Ella is a young women living on the island of Nollop, off the coast of the Southern United States. The island is named after the man who came up with the famous line, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” a pangram that up uses every letter in the alphabet once. Nollop is revered as the founder and preeminent intellectual, really second only to God in Nollopian society.
One day, the letter ‘z’ comes unglued from the statue of Nollop in the middle of town, where the famous pangram is enshrined. The town council sees it as a sign that Nollop, speaking from beyond the grave, wants that letter banned, and they enact strict punishments for anyone caught using the forbidden letter. Of course, Z is not the only letter to fall, and soon the people of Nollop have to learn how to communicate without Z, then O, then K… Punishments are severe. Society descends into crisis and fear as the town council, and thus Nollopian society, digs its heels into increasingly fervent Nollopian ideology; it’s not hard to find the universal lesson in the town council’s religious zealotry and attendant self-interested authoritarianism. Ella, and others, must come up with a way to bring the letters back.
This is a quick read that I finished in one day, but that doesn’t mean it’s not very clever. Since the book is written in letters, the reader sees in real time how Nollopians must adjust their vocabulary to accommodate the forbidden letters. By the end, the townsfolk’s epistles are almost incomprehensible, while still communicating the needful. Besides being a fun word-y book, Dunn rightly and sharply observes the immediate and profound societal effects that can result from the decisions of a very small band of self-righteous leaders. It’s fun to see how Dunn communicates all of this through vocabulary and spelling choices–and how Ella and her small band of comrades struggle through while retaining their pride and intelligence.
Recommended for language nerds who hate authoritarianism and want a quick, clever read.