Ella Minnow Pea
by Mark Dunn
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Description
A hilarious and moving story of one girl’s fight for freedom of expression, as well as a linguistic tour de force sure to delight word lovers everywhereElla Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal phrase containing all the letters of the alphabet, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow show more citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. As the letters progressively drop from the statue they also disappear from the novel. The result is "a love letter to alphabetarians and logomaniacs everywhere" (Myla Goldberg, bestselling author of Bee Season). show less
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Recommendations
Member Recommendations
SylviaC Both stories use a light touch to look at language and censorship.
20
amysisson Both are deceptively simple stories that highlight absurdity in human behavior.
21
bookwoman247 Word play and language are an intregal part of both books. Ella Minnow Pea is a bit more sophisticated, but for adults or teens who enjoyed Haroun and the Sea of Stories, I think they will also find Ella Minnow Pea very enjoyable.
21
4leschats Similar aspects of word play demonstrate how the abstract nature of language creates, alters, and describes our concrete experiences.
GirlMisanthrope Short sweet charming book , featuring the alphabet
sturlington Breakdown of language
Member Reviews
The ruling elders of the tiny island of Nollop have decreed that their deceased town founder, Nevin Nollop, is the One True God, and he lets his will be known by making letters fall off his commemorative statue. Each time a letter falls, island residents may no longer use it in speech or in writing. It does not help that Nollop is the putative originator of the sentence "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog," and that this sentence appears on his memorial.
Beyond the wordplay, this lipogrammatic story can be read as an satire of ecclesiastical arrogance or government overreach. The gimmick gets a little strained at the end, but still this book rewards the short amount of time it takes to read it.
Beyond the wordplay, this lipogrammatic story can be read as an satire of ecclesiastical arrogance or government overreach. The gimmick gets a little strained at the end, but still this book rewards the short amount of time it takes to read it.
On the fictional island-nation of Nollop, just off of South Carolina, and named after founder Nevin Nollop, language reigns supreme. Nevin created the phrase “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” used by typesetters and teletype repair technicians the world over. When letters spelling out Nollop’s famous phrase start falling off a monument, the High Island Council, thinking it’s a message from the long-dead Nollop, decides to ban them from use – forever. Neighbors turn on neighbors as some rush to report those caught using or possessing the newly banned letters.
The novel is written as a series of letters, which become increasingly difficult to write, and read, as more letters fall – and are subsequently banned from show more use.
Mark Dunn has written a highly inventive and thought-provoking about the freedom of language and what could happen if it’s tampered with. Ella Minnow Pea is being made into a musical, and I’d like to see how it turns out. show less
The novel is written as a series of letters, which become increasingly difficult to write, and read, as more letters fall – and are subsequently banned from show more use.
Mark Dunn has written a highly inventive and thought-provoking about the freedom of language and what could happen if it’s tampered with. Ella Minnow Pea is being made into a musical, and I’d like to see how it turns out. show less
Summary: The small island nation of Nollop, just off the coast of South Carolina, holds itself as more educated and lexically-minded than their non-islander counterparts, thanks to the influence of Nevin Nollop, their founder and the (fictitious) creater of the pangram "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." However, when letters of that sentence begin falling from the Nollop statue at town center, the High Council decrees that it is a sign from Nollop from the afterlife, and that these letters are no longer to be written or spoken by Nollopians - on pain of banishment. Ultimately, it's left to Ella and her family and friends to create a shorter pangram and thus prove that Nollop is no God, and that the free use of language show more should reign supreme.
Review: Very, very clever; very, very sharp; and yet very funny and quite easy to read. It's a short book - 200-odd pages in length, but in reality less, because even short letters between Ella and her correspondents get their own page. It's a fairly simple story, but the language is used to brutal but dazzling effect - you have to parse between real but unfamiliar vocabulary and Nollopisms, you start to train your eye to watch out for slips of "forbidden" letters, start counting letters in pangrams, and start imagining your own life where you're unable to speak without mentally spelling out each word first. In between all of the clever wordplay, though, there's a sharp satire that deals with the freedom of language and how it's related to the freedom of thought; with the dangers of oligarchy, especially when religion takes over for science and common sense; and with the reactions of ordinary people when their government no longer becomes trustworthy. The only minor things that kept this book from being perfect were that the characters seemed to struggle over-much with finding under-40-letter pangrams (Nollop's has 35, and can easily be cut to 33 by replacing one of the "the"s with an "a"), and that there were a few romantic story threads that weren't well-developed and so seemed slightly out of place. 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Recommendation: Engaging, quick, and fun book that holds some very potent points about freedom and the power of language, and makes you feel smarter just by reading it. Highly recommended. show less
Review: Very, very clever; very, very sharp; and yet very funny and quite easy to read. It's a short book - 200-odd pages in length, but in reality less, because even short letters between Ella and her correspondents get their own page. It's a fairly simple story, but the language is used to brutal but dazzling effect - you have to parse between real but unfamiliar vocabulary and Nollopisms, you start to train your eye to watch out for slips of "forbidden" letters, start counting letters in pangrams, and start imagining your own life where you're unable to speak without mentally spelling out each word first. In between all of the clever wordplay, though, there's a sharp satire that deals with the freedom of language and how it's related to the freedom of thought; with the dangers of oligarchy, especially when religion takes over for science and common sense; and with the reactions of ordinary people when their government no longer becomes trustworthy. The only minor things that kept this book from being perfect were that the characters seemed to struggle over-much with finding under-40-letter pangrams (Nollop's has 35, and can easily be cut to 33 by replacing one of the "the"s with an "a"), and that there were a few romantic story threads that weren't well-developed and so seemed slightly out of place. 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Recommendation: Engaging, quick, and fun book that holds some very potent points about freedom and the power of language, and makes you feel smarter just by reading it. Highly recommended. show less
I started this book three days ago and couldn't put it down. It's a short read, but not an easy read. I thought it was absolutely fantastic.
