Tuesday, October 2, 2012



Day 2

Hey! 

You're in for a treat today.  Mark Dunn's cleverly crafted book, whose title tickled my funny bone so much, I had to pick it up. 

Ella Minnow Pea
by Mark Dunn



This book is hailed as a "progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable. "  
Good Grief -- what a mouth full!  Thank goodness, Mr. Dunn explains those big 20 point words at the beginning of his book. : )

Off the coast of South Carolina is the island of Nollop, so named for the island's most famous citizen, Nevin Nollop, the creator of the sentence, many of us learned in typing class, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."  The residents of this island erected a statue in honor of Nollop and his invention.

One day, however, pandemonium ensues when a tile bearing the letter "Z", falls off of the statue. 

"On Wednesday, July 19, the Council, having gleaned and discerned, released its official verdict: the fall of the tile bearing the letter "Z" constitutes the terrestrial manifestation of an empyrean Nollopian desire, that desire most surely being that the letter "Z" should be utterly excised ---fully extirpated-- absolutively heave-ho'ed from our communal vocabulary!  Henceforth, use of the arguably superfluous twenty-sixth letter will be outlawed from all island speech and graphy."

 But *gasp*, another tile has fallen and another...

"Many of you have visited the Council office over the last several days, 
voicing concern over how best to express in the absence of the letter "D"...
                                            For Sunday, please use Sunshine
                                            For Monday, please use Monty
                                            For Tuesday, please use Toes
                                            For Wednesday, please use Wetty
                                            For Thursday, please use Thurby
                                            For Friday, please use Fribs
                                            For Saturday, please use Satto-gatto"

Will Ella and the town find a solution to their problem before all the letters of the alphabet have been dropped from their language?   You have to read it, to find out.

 Oh, and Mr. Dunn stops using words with the letters just like his characters: very clever. 
He MUST have a really big thesaurus and dictionary!!

If you're enjoying my posts, check out other  31 Day-ers joining the challenge.  They'll be glad you visited, just like I am!

Happy Reading!

Mimi


"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." 
John1:1 NIV Bible

9 comments:

  1. This sounds like such an unusual book! I'm interested to see what else you have in store for us this month!

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  2. How darling. That has to be one of the cutest titles I've ever heard! And it sounds like a clever story, too - thank you for passing that one along!

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  3. Fabulous topic, and I can't wait to see what I need to add to my shelf!

    Maria, another 31 Dayer :)

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  4. I have wanted to read this book for such a long time, and I don't know why I haven't yet! Last year my 31 Days topic was 31 Days of Reading Well, and I had a whole day about epistolary novels. I know this one was included even though I haven't opened it personally.

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    1. Hey!
      Give it a shot -- I think you'd like it : )

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  5. This is one of my favorites! Now I want to re-read it. =)

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    1. When I was writing the post I thought the same thing : )

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