Ella Minnow Pea

Perhaps if I had read Ella Minnow Pea, an epistolary novel by Mark Dunn, back in 2002 when it was first published, perhaps then I might have found it entertaining. Reading this in 2022, I was somewhat horrified.

The premise is somewhat cute. There's a fictional island nation off the coast of South Carolina called Nollop, named after Nevin Nollop, the person who penned the famous pangram, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." That pangram happens to be the sentence my dad insisted that I type as I was first learning to type. It is the sentence that includes all the letters of the alphabet, perfect to type while learning the keyboard. 

At the center of Nollop is a statue of Nevin Nollop with the phrase stuck in with individual letters. As each letter alls off the statue, the island's Council bans each letter. They can't be used in speech or in writing. Punishments are incredibly harsh. Nollop folks have always prided themselves on their interest in language. Banning letters is extremely difficult for most.

Ella Minnow Pea is an 18-year old resident of Nollop. She communicates with her family and neighbors by mail since Nollop hasn't had reliable phone service since some hurricane years earlier. She was very quick to realize that soon she will have no freedom of expression. That's what struck me reading this novella in 2022 - how easy it is to trample freedom of expression and what arbitrary punishments can do to a society.

This really jumped out at me.

    Yes, that is now the topic on every lip. This salient, impertinent, Hamlettian choice.

    To leave or not to leave.

    To waive claim to our homes. To renounce our mother soil. To give up everything to those who warrant only our lowest contempt - to those who aspire to reign in outright tyranny, who misperceive Nollopian thoughts in service to rapacious intentions. Can they not see that we see what is happening here?

That is how I feel about life in the United States about now. Slowly but surely our rights are being stripped away. Do we stay and fight? Do we leave?

Ella and her correspondents must come up with creative ways to express themselves once they can no longer use certain letters in the alphabet. She is disgusted. She is one of the few who remains to fight the fight and restore the freedom of expression to her nation.

Like I said, the premise could have been cute but to read this now, it was most disturbing.