LESS IS MORE—OR SO THEY SAY: MINIMALISM DIMINISHED
LESS IS MORE—OR SO THEY SAY: MINIMALISM DIMINISHED

Summary/Abstract: “Less is more” seems to be the (age-old saying—it turns out) statement that has prompted the experiments described as minimalism in the first half of the past century: first in architecture and the arts, then in music and literature, gradually also becoming the description of a deliberately chosen life style. In literature—whose “building material” is language—things are more complex, mainly because of the relationship between words and meanings; so negative criticism soon joined in. The second part is an experiment in itself: Hemingway’s “Cat in the Rain,” accompanied by several abbreviated “versions,” that prove unconvincing as the meaning of “less is more” or the “iceberg theory of fiction.”

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