Cornflower Book Group 2011: Volume 9

 

    Part of the aim of our Cornflower Book Group choices is to take us somewhere we might not otherwise have gone - not too far off the beaten track, perhaps, but down interesting-looking paths nonetheless. Here's a book that's an unknown quantity for me at least, but one which has been on the list of reader-recommendations since way back; time, then, to make the acquaintance of an epistolary novel, but one which is subtitled "a novel without letters", for our October book is Mark Dunn's Ella Minnow Pea.

    "Original, clever, extraordinarily inventive and quite exceptional ... a fable of stunning imaginative power," said The Bookseller; "A stylish and witty gem of a novel ...", according to the Glasgow Herald, this is "the story of a battle against tyranny, written with an ever-shrinking alphabet, at once a moving love story, a brilliant political allegory and an unforgettable celebration of language" - and all that in a slim little volume of 200 pages.

 

    Here is the gist: "As Ella Minnow Pea writes to her cousin with the latest news on the small quiet island of Nollop, little does she imagine the crisis ahead. The letter z has fallen from the statue of Nevin Nollop, revered author of the sentence 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog', and the island's rulers interpret this as a sign of divine displeasure and ban its use in any form. In a novel composed of correspondence, the loss of z is inconvenient; but far worse is to come as more letters fall and more are banned, until only l, m, n, o, p remain."

    Different, certainly, and I wonder what we shall all make of it. We'll be gathering here on the 24th. of September to discuss A Wizard of Earthsea, so let's then get together on the 22nd. of October to talk about Ella Minnow Pea. As to availability, it should be easy enough to find copies, both in libraries and through shops (The Book Depository will send it anywhere in the world post-free, should you have trouble getting it locally), and in addition to the paperback there is a Kindle edition. Anyone who would like to join us in reading this - or the Ursula Le Guin, as there's still time for that one - would be very welcome, of course.

Comments

[Sandy]

The concept seems drole and this will be a treat I think. At least they could still write Nollop and have an 'm' left over!

[GeraniumCat]

This sounds an intriguing choice. I'll find it hard, though, not to compare it with Thurber's The Wonderful O, which I love very much indeed: I can still recite chunks of it. I'm prepared to be disappointed, but hoping not to be.

[Julie Fredericksen]

At long last, an American author again, and a book I have read to boot. GeraniumCat, I don't think you will be disappointed.