LMNOP

While scrolling through Pinterest the other week, I came across a post about the English alphabet. The post showcased the effect on the sentence, “No more letter *” as each letter from the alphabet falls away. For instance, the sentence “No more letter M is written as “No mor ttr M”. The post described the novel by Mark Dunn, Ella Minnow Pea. Ella is a lipogram epistolary fable around two hundred pages long.

A lipogram is a written work “from which the writer systematically omits a certain letter or certain letters of the alphabet.” Lipograms are trivial tasks and are word games associated with the Greeks, but Dunn turns the idea into a fictionalized story of monotheistic oligarchy.

The fictional island of Nollop is one named after Nevin Nollop, author of the phrase containing all the letters of the alphabet, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." The island has commemorated him with a statue, with the phrase billboarded up.

The novel begins when one of the tiles, Z, falls off the sentence. The Council decides that it is a message from Nollop for the island not to use the letter, and everyone is told to stop using Z altogether. Then another letter falls. Then another. As each letter falls from the billboard, they are erased from the Nollopian language, and from the book.

The language that permeates the novel is articulate and idiomatic. It was not until letter V went missing near the end of the book that understanding the language became problematic. The people of Nollop are so well versed and educated that they manage quite well until that point. In fact, they managed for a lot longer than this country would likely do in the same situation. Yet the community ends up destroyed and disbanded within weeks. While the ending has hope that everyone is able to come back to their normal lives on Nollop, some lives are destroyed forever because of it.

The Council places punishments for any use of illegal letters. Anyone who uses one the first time gets publicly reprimanded. Anyone with a second offense can choose between lashes or the stocks. The third punishment is exile, and for those who refuse to leave the law demands death. The Council states that anyone willing to follow the new rules should not have to worry about the fairness of punishment. In their eyes, there are no accidents or mistakes in following the law.

The exiled lose all their possessions and property to the Council. Then the members of the Council decide to move into some of the recently empty houses. Even those who agreed with the new laws end up on a short stick. This is all done when the Council decides to make laws based on their belief that Nollop is a sort of imposing god. “God” is a word banned in Nollop. With LMNOP being the last letters allowed, Nollop is a word that is never banned. Nonetheless, the word and the man change meaning and significance to the citizens.

The Pinterest post was enough to get me to buy the book and I have no regrets. It was misleading though. The last comment on the post stated that the person also bought the book because of the pin, as I did. The commenter continued to say, “Besides having a brilliant concept, it’s also so well written that in the beginning, you don’t even notice when another letter is removed.” This is inaccurate with the book. Every time a letter falls away from the language, the citizens grieve for it. Each epistolary that uses the illegal letter for the last time also says so. “No more gooDbye!”

I hoped the writing would fool me as the comment suggested. If it hadn't been clear when a letter fell off, there would have been more suspense. I found myself rereading paragraphs to ensure the epistolaries followed the insane laws. Even so, the narrative still fooled me, which was one of my favorite moments to experience. If the trickery happened more often, the novel would have been more enjoyable.

The most important thing to take away from Ella is the character herself. Ella never leaves the island and never stops fighting for her voice to be heard. She fights for her voice, the voices of those around her, and for their collective freedom even when the collective abandons hope. She is the epitome of such hope in injustice.

To anyone who enjoys editing, to those who enjoy an unconventional story, I recommend Ella Minnow Pea.