Mark Dunn's Ella Minnow Pea

According to The Christian Science Monitor, "There's a whiff of a classic about Ella Minnow Pea." I would have to argue that point: I think the book reeks of a classic with a stench of pure ingenuity. In fact, it is quite possibly one of the most clever books I have ever read. I discovered the book via the Powell's Books Daily Dose, which sends daily book recommendations from Powell's customers. The description led me to a simple conclusion: I must read this book. I was not disappointed.

Ella Minnow Pea (think L-M-N-O-P) is an epistolary novel that consists solely of letters exchanged between characters. The novel is set on the fictional island of Nollop, named after the inventor of the legendary pangram, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." The pangram is proudly posted on a statue in the center of the island until one day a tile with a letter falls off. The governing body of the island decides Nollop is speaking from beyond the grave. The message? That the fallen letter is no longer allowed to be used in writing or in speech. As tiles continue to fall from the statue, letters continue to be banned. In an effort to avoid the banned letters, the epistolary-inclined Nollopians must creatively author their letters. As the permissible letters decrease, Mark Dunn sneakily and eloquently continues the epistolary exchange, but, by the end, the letters resemble text speak, and each acts as a bit of a literary puzzle that necessitates some phonetic gymnastics. Not only is the plot engaging, but the spelling is downright inventive. The true treat comes at the end of the book when the citizens attempt to create their own pangram with less than 32 letters in order to restore legal use of the entire alphabet.

This book could have been about many things: censorship, separation of church and state, or literary culture. Though the novel would be a successful commentary on any of these topics, the most successful aspect of the book is its charm. It was amusing, unique, and thought provoking. As I finished this book in record time at the JFK airport at the beginning of a very long, post-Egypt layover, I could only regret that I had not savored the story longer.

RECOMMENDED: Highly

NEXT READ: Lev Grossman's The Magicians

REREAD: Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate

Dunn, Mark. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters. New York: Random House, 2001.