Is this immoral?
 

I'm a Wikipedia junky, I'll read almost anything on it, so I was just reading the page on Franz Kafka, whom I've never actually read. He had no interest in fame, he died unknown as a writer. On his deathbed he specifically asked his best friend and his lover to bury all his writings unread.

Kafka left his work, both published and unpublished, to his friend and literary executor Max Brod with explicit instructions that it should be destroyed on Kafka's death; Kafka wrote: "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread". Brod ignored this request and published the novels and collected works between 1925 and 1935. He took many papers, which remain unpublished, with him in suitcases to Palestine when he fled there in 1939. Kafka's last lover, Dora Diamant (later, Dymant-Lask), also ignored his wishes, secretly keeping 20 notebooks and 35 letters. These were confiscated by the Gestapo in 1933, but scholars continue to search for them.

I couldn't/wouldn't do that to a friend, he obviously had his reasons for not wanting his writings read after his death. What do you think?

I agree

A true friend would of carried out his wishes.

Kafka was a fapdude :)

Hm interesting. I would definitely carry out his wishes, even though in this case, it is obvious that his friend did a good thing, so... It's a tough one. Good find, mate. I've read Kafka, but never checked his wiki page.

i know a guy here locally who is a genius (IQ above 150), he is a sociophobic painter. he paints photorealistic stuff with oil on canvas and literally holds zero interaction with other people - besides me per se, occasionally.
he tends to destroy his own paintings in a rage. then there is a phase when he makes a portfolio page, then wipes it off after a few weeks in a catatonic rampage. he is also very secretive about his otherwise brilliant art and this is a recurring beef between us to put out his brilliance, if anything, for profits then as he is starving.

i think the same went on with Kafka. i am not sure what i would have done if i was the friend. the world just became richer with Kafka's writings circulating around so it's probably for the best after all. there is nothing to be ashamed of.

He's dead...the effect on him is ZERO and yet, being a famous author, the world might gain insight by having access to these materials.

Would you have wanted Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks, sketches, and drawing destroyed. I am glad we have them to this very day!

Max Brod was a true friend of Kafka's, and being so he knew that the writer would eventually change his mind.

true friend or not he had no way of knowing that - not honoring a dying friend's request is fucked up imo

Decades ago a girlfriend gave me "Die Verwandlung" for my birthday and I threw to the garbage. There you have it, I complied with Kafka's request.