This is a translation of Le Minimalisme dans la litterature et la musique.
Minimalism is a rather recent style in which the artist reduces his work to the the most essential elements. This style applies to the visual arts, to music, and to literature as well. Even though the typical minimalist works of these genres appear to be completey different, one may find similarities between if one studies them.
Minimalist music is marked by simple motifs with repeat, undergoing small changes. The composer Steve Reich is an innovator of minimalist music, beginning with his experiments with loops of magnetic tape. His influence reaches the world of minimal techno, whose artists replace Reich's tape loops with samplers and rhythm machines.
Minimalist literature is marked in a similar fashion by repeating motifs. The novel La salle de bain, by Jean-Phillipe Toussaint is a good example of this style. One reads the story of the narrator while he passes days in the bathtub. The narrator describes his actions there in the smallest details, transforming them into heroic deeds.
Minimalist art grows from the ordinary parts of life. John Cage, one of the best known American minimalists, wrote a piece known as 4'33' for solo piano. This piece is four minutes and thirty-three seconds of qbsolute silence, except for the noises in the auditorium. Cage's goal is to constrain the audience to listen to the world of sound that surrounds them.
Likewise, Toussaint examines the banal qualities of life in the bathroom: the act of shaving himself (Toussaint, 25), the cracks in a wall (Toussaint 12), and a dame blanche. (Toussaint, 80) He describes all these things to celebrate the ordinary.
Minimal techno is a rather extreme form of minimalist music. There is nothing but rhythm in the songs of this genre. In fact, one could only barely consider these pieces songs; You can rarely find singing, melody, or even a bassline. Often the composers of these "tracks" call themselves "producers", almost like a factory. One well-known producer is Jeff Mills, expert DJ from Detroit, the origin of techno. His tracks consist of hard rhythm and brief noises.
Many critics of minimal techno attack its nature of repetition. But this nature is this music's heart. In fact, repetition is a necessary quality in order to call any work sequentially experienced. So, the minimal novel must offer repetition as well. La salle de bain offers it with each invocation of the phrase " The next day; I left the bathroom." (Toussaint, 123) The return of this sentence signifies loops in daily life.
One difference between the La salle de bain and the works of minimalist music is the quest for immobility. By subtle and continual changes in the musical texture, minimalist music can inspire movement with very simple rhythms. One can see movement in a nightclub when a DJ such as Jeff Mills or Derrick May is playing records. But the narrator of Le salle de bain searches for total stasis; he wants to become a rock. He finds this immobility in the paintings of Mondrian. Perhaps the narrator wants to eternally study the details of the world? Perhaps minimalism in visual art is not all that similar to its other forms.
Minimalist music becomes more popular each day. Even though minimalist music for orchestra or for classical instruments is still immobilised in the academic world, the techno world grows. But it seems that minimalist literature is not very noticeable today. Possibly this style is too different from common reading to be accepted.
Another large difference between the minimal music world and that of minimalist literature is the dependance of minimalist music on technology. The diversity of sound found in techno music is possible only with samplers or the infinite patience of a computer. However, a novel needs only a press and an author.
Often, the names of artistic movements lose their clarity when applied to different forms of art: music, literature, theatre. Minimalism lacks specifics, but across diverse forms of art, it is used uniformly.
Bibliography
Mills, Jeff. Call of the Wild. Purpose Maker, 1999.
Motte, Warren. Small Worlds: Minimalism in Contemporary French Literature. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.
Toussaint, Jean-Phillipe. La Salle de bain. Paris: Les éditions de Minuit, 1985.
Node your Homework! Oh, and if you have a critique, tell me, as I will have to write another paper like this quite soon.