Literary studies in the post-war era have consistently barred attributing specific intentions to authors based on textual evidence or ascribing textual presences to the authors themselves. Obscure Invitations argues that this taboo has blinded us to fundamental elements of twentieth-century literature. Widiss focuses on the particularly self-conscious constructions of authorship that characterize modernist and postmodernist writing, elaborating the narrative strategies they demand and the reading practices they yield. He reveals that apparent manifestations of "the death of the author" and of the "free play" of language are performances that ultimately affirm authorial control of text and reader. The book significantly revises received understandings of central texts by Faulkner, Stein, and Nabokov. It then discusses Eggers' Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and the films Seven and The Usual Suspects, demonstrating that each is a highly self-aware rebuttal of the notion of authorial absence.
"This is an important new assessment of the place of the author in a twentieth-century American narrative, one that will attract considerable attention and controversy. Widiss entirely upends the critical consensus that the author as a living, speaking presence has been eliminated. His argument, well-elucidated and expertly supported, is that the emergence of language as language is merely that of
University of California at Santa Barbara
"A rich meditation on the competing impulses of authorial self-effacement and self-representation in literary works, and a compelling argument that this dynamic is one of the keys to modern literary experience. The sheer intelligence and grace of Widiss' prose is something to behold."
Stanford University
"On every level, Widiss' book invites and rewards the attention of its readers."
