Mark DunnElla Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters

I read this book when it came out and thoroughly enjoyed the plot and characters. But the word & letter play are very creative and just fun.I recently took short class on the book. So I read it again. The book is about authoritarian control of life and the language.Fascinating read!

It's hard to believe this was written so long ago. The recent period of censorship is so clearly illustrated in such a simple book. I read the book because of a book challenge. I'm now buying a hard copy of the book for my local library. It's a reminder of the great power of words.

Super creative book, but came across to me like a metaphorical hit piece on people who believe in God or the supernatural. As a cautionary tale, it seems the error to avoid is to not be duped into having religious beliefs. Humanism and science are all that can be trusted. So, as a person of faith, it was kind of insulting.

Favorite book

At a mere 208 pages, Ella Minnow Pea is a lexically delicious little book. It’s also a wonderful allegory (or perhaps a satire?) of fascism, censorship, the corruption of absolute power, theocracies, and the apathy (or fear) that allows evil to triumph over good."We are a nation of letter-writers, who, in the absence of reliable telephone service or the existence of electronic mail, have cultivated our hardship far beyond all expectation."The novel takes the form of letters from the inhabitants of an independent little fictional island called Nollop. It takes its name from the founding father Nevin Nollop, who is credited with discovering the wonderfully succinct sentence, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” in which each letter of the alphabet appears. This sentence is Nollop (the island)’s claim to fame, and it is proudly displayed in the town square. However, one night the letter ‘Z’ crashes to the ground. The council takes this as a sign from Nollop himself that the letter Z is unnecessary anyway – well, we hardly use it, after all – and so they decide to ban its use. Anyone caught using the aforementioned forbidden letter will be placed in the stocks, whipped, exiled or executed. This of course means that all the books should be destroyed. As more letters fall, they too are excised, until the task of saving the beloved island of Nollop’s people from incommunicable oblivion falls to Ella. And she is running out of both time and letters."Not only does it cripple communication between islanders, it builds rock walls between hearts."As a society of letter-writers who leave lengthy essays rather than notes and who will never say in five words what could be said in fifty, the novel can be a bit wordy… But that’s the point. As letters are stricken from the vocabulary of the Nollopians, the letter-writers must find ever more roundabout ways of expressing themselves, leading to some fantastic word-creating and lexical acrobatics. I particularly enjoyed the new words for expressing days of the week in the wake of the loss of ‘D’: Monty, Toes, Wetty, Thurby, Fribs, Satto-gatto and Sunshine. Thus, despite the overly complex and abnormally formal way that the Nollopians speak, the whimsy of it grew on me until I wished that everyone talked like they did, always and forever. And as the letters become more and more scarce, their spectacularly creative ways of expressing themselves are limited more and more, until they cannot speak except through language such that you might find in a teenager’s text messages – the horror!"In the sanctuary of my thoughts, I am a fearless renegade. Yet in the company of the children I cringe and cower in a most depreciating way."While the progressively lipogrammatic form and verbose style of the novel are more than enough to make me fall madly in love with it, the plot itself is effective and complex. The characters are distinct and lovable, as their relationships and the effects of their actions and the loss of their very identities filter out through the letters. From the man who must rename himself Prince Valiant-the-Comely to avoid a forbidden letter in his name, to a woman who decides to cover herself entirely in paint, to a family that march into the council house dressed as ducks and waving Quaker oats over their heads as they quack to protest the loss of the letter Q, the characters make this engrossing. Furthermore, the ever-growing power-madness of the Council is chillingly similar to theocratic/ideocratic dictatorships such as ISIS, Nazi Germany and the second Bush Administration. Neighbours turn on neighbours and any sense of privacy is obliterated by censorship and spying."Today we queried, questioned, and inquired. Promise me that come tomorrow, we will not stop asking why."The novel, while dazzlingly clever and scrumptiously linguistic is a treat to read. The characters are just mad enough to be utterly realistic and the moral implications are profoundly engaging. It’s a small, whimsical and wonderfully intelligent book, and a pleasure to read. I wish it had been longer, but not a word (or letter) was wasted.

The Fable Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn was a pretty alright book. It has a good plot and fine characters, but it does get a little confusing in the end. In this review, I will go over these points in detail.The story takes place on an island called Nollop which is named after a man who wrote a sentence that contains every word in the alphabet; “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Because of this sentence, a statue of Nollop is built on the island with the sentence glued on it.Ella Minnow Pea, the main character, is also the heroine of the story. The story is written through letters from Ella to her cousin. Through her correspondence, we learn of the many bad things that are happening on the island. It all begins when letters start to fall off of the Nollop statue. As they fall, it becomes criminal to speak and write the fallen letters. The reason for this is that the councilmen of the island think that Nollop is trying to send them a sign that the letter should not be used anymore. As more and more letters fall off of the statue, the councilmen ban the letters, the newspaper closes because they can't write anything without using the banned letters, and people are arrested for using the illegal letters. The council charges people who disbelieve their theory with heresy.Nate, a man from the mainland, comes to the island to see what is happening to all of the letters. He finds out that the reason the letters are falling off is that the glue is old, not something supernatural. Nate tells the council, however, they do not listen. The only way they will allow the island people to use all of the letters again is to make a new sentence. The sentence must be shorter than the original and also include all of the letters in the alphabet. Ella takes it upon herself to create this sentence to finally lift the ban.Overall I thought the book was average. The characters were unexceptional and the plot was interesting but not amazing. The readability was good in the first and middle parts of the book, however, in the end, it got confusing because it was difficult to follow along because the characters could not use some of the letters. The book was short, only being a little under 200 pages so it was a fast read. I would recommend reading this book.

Giving five stars because my daughter, for whom it was purchased loved it. I tried to read it and felt it had unnecessarily used too many made up words and I lost interest quickly. I don’t mind made up words when it’s pretty obvious what they mean, but these were different.

Perhaps not meant as a political statement, this novel serves as one in this opening 2025 era. The ending is what is has to be, though kudos to the author for its lightness.