During the summer before my senior year of high school, I read Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club, my first true exposure to the testament of Asian-American literature. I had not even finished this book when I impulsively put in my Notes app, dated July 19th, 2021: “i can’t wait to be in a book club when i’m older.” My mom, 50-years-old as of TODAY, pardon the interjection for the birthday woman, is involved in the Barnes and Noble book club in my hometown. The idea of community within good literature combined with Tan’s integral theme of indestructible bonds between others prompted this old soul yearning in my heart.
Hey Mo of July 2021. Great news from Mo of March 2023: “older” only meant the first semester of college. My university has held a book club each semester through its English Club, an organization I now don the Vice President position for this semester. Our most recent endeavor was a theme for shorter stories and novellas, “Tiny but Mighty." Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea was chosen, a satire of many layers and quite the “ahead of its time” read for anyone.
The novel is one of epistolary nature, which is fancy bibliophile talk for a book made up of a bunch of letters between people. Mostly composed between 18-year-old Ella Minnow Pea and her cousin Tassie, the letters tell the story of Nollopton, an island relatively close to the United States, known for its origin of being the birth place of Nevin Nollop, the man who created the first notable lipogram, a sentence containing all of the letters of the alphabet: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The town idolizes this phenomenon of language, hence its name and a monument of Nollop with a cenotaph of his high-honored sentence in the town's center. The novel opens with Ella and Tassie sharing their idle pleasantries of life through their cheeky letters, when Ella suddenly breaks some news: the letter “Z” has fallen from the cenotaph.
What would just about anyone think in this situation? The monument is old, the glue or adhesive equivalent is old, so a letter falling from an old monument might be..because it’s old? No. The Council of Nollopton has decided that this is the voice of Nollop beyond the grave, declaring that the letter is no longer needed…ever. The use of the letter “Z” in spoken and written word is now illegal, along with a triad of consequences of a warning-like reprimand, public humiliation/flogging, then banishment from the island altogether.
This time last year, the war between Ukraine and Russia was in its heated midst. The country of Lithuania actually banned the display of the letter “Z” as it is perceived as a prominent symbol in Russian culture. Just an element of the “ahead of its time” I mentioned.
Who needs Z? There’s not too much severity in losing a letter like Z! Well, other than my isolated “Z”s and Nollop’s sentence, I’ve used it twice already in this entry. At this point, my still-dependent-on-my-parents-for-money self would be out on my own in the States. More or less, the Nollopians see their speech become a cell of censorship, accidents now costing them their businesses, friendships, and family dynamics to rapidly go askew.
In a town built on the legacy of language, the vocabulary in this book is beautifully expansive. Prior to the loss of any letters, Ella talks in such a scholarly way, I was looking up multiple words that she was saying. It definitely made me ponder the “young adult” genre label on this book. The first couple letter drops are merely an exercise in what one of our featured speakers at our club mentioned, “linguistic gymnastics.” New words are created to adapt to this loss of language pillars, but it only lasts for so long, because more letters are falling.
This is an evolution of not only communication. Textbooks are stripped from libraries and schools, neighbors start to snitch on their friends, and the Council. gets. crazier. People getting banished equals more property to take over, which equals rebellion, which equals total mania for you as a reader. Letters are harder to write with fewer letters, and not to mention when your governments’ eyes are surveying all of your correspondences since “Z” was lost.
Outside influences seep their way into Nollopton in hopes of bringing this epistolary manslaughter to justice, but the cenotaph is now a ticking time bomb to silence. What could make the Council see past the idolatry of Nollop to the well-being of their people? The answer: more than you think. This book made me mad.
Frequently brought up in our own discussion at our club, we quickly realized how much we take language for granted. I hope to write for a living, and in other endeavors teach the language I write in, but in this book’s governmental stance, I held more existential fear than I anticipated. Another real life Ella Minnow Pea situation I could relate to was the recent influx of banned books in schools. I’ll limit my opinions for the sake of this being purely my thoughts on a book, but it also is my blog and my words, at least while they aren’t taken away from me. The idea of my work being censored from my audiences is a sickening thought to an aspiring writer, but also to any aspiring human being just wanting to be heard.
In Ella’s case, this is the power of the spoken word. That free speech people love to debate about, you know the word. This isn’t a slur or insensitive phrasing to a group of people. This is a building block of all things. As I read this book, I realized 26 isn’t that big of a number, and how all things made up ever are made up of these TWENTY-SIX other things called letters.
Reading those last couple sentences back makes me question the “young adult” label yet again. Mostly because these thoughts sound pretty elementary, while in my head, they seem like the most profound sentiments I’ve ever thought of. A book barely over 200 pages brought out over 1100 words out of me. Books, and the words within them, are important to me, and this one tightly ties in a trek of tricky togetherness in ticking, talking times of term taboos.
Don’t worry. “T” lasts pretty long in the novel.
You’re in for a short and sweet treat with this one. Yours truly finished it in two sittings amongst mountains of homework, and procrastination-by-reading isn’t a punishable offense, but rather encouraged in my own systems of thought. Dunn did my spring book club a job well-done.
Thank you for the community of others who show out for words of praise and mutual appreciation, and the words I share now, and the privilege of getting to share them as my own, all letters included.
Cheers & Love Always,
Mo
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