Neohelicon XXVIII/1 03244652/2001/$5.00 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest © Akadémiai Kiadó Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht ZOLTÁN ABÁDI-NAGY MINIMALISM VS. POSTMODERNISM IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN FICTION The essay constructs minimalism in contemporary American fiction as both an extension of postmodernism and a revolt against it, a new development. It means that minimalism is a response to the same (i.e., postmodernist) view of the world, but the same philosophical conclusions regarding the postmodern nature of the world result in a radically different ars poetica. In the minimalist writers aesthetic decisions, the postmodernist habit is the real generative factor  it is the hidden ideological core of the postmodernist worldview that plays the really decisive role in the postmodernist-convictions-and-minimalist-aesthetic- program dynamic. MINIMALIST VS. POSTMODERNIST FICTION The critical controversy concerning the general features of minimalist fiction crystal- lized in a substantial agreement by the end of the nineteen-eighties. 1 This definitional accord about basics makes it possible for me to move to the heart of the minimalist vs. postmodernist fiction issue right away. I construct minimalism in contemporary American fiction as both an extension of postmodernism and a revolt against it, a new development; and the reconciliation to this contradiction can be summarized by saying that minimalism is a response to the same (i.e., postmodernist) view of the world, but the same philosophical conclusions regarding the postmodern nature of the world result in a radically different ars poetica. I associate myself with critics who argue that the minimalist writers are both allied with and in opposition to postmodernism (Herzinger, Minimalism 79), who endorse the typically postmodern outlook (Chrzanowska-Karpinska 62), share the postmodern dilemma of epistemological and ontological doubt (Verhoeven 51). Zoltán Abádi-Nagy, University of Debrecen, Institute for English and American Studies, Depart- ment of North America, Pf. 73, H-4010 Debrecen, Hungary. E-mail: abnagyzo@delfin.klte.hu 1 It will suffice to remind ourselves of some of the most succinct and yet most comprehensive summaries of those views for quick reference, in chronological order: Iannone 60; Barthelme 1; Pope 333; Herzinger, Minimalism 73; Chrzanowska-Karpinska 5859; Simmons 105106; Clarke 103107.