Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters
A hilarious and moving story of one girl’s fight for freedom of expression, as well as a linguistic tour de force sure to delight word lovers everywhere
Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal phrase containing all the letters of the alphabet, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. As the letters progressively drop from the statue they also disappear from the novel. The result is "a love letter to alphabetarians and logomaniacs everywhere" (Myla Goldberg, bestselling author of Bee Season).
Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal phrase containing all the letters of the alphabet, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. As the letters progressively drop from the statue they also disappear from the novel. The result is "a love letter to alphabetarians and logomaniacs everywhere" (Myla Goldberg, bestselling author of Bee Season).
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Community Reviews
The writing is beautiful, original, and I can imagine how challenging it was to do. Although, it bothers me how some characters are people with that extensive vocabulary yet believe such idiotic idea.
An odd little novel about a fictional place where the repressive rulers systematically outlaw the use of certain letters. As they do so, the author must continue to write his story (since it is written in letters between the citizens) similarly limited. As the story unfolds, fewer and fewer letters are left. The author's creativity and dexterity with the letters remaining to him is remarkable, but it couldn't save the story from being predictable. Still, it's very interesting to see how he manages to write it with only half the alphabet at his disposal by the end.
Satirical. Epistolary. Lipogrammatic. Topical. I thoroughly enjoyed this feat of wordsmithing by Dunn, with circumlocutions, not-quite-right synonyms, and ever-increasing creative phonetic spellings. A book for those of us who love letters, in both meanings of the word. It is silly, but intentionally and justifiable so. Shining a light on themes such as tyranny, censorship, government overreach, freedom of speech, and creeping loss of rights can be a tricky endeavor, and Dunn took the route of broad and conspicuous satire. And it works. I found it laugh-out funny and think Dunn did an very admirable job in lampooning the ridiculousness of totalitarian government and blind obeisance. That is not to say this book is for everyone. Many will find the gimmick - for gimmick it is, though clever and well-executed - of progressive lipogrammatic writing to be frustrating. But, you know, that's the point.
Someone recommended this book to me, I liked the idea behind the book, so I was excited to begin it.
There was no real connection with any of the characters. They came and went from one letter to another. They had no depth. Other than their troubles with the council and Amos' drinking problems there was very real information given about their lives outside the problems with language.
It started out ok, but then as letters began disappearing from the story it felt like the author was trying to hard. The book began to feel like it was work. Then near the end when there were only the handful of letters left I actually had to begin reading out loud to fully understand what was being said. I was no longer inside the story.
There was no real connection with any of the characters. They came and went from one letter to another. They had no depth. Other than their troubles with the council and Amos' drinking problems there was very real information given about their lives outside the problems with language.
It started out ok, but then as letters began disappearing from the story it felt like the author was trying to hard. The book began to feel like it was work. Then near the end when there were only the handful of letters left I actually had to begin reading out loud to fully understand what was being said. I was no longer inside the story.
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