This book was recommended in a group of writers that I was a part of on Facebook. They were looking for books similar to this one that played games with the English language. Alas, no one commented on the post, but as I had never heard of the book in question, I was intrigued. I picked this novel up at my very next trip to the bookstore.
In this novella, an island nation that reveres the written word is suddenly thrown into chaos when the High Council of the island begins to systematically ban letters of the alphabet. When a letter is banned, it can neither be spoken or written. Those who break the show more edicts are severely sanctioned by the council. The entire novel takes place in the letters and correspondences between friends, families, and members of the community. The plot unfolds solely through these characters' writings to one another. Sometimes these writings are a letter in the mail. Sometimes it's a note left on a fridge or pushed under a door. As the novel proceeds, these correspondences become increasingly devoid of letters as the council bans letter after letter even as the citizens try desperately to continue to communicate with one another.
Deftly wound in this story that makes fun use of words is the same very dire warning Lord Acton once wrote to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." There are elements of authoritarianism about the island's High Council (which I find laughingly appropriate given that the topic of the book is letters which are being banned). And there are even elements that weave a chilling cautionary tale about the dangers -- even evils -- of religion in politics. This book is certainly a social commentary wrapped in a much lighter tale.
I loved this book very, very much. I will read it again, and probably again after that. The word-choices in this book are very intellectual, reflecting the citizens' exuberance for the English language. Being something of a lover of lexicons myself, I had no trouble understanding the prose, and indeed, I loved it.
I highly recommend this! show less
This book was recommended in a group of writers that I was a part of on Facebook. They were looking for books similar to this one that played games with the English language. Alas, no one commented on the post, but as I had never heard of the book in question, I was intrigued. I picked this novel up at my very next trip to the bookstore.
In this novella, an island nation that reveres the written word is suddenly thrown into chaos when the High Council of the island begins to systematically ban letters of the alphabet. When a letter is banned, it can neither be spoken or written. Those who break the show more edicts are severely sanctioned by the council. The entire novel takes place in the letters and correspondences between friends, families, and members of the community. The plot unfolds solely through these characters' writings to one another. Sometimes these writings are a letter in the mail. Sometimes it's a note left on a fridge or pushed under a door. As the novel proceeds, these correspondences become increasingly devoid of letters as the council bans letter after letter even as the citizens try desperately to continue to communicate with one another.
Deftly wound in this story that makes fun use of words is the same very dire warning Lord Acton once wrote to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." There are elements of authoritarianism about the island's High Council (which I find laughingly appropriate given that the topic of the book is letters which are being banned). And there are even elements that weave a chilling cautionary tale about the dangers -- even evils -- of religion in politics. This book is certainly a social commentary wrapped in a much lighter tale.
I loved this book very, very much. I will read it again, and probably again after that. The word-choices in this book are very intellectual, reflecting the citizens' exuberance for the English language. Being something of a lover of lexicons myself, I had no trouble understanding the prose, and indeed, I loved it.
I highly recommend this! show less
This was a delightful little tale of censorship and abuse of power by parochial bureaucrats. On the fictional utopian yet luddite island of Nollop, home of Nevin Nollop, coiner of the pangram "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," letters from the famous phrase begin to fall off the memorial to this honored ancestor. The High Council decides that it is the will of Nollop that the fallen letters be stricken from the spoken and written language of the unusually articulate Nollopians.
The story is told in the form of correspondence among the Nollopians that progressively eschews the forbidden letters as they fall one by one.
The eponymous heroine (eventually reduced to signing her letters "LMNOP") persists in trying to save the day show more with a clever word game, remaining witty even when down to those five letters: "No mo Nollop pomp! No mo Nollop poo poo!"
This was the funny, clever novel I'd hoped The Eyre Affair would be but wasn't. It was charming, it was clever, it had me looking in the dictionary, and it had me scribbling on my bookmark right along with Ella as we tried to solve the puzzle that could save Nollop.
The original hardcover edition's subtitle, "A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable," suits the tone of the text to a T, but I have to say that the punnishing "A Novel in Letters" isn't entirely out of place either. show less
The story is told in the form of correspondence among the Nollopians that progressively eschews the forbidden letters as they fall one by one.
