Most of us are familiar with the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." I first saw it when dealing with computer fonts, since it contains every letter of the alphabet. This story takes place on a fictional island off the coast of South Carolina, named for Nollop, the creator of the above pangram. The denizens of the isle are obsessed with language and have a statue to their beloved founder with his famous sentence tiled below. One day, the Z falls off, which the island council decrees is a sign from Nollop that they must no longer use that letter. Progressively other letters begin to fall off, which similar results. Since this book is told in letters, the writing itself ceases to use the letters in question as they fall off the statue. The writing becomes increasingly hilarious and maddening as the residents struggle to remain coherent in the face of a rapidly shrinking alphabet. Usually I don't like stories written around word games, but this was a lot of fun. Definitely recommended to lovers of language. ( )

This was such a sweet little book. The author chose to tell the story through letters and I think it was the best way to show how taking letters out of circulation disrupted language and communication on this small fictional island.
I think this book can lead to some really great discussions on government and language. I think it is a perfect pick for something light but thought provoking. ( )

Kearsten says: I *really* liked this one. A town, who so idolizes the man (Nollop) who created the sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" (a sentence which uses all the letters of the alphabet with as few repeats as possible) that they created a statue of him including the words of his famous sentence, is thrown into conflict when the letter tiles begin falling off the statue. When the council decrees that the dropping tiles are Nollop reaching from the grave to censor those letters, the council outlaws use of the offending letters. Which continue to drop, one at a time...

While the concept sounds a bit silly and extreme, the novel is written in letter format. Townspeople - those who disagree with the council and vow to fight as well as those who believe that Nollop is truly speaking from the grave - write each other, growing increasingly frustrated, depressed and frightened of the council's increasing power. In a necessary, and chillingly illustrative touch, the epistles drop the outlawed letters, eventually resorting to grammatic acrobatics in order to express themselves in a lawful manner.

A fantastic, challenging and chilling read! ( )

What a clever idea for a book! The denizens of an independent island off the coast of the U.S. are forbidden to use letters from the alphabet as they drop from a statue honoring their nation's founding citizen. As the letters fall, they also drop from the book. This was a very quick read and the format (letters between the citizens of the island) was a refreshing twist on fiction. ( )

So superficial, and so sad that it is so superficial. Dunn may not know Bok's lovely 'Eunoia,' but he must know Perec's 'Void'... and for some reason he doesn't care. The entire tradition of Oulipo experimentation is washed away in entertaining misspellings.

And the political satire? It's embarrassing when Americans try to imagine despotic states. All they can think of are clever plots and the abstract poignance of violence.

And the people who think this is funny? It is, for about ten pages near the end. But even people who find those pathetically spelled letters ('Teese letters are also mie solass') heartbreakingly funny seem to have missed the last page of 'Finnegans Wake,' or maybe the entire book, or maybe even just the idea of the entire book, or maybe just postmodernism as a whole. ( )