Parable, satire, or just plain fun, this delightful little novelette traces the misfortunes which befall the inhabitants of a mythical island off the coast of South Carolina when letters begin disappearing from the alphabet.
The island, you see, was the home of the equally mythical Nevin Nollop, he who composed that catchy little phrase âthe quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.â It's a pangram, you see â a sentence including all 26 letters of the alphabet, and useful to typesetters, beginning typists, code writers, and anyone else who has need to corral individual symbols into coherent words. Their commemorative statue to Nollop, decorated with tiles spelling out his claim to immortality, is beginning to age somewhat, and one day â horrors! â one of the tiles slips from its mortar and crashes to the ground. Whereupon the Ruling Council decides this to be a message from beyond the grave â that the saintly Nollop is decreeing that henceforth no one should use the fallen letter (this one happens to be âZâ) in either spoken or written form.
As additional tiles begin to fall, additional letters are banned, and author Dunn dutifully soldiers on without them in the narrative, which is composed entirely of letters and written notes between characters. One could become very analytical about this, and discuss the conflict between the human drive to communicate and the equally compelling drive to remain part of one's culture, or draw parallels between repressive dictatorships and freedom of speech. Or one could simply sit back and enjoy the fun as the remaining letters are gang-pressed into service to get the point across.
A few sub-plots emerge â a couple of romances, attempts to either unseat the Ruling Council or to convince them to rescind their draconian rulings, and a final desperate project to create a new pangram, thus proving Nollop was not divinely inspired. But the real fun is just watching the language emerge as the characters unwillingly play a kind of linguistic Jenga â how many letters can they extract before the whole language collapses?
Great fun for word lovers. And be sure to read the datelines on the notes and letters, which become progressively sillier as writers struggle gamely on as more bits of the alphabet elude them.
The island, you see, was the home of the equally mythical Nevin Nollop, he who composed that catchy little phrase âthe quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.â It's a pangram, you see â a sentence including all 26 letters of the alphabet, and useful to typesetters, beginning typists, code writers, and anyone else who has need to corral individual symbols into coherent words. Their commemorative statue to Nollop, decorated with tiles spelling out his claim to immortality, is beginning to age somewhat, and one day â horrors! â one of the tiles slips from its mortar and crashes to the ground. Whereupon the Ruling Council decides this to be a message from beyond the grave â that the saintly Nollop is decreeing that henceforth no one should use the fallen letter (this one happens to be âZâ) in either spoken or written form.
As additional tiles begin to fall, additional letters are banned, and author Dunn dutifully soldiers on without them in the narrative, which is composed entirely of letters and written notes between characters. One could become very analytical about this, and discuss the conflict between the human drive to communicate and the equally compelling drive to remain part of one's culture, or draw parallels between repressive dictatorships and freedom of speech. Or one could simply sit back and enjoy the fun as the remaining letters are gang-pressed into service to get the point across.
A few sub-plots emerge â a couple of romances, attempts to either unseat the Ruling Council or to convince them to rescind their draconian rulings, and a final desperate project to create a new pangram, thus proving Nollop was not divinely inspired. But the real fun is just watching the language emerge as the characters unwillingly play a kind of linguistic Jenga â how many letters can they extract before the whole language collapses?
Great fun for word lovers. And be sure to read the datelines on the notes and letters, which become progressively sillier as writers struggle gamely on as more bits of the alphabet elude them.
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