The power of the Internet brought me this mp3 of Amy Hempel reading “The Harvest” and suddenly I know what we’re listening to in class tomorrow.
Amy Hempel — “I moved through the days like a severed head that finishes a sentence.”
Tag: literary minimalism
tom spanbauer literary minimalism page
Found this great wiki page on Tom Spanbauer and literary minimalism:
tom spanbauer and literary minimalism
Preparing for Lit 150 and discussion of Amy Hempel’s stories “The Cemetary Where Al Jolson is Buried” and “The Harvest”. This morning I’m reviewing Tom Spanbauer’s notes on literary minimalism:
Notes on Literary minimalism—(exemplified by Mark Richard, Amy Hempel and Chuck Palahniuk)
Literary minimalism is characterized by an economy with words and a focus on surface description. Minimalist authors eschew adverbs and prefer allowing context to dictate meaning. Readers are expected to take an active role in the creation of a story, to “choose sides” based on oblique hints and innuendo, rather than reacting to directions from the author. The characters in minimalist stories and novels tend to be unexceptional.
Instead of grand narratives we see briefer and more economical scenes and seemingly insignificant moments that “add up to more than the sum of their parts.”