Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. [Vol. 3.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 23)

BOOK REVIEWS - Attila Kőszeghy: "New-Dirty-Postliterature-Pop-Lo-Cal-K-Mart". On American Minimalist Fiction in the 1970s and 1980s. (Abádi Nagy Zoltán: Az amerikai minimalista próza. Budapest: Argumentum Kiadó, 1994.

motivated by postmodern philosophy. Instead of fictionality it chooses reality,it is referential instead of being nonreferential." (379) Minimalism vs. maximalism. The two terms represent an obvious pair of extremes on a scale of measurement. Here, however, they peacefully delineate two aspects of the same book: its subject matter on the one hand, and its author's intentions on the other. Minimalism as we learn it from Abádi Nagy's 'maximalisf book is still a term of some uncertainty in American literary criticism. There are, of course, many critics who can always tell you what the new thing really is. Fortunately Abádi Nagy is not one of them. One of the great merits of this book is that the author intentionally avoids trying to find 'final answers.' His way of tackling the problem of minimalism vs. postmodernism, for example, is not void of critical judgement, though. The way he formulates his critical views about the phenomenon has its lessons to the reader. And not only the ones that are apparent from the structure of his book and the ones that Abádi Nagy states as his own philosophy (see quote 282), but also the ones that he implies. One of the implied lessons is that Abádi Nagy knows what he can tell us with his excessive knowledge of contemporary American fiction and contemporary criticism, and he does that more than thoroughly. He does investigate his primary sources in a systematic way and shares the view and the expertise of the scholar providing the reader with the pleasant feeling of being present with one finger on the pulse of contemporary American Literature. Yet, he also knows clearly enough what the things are that he cannot judge from the point in time where he is (1990) when writing his book, the first comprehensive monograph study of American Minimalist Fiction that has been completed so far. IMf ZJ<r