Greatly Exaggerated

source

TL;DR

Wallace's 1992 review of H. L. Hix's Morte d'Author: An Autopsy — his own nonfiction position statement on the death-of-the-author question that IJ, four years later, dramatizes from the dead author's side. Wallace lays out the debate lucidly (Barthes' 1968 "The Death of the Author"; "European theorists (pro-death) and U.S. philosophers (anti-death, mostly)"), draws the crucial distinction between "a writer—the person whose choices and actions account for a text’s features—and an author—the entity whose intentions are taken to be responsible for a text’s meaning," and coins the debate's terms in his own idiom ("Authors are monkeys who mean"). He is generous to Hix's poststructural machinery but plainly unpersuaded by the death-verdict, closing with his own sympathies: "For those of us civilians who know in our gut that writing is an act of communication between one human being and another, the whole question seems sort of arcane," and endorsing William Gass's anti-death line that authorial anonymity "cannot mean … that no one did it." The essay advances no theory about IJ (it predates the novel and never names it), but it is the direct ideational feeder for the wraith-authorship / ij-narrator cluster: IJ's answer to Barthes is a literal dead author—the wraith of James Incandenza — who is manifestly still meaning, still communicating, still holding the other end of the shroud Barthes said no one held.

Key claims

The debate, stated fairly. Wallace frames Hix's book as the young critic-philosopher's attack on his poststructuralist teachers, centered on Barthes' 1968 "The Death of the Author," a debate between "European theorists (pro-death) and U.S. philosophers (anti-death, mostly)."
Writer vs. author. The essay's load-bearing distinction: "a writer—the person whose choices and actions account for a text’s features—and an author—the entity whose intentions are taken to be responsible for a text’s meaning." His gloss on the monkeys-and-typewriters thought experiment: "Authors are monkeys who mean."
The poststructural death-certificate. Wallace explains Barthes' claim that it is "really critical readers who decide and thus determine what a piece of writing means," and the New Critics' Intentional-Fallacy prelude: "It doesn’t matter what the writer means, basically, for the New Critics; it matters only what the text says." And the deconstructive metaphysics: "A writer does not wield language; he is subsumed in it. Language speaks us; writing writes; etc."
The shroud image. Wallace quotes Hix's best figure: where the text was once "a cloth to be unraveled by the reader," at whose far end the reader would find "the author holding the other end," "Barthes makes the text a shroud, and no one, not even a corpse, is holding the other end."
Hix's self-defeating rescue. Wallace judges that Hix so broadens "author" that "the word ceases really to identify anything" — "Hix destroys the author in order to save him" — a "philosophical Westmorelandism."
Wallace's own sympathies (the position statement). The close: "For those of us civilians who know in our gut that writing is an act of communication between one human being and another, the whole question seems sort of arcane," seconded by "William (anti-death) Gass": "this ‘anonymity’ may mean many things, but one thing which it cannot mean is that no one did it."

Theories & evidence

None about IJ — the essay predates the novel and never names it. But unlike the purely reportorial ASFT siblings, this essay does state an interpretive position on the exact question IJ later dramatizes (who is responsible for a text's meaning; can the author be dead), so the CONNECTION blocks below carry an ideational, not merely atmospheric, load. Every connection runs essay → novel. Locators are essay-position descriptors: the essay has no section numbers and no footnotes.

CONNECTION: Wallace's anti-"death of the author" position — the ideational ground of the wraith-narrator

Crux: ij-narrator (also communication-solipsism)
Early text: "For those of us civilians who know in our gut that writing is an act of communication between one human being and another, the whole question seems sort of arcane" [closing ¶]; the Gass endorsement, "this ‘anonymity’ may mean many things, but one thing which it cannot mean is that no one did it" [closing ¶]; "Barthes makes the text a shroud, and no one, not even a corpse, is holding the other end" [Hix's shroud image, mid-essay].
IJ echo: The wraith-authorship reading of IJ's narration — that a dead author (James Incandenza's wraith) is a presence in and behind the novel's telling, still meaning, still communicating. IJ literalizes the anti-death position Wallace states here: the corpse is holding the other end of the shroud; the author is dead and yet demonstrably "did it." Wallace's plain-voice conviction that writing is "an act of communication between one human being and another" is the aesthetic-ethical commitment the whole New-Sincerity / communication-over-solipsism project (and the novel's wraith machinery) rests on.
Weight: prefiguration
Notes: [author]-grade and the essay's strongest IJ bridge — DFW's own nonfiction statement of the position IJ works out in fiction. Held at prefiguration (not proof): the essay states a conviction about writing, not a key to the novel's narrator; the wraith-as-narrator reading is itself a live theory record question (ij-narrator). This essay is the author-intent premise that reading presupposes. The communication-solipsism tie is the same writing-as-communication-between-persons ethic seen from the solipsism side. The weight stands as graded: prefiguration is right — the [author] grade already carries the it-is-Wallace-himself force; upgrading the weight would smuggle the wraith reading in as settled.