The eponymous heroine (eventually reduced to signing her letters "LMNOP") persists in trying to save the day show more with a clever word game, remaining witty even when down to those five letters: "No mo Nollop pomp! No mo Nollop poo poo!"
This was the funny, clever novel I'd hoped The Eyre Affair would be but wasn't. It was charming, it was clever, it had me looking in the dictionary, and it had me scribbling on my bookmark right along with Ella as we tried to solve the puzzle that could save Nollop.
The original hardcover edition's subtitle, "A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable," suits the tone of the text to a T, but I have to say that the punnishing "A Novel in Letters" isn't entirely out of place either. show less
This fun read – with the subtitle as neat little pun – gave me, in a few hours, long-lasting pleasure. This satiric story tells of a fictional island off the coast of South Carolina devoted to the memory of Nevin Nollop, the supposed author of the shortest sentence containing all 26 letters of the alphabet. One day, a letter falls from his monument, and the island’s governing committee decides this constitutes a message from the dearly departed Nollop.
Their interpretation of the message leads them to ban use of the fallen letter in all written and oral communications. The first letter to drop is “Z,” and no one seems to mind the loss of this rarely used letter. The first offense merits a warning, the second a lashing or show more several hours in the stocks, and the third offense results in banishment with death for those who refuse or return. Of course, once banished, the property of the departed citizen becomes the property of one of the island’s administrators. However, as more tiles fall, communication becomes rather sticky.
Dunn manages to cover nearly every institution deserving of satire. A cult slowly grows around Nollop, and when confronted with scientific evidence of the weakness of the adhesive holding the letters to the monument, the council dismisses the explanation. They then assert Nollop uses chemistry to convey his messages – an intelligent de-signer as it were.
If it weren’t so scarily akin to current book banners, birthers, and young earth advocates, it would actually be hilarious. Well-worth a quiet afternoon of reading. (5 stars)
--Jim, 10/25/10 show less
Their interpretation of the message leads them to ban use of the fallen letter in all written and oral communications. The first letter to drop is “Z,” and no one seems to mind the loss of this rarely used letter. The first offense merits a warning, the second a lashing or show more several hours in the stocks, and the third offense results in banishment with death for those who refuse or return. Of course, once banished, the property of the departed citizen becomes the property of one of the island’s administrators. However, as more tiles fall, communication becomes rather sticky.
Dunn manages to cover nearly every institution deserving of satire. A cult slowly grows around Nollop, and when confronted with scientific evidence of the weakness of the adhesive holding the letters to the monument, the council dismisses the explanation. They then assert Nollop uses chemistry to convey his messages – an intelligent de-signer as it were.
If it weren’t so scarily akin to current book banners, birthers, and young earth advocates, it would actually be hilarious. Well-worth a quiet afternoon of reading. (5 stars)
--Jim, 10/25/10 show less
I have wanted to read this book for a long time, solely based on its title. It is an epistolary novel set on a fictional island called Nollop, after the man who created the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." When the tiles of the letters of this phrase begin falling off the statue of Nollop, the town council takes it as a sign that Nollop wants the letter banished from the alphabet. First comes Z, then Q, and so on.
While the book is highly entertaining as the townspeople must find new words to use to avoid penalties and banishment, it is really a look at how totalitarianism is a problem in society, and the overreach of zealots who misinterpret or cast their beliefs on others, and how we must fight back against this, show more else society as we know it will cease to exist.
I loved it, especially in light of the extremes presented in society today. show less
While the book is highly entertaining as the townspeople must find new words to use to avoid penalties and banishment, it is really a look at how totalitarianism is a problem in society, and the overreach of zealots who misinterpret or cast their beliefs on others, and how we must fight back against this, show more else society as we know it will cease to exist.
I loved it, especially in light of the extremes presented in society today. show less
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Author Information
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Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Distinctions
Notable Lists
Work Relationships
Has as a student's study guide
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Ella Minnow Pea
- Alternate titles
- Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable; Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters; Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel without Letters
- Original publication date
- 2001
- People/Characters
- Ella Minnow Pea; Nevin Nollop; Tassie; Amos Minnow Pea; Gwenette Minnow Pea
- Important places
- Nollop (fictitious island nation)
- Epigraph
- In the beginning was the Word.
- Gospel of John, Chapter 1, Verse 1
The wicked peon quivered,
then gazed balefully at the judges
who examined him.
- Anonymous Typesetter - Dedication
- For Mary
- First words
- Nollopton. Sunday, July 23. Dear Cousin Tassie, Thank you for the lovely postcards.
- Quotations
- For the present, it is easier for us to turn away. Our repulsion, you see, will not spur us to revolt until this plague moves much closer to home.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)We're all quite curious to know.
- Blurbers
- Goldberg, Myla
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 813.6
- Canonical LCC
- PS3604.U56
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 4,563
- Popularity
- 3,180
- Reviews
- 280
- Rating
- (3.87)
- Languages
- English, German, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 17
- ASINs
- 11