Devine Emperor: Minimalist?

In the case of When the Emperor Was Devine, the author would not be considered a minimalist. The tone of the novel follows the plot of the book. The way the author approaches the writing is more of a poetic view to the writing by expressing the feelings of the actions written throughout the words in the words and the arrangement of the story. For example, at the store with Joe Lundy in the beginning of the story, the tone of the conversation the women had with him was kind of mellow and sad. It was like the tone of the writing expressed the tone of the conversation and the situation. By reading what was going on you could feel the tension like you were in the room. The author, Otsuka, uses this  style in her writing of this novel to express the feelings of what is really going on. When you read the novel, there is a weary feeling like a feeling of overcast and mist among the situation in the novel. The feeling that something is being hidden or that their are some underlying events that aren't just blatantly put in the readers face. In the case of the U.S government, this is true. That feeling is given to all the citizens of the U.S when it comes to WWII and the things that happened during the war. Its like the facts are hidden somewhere deep in a vault which everyone knows is there but pretends to act like it doesn't exist. For the purposes of the story and what was supposed to be told, the voice of the novel was perfect. Otsuka is a minimalist in this instance because if she wasn't muting the fact of the story then the reader wouldn't be able to get the feelings that the characters have in the novel. The way she wrote the novel gives the reader that feeling that the main characters also have. In a way the tone of the story helps to get the reader to relate to the characters, which in this case, is hard because most of us "readers" wouldn't be able to place ourselves into their shoes.