A review by member Frances Thimann
ELLA MINNOW PEA, by Mark Dunn
Methuen pbk. ed., 2003. (First pub. in USA in 2001)
What is a pangram?
What is a lipogram?
Where is Nollop, and why are those terms of special importance there?
You will find the answers to these and other vital questions when you read this book, described by its author on the title page as ‘a progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable’ (so that is all quite clear, then.) You will also laugh, enjoy delightful play with words, and admire the ingenious resolution of the plot at the very last minute. But you will also reflect soberly on the importance of language to freedom and democracy, and on the various parallels to this story, but lacking its brilliance and fun, that will spring to your mind.
The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog
In a little-known corner of the world, the small independent island nation of Nollop, situated just off South Carolina, USA, honours its native son Neville Nollop, who, it seems, invented the pangram noted above. A pangram (of course) is a sentence containing all the letters of the alphabet. Because of the significance of this contribution to the English-speaking world, language, the arts and scholarship have been elevated to huge importance in the nation – its citizens love words and delight in using them inventively. ‘I… watch the shapings of the clouds and feel the caress of our soft, late-summer windwisps,’ writes one citizen to her cousin. They coin terms like ‘sweet pureplicity,’ ‘leapdash urgency’, ‘thug-uglies’…
At the centre of Nollopton there is cenotaph with a statue honouring the great man and featuring his remarkable invention. Unfortunately, one of the tiles forming this phrase falls off one evening and shatters at the base of the cenotaph. This tile features the letter Z. The bureaucrats in charge of the Council, in their blind devotion to their founder and with their desire to interpret his wishes, decree that henceforth that letter is banned from all correspondence and speech, as that must indeed be the great Nollop’s wish. Gradually, more and more letters fall; the Council continues to enforce their rigid rulings. Not only speech and correspondence, but books too are included in the rulings. The library is closed, books are burned, education rendered difficult and limited, the local newspaper is shut down.
Meanwhile, other letters fall – Q… then J… then others…
And when the letter D falls, the islanders realise that all their history is threatened, as the past tense is obliterated from their language.
Violations of the Council’s rulings are severely punished. Post is officially inspected, correspondence censored. Neighbours spy on each other, officials spy on neighbours. Domestic and family tensions surface. Some of the islanders stop writing or speaking completely as fear of retribution mounts – some emigrate. Businesses close; stress and misery mounts.
The Council interpret what they see as the divine wishes of Nollop – his will be done! – they make accusations of wrong-thinking and blasphemy. Scientists on the mainland are able by chemical analysis to test the adhesive of the falling tiles and state that it is weak due to the age of the statue, and point out that therefore there is no divine will involved at all: it is the fixative, not the Almighty! But the Council suggest that on the contrary, it is Nollop working through science.
(Meanwhile, as more letters disappear, the Council decrees that the days of the week must be written ‘Monty, Toes, Wetty, Thurby, Fribs…’)
But after witnessing the ever more severe punishments meted out to their community, at last the remaining citizens plan insurrection. It is agreed with the Council that if they can come up with a new pangram, even better than Nollop’s – and it must be 32 letters or less (Nollop’s has 35) – the rulings will be reversed, for it will be clear that Nollop is not the genius they thought him.
So now the race against time is on! And it is a cliff hanger! They have six weeks – while their lives disintegrate around them, letters continue to fall from the cenotaph and communication is harder and harder. Their correspondence becomes ever more inventive and funny, brave and touching as they circumnavigate the forbidden letters and coin strange new forms of words with what they have left. (A lipogram (of course) is a work which uses words where one or more letters of the alphabet are avoided.)
There follow many desperate efforts as they try to achieve the perfect pangram and so preserve their civilisation and their freedom. Back in my quaint garden, jaunty zinnias vie with flaunting phlox is one example, but of course, it is far too long. The fight (Enterprise 32) is led by Ella Minnow Pea, and at the end, those are the only letters left that can be used for communication – LMNOP…
And at last, just in time! the perfect pangram is produced (which I will not reproduce here)… And the solution comes as a surprise. It was not even written by any scholar or learned person, Nollop was proved not to be so divine, unique, or even bright, after all, and his works do not deserve the adulation they have previously received.
This is a novel told through letters, in both meanings of the word. It is a fable about language and democracy, the idiocies of blind bureaucracy, state control and religious intolerance. It is about the spying of the state on citizens and of neighbours on each other. Yet in spite of that it is also very funny.
At the end, in her triumphal letter, Ella writes that they will all celebrate their victory with ‘jugs… piled high, toppling over, corks popping, liquor flowing. Disorder to match the clutter and chaos of our marvellous language. Words upon words, piled high, toppling over, thoughts popping, correspondence and conversation overflowing.’
* *
As a kind of appendix, the book also contains other pangrams by others beyond the Nollopian shores, including one brilliant contribution consisting of 26 letters only!
And now readers of this review might like to try their own pangram…
This Review appeared firstly in the Gladstone Books Review, Issue 9, July 2020. I am very grateful for permission to include it here. It has been slightly edited.