The Narrowed Voice: Minimalism and Raymond Carver
1994; Volume: 31; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0039-3789
Autores Tópico(s)Contemporary Literature and Criticism
ResumoMinimalism appears to be rampant. So captivated are contemporary critics with term's (supposed) ability to provide precise and final demarcation, that it seems paradoxical to discover myriad of widely diverse cultural activities jointly labeled by aesthetic.1 Repeatedly, however, term is used pejoratively, a rapid dismissal of an artwork, often made more on moral than stylistic grounds.(2) Occasionally, as with Barth's frequent application of term, it denotes praise; rarely is neutrality involved. In many respects, our culture's penchant for term minimalist is similar to its predilection for label postmodernist - making free and easy use of either as an epithet has become stylish. Abused as term is, its overuse nevertheless signifies a general cultural difficulty in understanding and interpreting contemporary art (to name is to know becomes axiom, from entertainment pages of newspapers to critical investigation of literary texts). The prevalence of term also speaks of manner in which various arts media have become intermixed: there is a degree of accuracy in relating Philip Glass and John Cage and Samuel Beckett, owing to their shared interest in silence and repetition, for instance. A term that is so pervasive in so many diverse areas of concern would seem to defy an all-encompassing definition.(3) Literary appears to be somewhat protean in its manifestations; Barth describes minimalist writing as being terse, oblique, realistic or hyperrealistic, slightly plotted, extrospective, cool-surfaced fiction, but he then speaks of Beckett, Carver and Donald Barthelme as being minimalists all in same breath (A Few Words . 1). It is easy to sympathize with Barth - using as he does necessary stratagem of viewing against its opposite, literary - and find term to be elusive. Indeed, for Barth, minimalist/maximalist issue extends to all literature: Beyond their individual and historically local impulses, then, more or less minimalist authors of New American Short Story are re-enacting a cyclical correction in history (and microhistories) of literature and art in general. For if there is much to admire in artistic austerity, its opposite is not without merits and joys as well. There are minimalist pleasures of Emily Dickinson - Zero at Bone - and maximalist ones of Walt Whitman. (A Few Words 25) Barth's telescoping of a discussion of to a paradigm that enacts decision of what to include/exclude in a literary text is accepted by John Kuehl, who (recalling disputes between Keats and Shelley, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe) writes: the co-existence of putter-inners and leaver-outers - now called maximalists and minimalists - seems commensurate with story-telling itself (104). Barth's trans-generic (I say generally trans-generic, since in his later essay, It's a Long Story, Barth creates a dichotomy between short story and novel) ahistorical approach to is not without its difficulties. By glossing over specificity accorded to term by a critic such as Karl, Barth not only attenuates efficacy of term itself, but he also fails to discern adequately between aims of a writer such as Carver and say, a Senecan aphorism. However, Barth's opposition between compression and luxuriant abundance, explicit and extended analysis (A Few Words . 2) focuses on central issue a discussion of in general invokes - namely, enigmatic relationship between what is present in a text and what is implied through absence. Although I believe that term verges on being reductive, I think that maximalism versus minimalism debate (in literature) brings to fore many of issues attendant upon a discussion of Carver's short stories, and Why Don't You Dance? …
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