Novels and Short Stories of Frederick Barthelme. A Literary Critical Analysis

Description

Critics have generally categorized Frederick Barthelme as a minimalist, meaning for some a writer who caught the tide of a reaction to the metafiction that dominated literary production in the sixties and much of the seventies, and for others a writer who had nothing to say beyond the surface of the prose. The minimalism that is the hallmark of Barthelmes style, in fact, invites a reading of the stories and novels beyond just the accuracy of description, the precision of imagery, and the economy of language. Barthelme is best read as a contemporary moralist, not of the prescriptive type, but of the descriptive type. Not interrogating and establishing codes of behavior by which people might live (as Hemingway did), Barthelme demonstrates how people do live in the postmodern age, an age which no longer enjoys a grand narrative or a religious underpinning. Particularly, he shows how people negotiate sexual relationships and marriage following the sexual revolution of the sixties and the womens movement of the seventies. The purpose of this study is to review the criticism surrounding Barthelmes fiction and to engage in a closer reading of Barthelmes texts in order to see beyond the highly engaging surface of the prose to the interrogation of contemporary morality in which Barthelme is engaged.