CONNECTION: The author whose intentions are responsible for a text's meaning — JOI's coded filmography

Crux: filmography-coded-message (also entertainment-purpose)
Early text: "a writer—the person whose choices and actions account for a text’s features—and an author—the entity whose intentions are taken to be responsible for a text’s meaning" [the writer/author distinction]; "Authors are monkeys who mean" [same passage]; "It doesn’t matter what the writer means, basically, for the New Critics; it matters only what the text says" [the Intentional-Fallacy passage].
IJ echo: The archive's filmography-coded-message question — whether JOI's filmography (esp. the endnote-24 catalog) is a coded autobiography whose meaning is anchored in its author's intentions. Wallace's writer/author distinction is exactly the axis that question turns on: is JOI merely the writer whose choices produced the films' features, or the author whose intentions are responsible for their meaning (a message aimed at his family)? The essay supplies the conceptual vocabulary (intention-as-locus-of-meaning) the coded-message and communication-vs-weapon (entertainment-purpose) debates are conducted in.
Weight: shared-preoccupation
Notes: Held at shared-preoccupation: the essay names the category (author-intent responsible for meaning) that the coded-message reading needs, but says nothing about JOI or the film — the connection is conceptual, ours. Relevant to the theory record because the filmography-coded-message adjudication turns precisely on an intent+address chain; this essay is Wallace's own account of what an author's intention even is. It contextualizes, and does not reopen, that adjudication.

Themes

Death of the author (Barthes, poststructuralism vs. the U.S. anti-death camp) · writer vs. author (choices/features vs. intentions/meaning) · authorial intention as the locus of meaning · writing as communication between persons (Wallace's own conviction) · irony and persona ("Schizoscription," the implied author) · the writer as not the ultimate insider (Luria's shattered-world patient).

Cross-references

asft-cruise-essay, asft-derivative-sport, asft-michael-joyce — companion essays in the same collection; this is the collection's craft/theory essay (the others are reportage/autobiography).
e-unibus-pluram-ij-connections — the neighboring essay in ASFT and the collection's other statement of Wallace's aesthetic program (irony, sincerity, communication); "Greatly Exaggerated" supplies the author-intent half of that program.
The wraith / ij-narrator material of the novel: James Incandenza's wraith as a presence in the telling — IJ's literalized answer to the death-of-the-author.
jacobs-eschatological-imagination — argues IJ answers death-of-the-author from the dead author's side; "Greatly Exaggerated" is Wallace's own nonfiction position on the same question.

Notable passages

This essay has no section numbers or footnotes; locators describe position in the essay. All [e-text].

"European theorists (pro-death) and U.S. philosophers (anti-death, mostly)" [opening, the Barthes framing]
"a writer—the person whose choices and actions account for a text’s features—and an author—the entity whose intentions are taken to be responsible for a text’s meaning" [the writer/author distinction]
"Authors are monkeys who mean." [same passage, closing it]
"It doesn’t matter what the writer means, basically, for the New Critics; it matters only what the text says." [the Intentional-Fallacy passage]
"A writer does not wield language; he is subsumed in it. Language speaks us; writing writes; etc." [the deconstruction-metaphysics passage]
"Barthes makes the text a shroud, and no one, not even a corpse, is holding the other end." [Hix's shroud image]
"Hix destroys the author in order to save him." [the "Post-Mortem" critique]
"For those of us civilians who know in our gut that writing is an act of communication between one human being and another, the whole question seems sort of arcane." [closing ¶]
"this ‘anonymity’ may mean many things, but one thing which it cannot mean is that no one did it." [closing ¶, quoting Gass]