Review: Ella Minnow Pea

Nollop is a small island off the coast of South Carolina.  It’s an autonomous nation that is named for its most important citizen, Nevin Nollop.  Nevin is most well known as the creator of the pangram “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”  The sentence is displayed under the statue of Nollop in the town center, and one by one, the letters are falling off of the display.  The first letter to fall is the “Z” and the island’s Council meets and decides that it’s a sign from Nollop that their citizens should no longer use that letter.  The letter Z is banned from the written and spoken vocabulary of everyone over the age of seven with pretty severe penalties for anyone who doesn’t comply.  At first, things don’t seem so bad – if you have to lose a letter, what better letter than Z?  But, as things progress and more letters fall, people start to wonder how much longer they can live with these edicts.

I thought Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn was one of the most clever books I’ve read in a long time.  Since it’s “a progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable,” every time a letter falls from the statue, it’s no longer used in the book.  Can you imagine how difficult that would be to write?  Dunn does a fantastic job, although there are a few pages toward the end of the book that are a little difficult to read, and I had to read a sentence or two out loud to understand them at that point.

Nollop reveres liberal arts education and loves language while considering modern technology a nuisance.  Because of this, the citizens of Nollop are oddly formal, so the letters at the beginning of the book are somewhat staid.  As more and more letters fall, the letters become a little less formal.  It was fascinating to see how different characters reacted to the edicts – some resignedly accepted the edicts, others welcomed them (even turning in neighbors), still others turned themselves in and some were openly defiant.  Isn’t that how people have reacted to the erosion of their freedoms throughout the years?  I found myself wondering how I would react in a similar situation.

Ella Minnow Pea is the main character and I loved the way she quietly fights the government – I don’t want to give away any details, but she’s very clever in her own right.  I loved this book and recommend it if you want to read a book that is both thought provoking and entertaining.

I won this book from Tea Time With Marce.  I am an Indiebound Affiliate.