Experimental Novels (part 1)

I have a trio to share with you over the next few days, unless something more interesting happens!

It's strange how art went completely whacky after Picasso et al blew painting to pieces, but the novel never really changed post Joyce. And Tristram Shandy and Gulliver's Travels still seem more avant garde than virtually anything I ever come across.

Here's an exception though.

Mark Dunn's "ella minnow pea" (you need to say that out loud quickly). Published 2001.

It's epistolary in format, but the letters start running out of letters. As the blurb has it:

"The letter 'z' has fallen from the statue of Nevin Nollop, revered author of the sentence 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' - and the island's rulers interpret this as a sign of divine displeasure and ban its use in any form. In a novel composed of correspondence, the loss of 'z' is inconvenient; but far worse is to come as more letters fall, and more are banned, until only 'l, m, n, o, p' remain...."

Which makes it a fascinating afternoon's read for its own sake. How it also manages to be a damned fine allegory about censorship and totalitarianism is something of a marvel.

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