#60 Ella Minnow Pea, by Mark Dunn (Methuen)

In my eyes (and I appreciate this is both a sweeping and simplistic generalisation), there are two types of people in the world. Those who do things. And those who have the ideas. Of course, there is nothing wrong with being either – but the important thing is to know yourself and how you fit into the world.

I would place myself in the former category. I’m the kind of thing of person who gets things done, for whom a small amount of perseverance goes a long way, but who struggles to come up with initial ideas. In a work capacity, I like to work with people who have lots of ideas; some of them I might not like very much, only for one gem to make it all worthwhile.

Indeed, I had this very conversation with the Friend of the Wench, who I bumped into in a non-cyber way t’other day (and is currently level with me on 60 books for the year), when I gave him a short preview of the very review you’re currently reading, because it was he who had recommended to me Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea. Yes, there is a book review coming along at some point…

The example I gave him of my philosophy was this: my whole 100-book challenge and writing this blog was his idea, I stole it shamelessly from him, and yet I do it better. I think he knew I was joking.

The point of the preamble is that Ella Minnow Pea, the phonetic pronunciation of LMNOP (more of which later) stems from a really clever idea. On a fictional island, the man who worked out that the phrase ‘the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’ - a pangram (from the Greek pan gramma or ‘every letter’) phrase which features every letter of the alphabet - is treated with such reverence that when letters from a memorial featuring the sentence become broken one-by-one, they are henceforth struck from the language, one-by-one.

The story is told is a series of letters between family members, which become increasingly difficult to read as the government bans the letters which keep falling off the roof. So the book itself becomes a study into how language is used to communicate, what liberties can be taken with the written word and how much words can be altered yet retain their original meaning. LMNOP are the last letters which remain at the end, by the way.

Alongside all this, the book explores all sorts of wider themes such as the freedom of speech and the impact of living under a totalitarian regime. So, it really is clever, and in many ways, you can tell it’s been written by someone better known as a playright. But here’s the rub: is too clever?

Some would argue that such a thing isn’t possible, especially in a modern world where everything seems to be being dumbed down, where the fact that a film studio has spent millions upon millions of pounds on making an ‘intelligent summer blockbuster’ (Inception, in case you’re wondering) produced as many column inches as reviews and praise of the film itself. And they’d have a bloody good point.

I don’t believe it’s possible to claim that Dunn hasn’t carried the idea through effectively, either, but I always worry when I come away from a piece of culture, be it a book, theatre or film, thinking about how clever it was, rather than about the great characterisation or the wonderful emotional impact it had on me.

I wasn’t a great fan of the letter-writing concept (although, obviously, I can’t come up with a better way Dunn could have done it, so to speak), and I must admit I don’t envy the job of the editor who must have read the book a thousand times to check no ‘banned letters’ crept into the later chapters.

That said, there is plenty to enjoy. After all, who could fail to raise a smile at a school, that bastion of education, being described as a ‘learny-place’ because the letter writer is no longer allowed to use the letter ‘h’.

So, rating time:

#60 Ella Minnow Pea, by Mark Dunn (Methuen) - 8/10

Next up: My Booky Wook, by Russell Brand (Hodder & Stoughton)

Click here for the full list of books so far, and their rating