Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

Ella Minnow Pea: a progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable

This was one of the most cleverly written books I've ever read. Unfortunately, I've become delinquent in my blog updates and thus it has been several books since I read this delightful tale, but I will do my best to recall my literary experience.

Ella Minnow Pea is a girl who lives in the island nation of Nollop, just off the coast of South Carolina. The book is a series of letters sent amongst fellow Nollopians during a crisis in which certain letters of the alphabet become banned from use. The country is named after Nevin Nollop, the creator of the pangram "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." He is forever revered for creating a sentence that uses all 26 letters of the alphabet with as few repetitions as possible, and the sentence is preserved on a memorial statue. One day, a letter falls off the statue and the government officials must gather to decide it's meaning. It is decided that the fallen letter is a sign from the Great Nollop from beyond the grave that it should no longer be used. The first letter to fall is "z". Punishments for using the banned letter are a 3-strike system: first offense is a public reprimand, choice of lashing or stocks on second offense, and banishment from the island as the third and final offense. As letters continue to fall and subsequently banned from use, the letters written in the story become more and more creative in their word choices as citizens try and figure out a way to prove that Nollop was not omniscient. This can only be done by creating a sentence that uses all 26 letters but with fewer repetitions than Nollop's pangram.

I very much enjoyed this book. By the end of the story the last 5 letters remaining are L, M, N, O, and P. Ella Minnow Pea. The language becomes extremely flexible, kind of how today we communicate through text messages, using numbers and odd spelling. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys the English language, or simply takes pleasure in words. Fun fun read!

4 out of 5 stars