Ella Minnow Pea
October 6th, 2005Just because a book, or a series of books, is a source of great pleasure to me does not mean that I am offended when no one else seems very interested. Only one person in my circle of friends and family has read a Cooper book in the past year. This is understandable and wholly expected. However, I intend to push a bit harder with Mark Dunn’s first novel Ella Minnow Pea: Kiki, Tara, I will buy you a copy if you promise to read it!
Nollop is a country named after Nevin Nollop, who penned the sentence, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Nollop’s government has run into a trouble because the tiles that make up the letters of the famous sentence are beginning to fall from Nollop’s statue, where they had been fastened a century before. Instead of restoring the statue as it begins to crumble, or even commissioning a study to decide if restoration should take place, the High Island Council concludes that the falling letters are a sign from Nollop himself: those letters should be abandoned by society. This isn’t so much of a problem with the z or the q, but what about the c, j, k, f, d, or u?
As the story dev — er — progresses, the awthor of this bit of fition stops employing the letters that are no longer allowt ant the story begins to resemble this sentence. It is op to the protagonist, Ella Minnow Pea, to persooate the leeters to sease ant tesist.
Besides the interesting plot, which kept me reading in every spare moment, I like the book because it plays with words. The citizens of Nollop are highly educated and their written communications to each other which make up this novel are positively dense with words. It is actually a bit of a shock at first. Later on, as certain letters are forbidden, new words are created. “Underground” becomes “subterra”. “Day” becomes “sun-to-sun”.
It is fun to test your verbal limits. This book is the prose equivalent of a formal sonnet or haiku. It is a book for people who like crossword puzzles and playing with words, who read the dictionary for fun and delight in using words that their siblings don’t know. It is the sort of book that leaves you happy and regretful — happy because good books are still being published and regretful because someone else thought of this idea first…
A real review may be read here .
Mark Dunn has since written two other books, which also look interesting…
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht
oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist
and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and
you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed
ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe and the biran fguiers it
out aynawy.
Why just Kiki or Tara? Maybe I want to read it too…
That was my first thought!!
don’t feel bad, jess and f.l.o! shannon just knows that i read the dictionary for fun….which must mean that tara delights in using words that shannon doesn’t know….
I’m on page 55. Here’s a sentence for you: “There is no such thing as accident or misspeak, only grossly underapplied discoursal perspicacity, with unguarded exposure to distractional digression.” I’m not going to be able to read this all in one sitting or I’m going to have a serious headache!! I love it!!
Go, Jessica!
Okay, I’ve finished it. I haven’t enjoyed a book so much in a long time. However, I was quite displeased with the ending. Three romances were left hanging–do they or don’t they?? I didn’t like the last page. And in Ella’s final letter to her family, she never says what the new sentence is, although she does give her father credit for it. And I would have liked to see a bit more into the future on other points, as well…who returns home and who doesn’t, does Ella return to being a launderess?? Inquiring minds want to know– a short epilogue would easily have tied everything up!! I realize it’s in fashion to leave a few things hanging in literature, but this left most of the subplots hanging–only the main plot really resolved. You could definitely tell the author is a playwright first (not necessarily a bad thing). Overall, I loved it, will recommend it, thank you for sending it, etc!! Oh, and I loved the subtlety of her name and the remaining five letters–it is never pointed out to you what her name is or that they match her name. These things are left as a quiet laugh between author and reader (hope this temporarily satisfies your longing, Shannon, for reader posts!!).
It is a good start towards satisfying me, at least. I notice you finished pretty quickly…I did too.
I guess I thought the ending tied things up enough. I actually loved the very ending with the computer search results.
Even though she doesn’t mention the sentence in that one letter, I sort of assumed that she must have mentioned it in an earlier letter, because she assumed they knew it…and of course, her father had written it in an earlier letter (and of course I completely missed its significance).
I like your line about the quiet laugh between author and reader…I also enjoyed all the different names for the months of the year…sometimes every page would have a different name. Once I noticed, I thought they were funny!
Take a look at his other books, too…I haven’t purchased or read them, yet, but they look very interesting…