Kenneth Dillon at the LARB:
IN AN INFLUENTIAL essay on the aesthetic values of minimalism and maximalism in literature, the late John Barth jokes that “[t]he oracle at Delphi did not say, ‘Exhaustive analysis and comprehension of one’s own psyche may be prerequisite to an understanding of one’s behavior and of the world at large’; it said, ‘Know thyself.’” But Barth, whose own novels are often long and complex, isn’t handing a victory to his more frugal peers. Instead, his essay argues that both minimalist and maximalist works of art can be appreciated and judged on their own terms—that each form has merit.
Becca Rothfeld isn’t so sure. In a literary climate that seems to champion terse yet purportedly serious volumes like 2023 novels The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor and The Vegan by Andrew Lipstein—a world of words in which brevity has, ostensibly, come to represent the soul of lit—Rothfeld goes against the suddenly too-fine grain, issuing what The New York Times called a “plea for maximalism.”
more here.