this perspective, Herman’s objections are easily met: I have made my case by
means of a direct engagement with prominent anti-intentionalist positions,
and that case includes the principle that interpretive hypotheses need to be
tested against alternatives. I submit, then, that Herman is addressing misuses
of the concept more than the concept itself.^2
Furthermore, by understanding the implied author as the agent respon-
sible for the purposive design that governs the text, we can further clarify the
nature of narrative communication—and in so doing, offer Ockham and his
followers good reasons to keep their hands off his Razor. There are at least
five significant clarifications that follow from locating intentionality in the
implied rather than the flesh-and-blood author. This location helps explain or
call attention to the following:
(1) The significant role of self-presentation in the construction of narrative,
either fictional or nonfictional; a writer inevitably constructs one version of
herself rather than another through her choices of technique, subject matter,
ethical values, and so on.
(2) The sometimes surprising difference in ideological or ethical positions
in texts by the same biographical author: despite their common flesh-and-
blood author, such texts have different implied authors.
(3) The not uncommon situation when the flesh-and-blood author’s dis-
cussion of his or her text runs counter to the purposive design governing the
text. For example, Ernest Hemingway responded to a critic interested in his
take on the debate about the apparent textual problems in the pre-1965 ver-
sion of “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” by saying that he reread the text and it
seemed fine to him. The purposive design governing the story, however, indi-
cates that the pre-1965 text is inconsistent in its attributions of dialogue to its
two waiters, and we are thus justified in saying that the implied author of the
story, unlike the flesh-and-blood author, would approve the post-1965 version
of the story, which corrects the inconsistency.^3
(4) The complicated authorial agency in collaborative and ghostwritten
texts as well as that in hoaxes and fraudulent memoirs. In collaboratively writ-
ten texts, the flesh-and-blood authors construct a hybrid version of them-
selves responsible for the purposive design of the text. In both ghostwritten
texts and hoaxes, the flesh-and-blood author constructs a version of herself
that purports to be a version of the author named on the title page. In ghost-
written texts, the author named on the title page authorizes the flesh-and-
blood author to construct that implied version, while in hoaxes the author
- For a fuller discussion, see the Phelan-Rabinowitz contribution to Herman et al.’s Nar-
rative Theory: Core Concepts and Critical Debates. - See chapter 7 of my Experiencing Fiction for a fuller discussion.
IMPLIED AUTHOR, DEFICIENT NARRATION, AND NONFICTION • 205