With family estrangements of this sort, you can’t expect everyone to be reasonable. But you might ask your father whether he really wants his last act toward his younger son to be so hostile. If he’s undeterred, you’ll have to decide whether to tell him how you intend to distribute your inheritance. Either way, you shouldn’t deceive your brother about your father’s will when the day comes. Given their estrangement, I doubt he’ll be totally astonished. Letting your father convey, via this will, his ill temper toward your brother may cause pain, but that’s not all that matters. You think your brother is entitled to a share of your father’s estate; consider that he’s also entitled to the truth.
A Bonus Question
My ex-partner is a literary translator, and while this is important and time-consuming work, there is very little money in it. Most literary translators have day jobs, usually teaching, as it is almost impossible to scrape together a living only doing translations. There are various arts or translating grants available, and my ex-partner has received many of these. But I feel bothered when I find out the recipients of some of these grants are rich acquaintances of ours. Is that wrong? Several times the money has gone to people whom I know to be independently wealthy; some have superrich spouses, others have inherited money and are “own a four-bedroom prewar apartment in Greenwich Village” wealthy. They don’t need the money, whereas my ex-partner uses the money to pay for the basics: food, rent and health insurance. I understand that there is prestige associated with some of the funding, but it disturbs me when I hear about someone who doesn’t have to worry about money accepting, say, a $20,000 prize that would be life-changing for many hard-working people in the arts. What do you think? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
Translators are among the least adequately acknowledged members of the literary community. Without them, so much of the world’s treasury of written work would be unavailable to us; nobody reads enough languages to be able to read everything worth reading in its original form.
But here’s the rub. (Or, as my French-speaking friends might say, “C’est là que le bât blesse.”) In the arena of prizes, there’s the economy of prestige, and there’s the economy of, well, money. If a prize is meant to recognize the finest translation of some description, it’s going to be given without consideration of need. (With some awards, like the International Booker Prize, the proceeds are divided between the author and the translator.) The judges are looking at the translations, not at the translators’ tax returns. And typically the translators themselves don’t put themselves forward for them, anyway. I don’t think we should abolish those prizes; anything that draws attention to excellence in translation probably has value.