well have found it that way.
Also, renewals are pains to track done. Note that people get threatened on the Lovecraft copyrights, even through there’s no evidence any of them got renewed. Looking at “It’s a Wonderful Life” and a couple other examples, I suspect that a lot of movies considered public domain could be effectively removed from the public domain because some of the music or script or something was renewed. It’s certainly a lot harder to check a renewal than a publication date.
I don’t see it penalizing people holding on to the copyright for monetary reasons, either. If it’s cheap enough to let me control my future masterpiece, Tangental Lie Groups in Quasi-Euclidean Spaces, for a number of years, it’s going to be cheap enough to let a company sit on a book for decades hoping for a TV or movie deal.