Ella Minnow Pea

Bok av Mark Dunn
An epistolary novel set on a fictional island off the South Carolina coastline, 'Ella Minnow Pea' brings readers to the hometown of Nevin Nollop, inventor of the pangram 'The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog'. Deified for his achievement in life, Nevin has been honored in death with a monument featuring his famous phrase. One day, however, the letter 'Z' falls from the monument, and some of the islanders interpret the missing tile as a message from beyond the grave. The letter 'Z' is banned from use. On an island where the residents pride them-selves on their love of language, this is seen as a tragedy. They are still reeling from the shock when another tile falls. And then another... In his charming debut, first published in 2001, Mark Dunn took readers on a journey through the eyes of Ella Minnow Pea, a young woman forced to create another clever turn of phrase in order to save the islanders' beloved language.
A true love letter to the alphabet and the things we can do with it - and without it.

Ella Minnow Pea lives on the island Nollop with her family. The island is named after Nevis Nollop, inventor of the phrase “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog”, which is permanently placed on a plaque at the town memorial. But then one day letters start falling off the memorial and instead of putting them back, the Council sees it as a message from Nollop himself: those same letters shall become forbidden.

The amazing thing about this book is that Dunn eases using the letters as they illegal on Nollop. This results in hilarious rewrites of common phrases that had me thinking quite a lot about where the limit is for comprehension. The book is extraordinary and linguistically a very impressive read.