Fiction_L Archives missing letter "E" Dates: 2/28/01,8:08 PM  through  3/1/01,11:04 AM  (5 postings) Search for: Select one or more indexes to search: 2009-current     2007-2008     1996-2006    (Matches from each index will be displayed separately in the results page.) Return to February 2001 thread menu   |   Fiction_L Archives Menu

FROM: "Martha Garbison" <MGARBIS@denver.lib.co.us>
REC'D: 2/28/01, 8:08 PM

Hi again...back so soon...

...And this one rings some sort of bell with me, but I am not coming up with anything...Customer is looking for a novel written by a French author in French and later translated to English that was written without the letter "e." (without e's in French and English?? ...I don't know) Any ideas???? Feels like a Koontz/Book of Counted Sorrows kind of thing...

Thanks,
Martha Garbison, Senior Librarian
Burnham Hoyt Room
Denver Public Library

FROM: "bielke-rodenbiker, jean" <jbielke-r@hclib.org>
REC'D: 2/28/01, 8:19 PM

I think it's George Perec's French-language novel "La Disparition" written
in 1969, and translated into English in 1995 as "A Void". We get this
question a lot. :-)

Jean Bielke-Rodenbiker
Adult Services Librarian
Southdale Popular Library
Hennepin County Library MN
952-847-5944


-----Original Message-----
From: Martha Garbison [mailto:MGARBIS@denver.lib.co.us]
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2001 8:06 PM
To: Fiction_L
Subject: missing letter "E"


Hi again...back so soon...

...And this one rings some sort of bell with me, but I am not coming up with
anything...Customer is looking for a novel written by a French author in
French and later translated to English that was written without the letter
"e." (without e's in French and English?? ...I don't know) Any ideas????
Feels like a Koontz/Book of Counted Sorrows kind of thing...

Thanks,
Martha Garbison, Senior Librarian
Burnham Hoyt Room
Denver Public Library

FROM: "Cindy Westphal" <cindyw@eauclaire.lib.wi.us>
REC'D: 2/28/01, 8:30 PM

"A Void," translated by Gilbert Adair, is the English equivalent to Georges Perec's "La Disparition", in which a narrative of complex intrique manages to do without the letter "E".

Cindy Westphal
L. E. Phillips Memorial Public Library
Eau Claire, WI

FROM: "Martha Garbison" <MGARBIS@denver.lib.co.us>
REC'D: 2/28/01, 9:01 PM

WOW!! I think this is a record...even for fiction_ler's...

Yes, Perec's The Void is the book. I am curious...what do you all have this indexed under; any great subject headings besides "wordplay?" We don't have any subject tracing attached at all (I will be asking to have that changed :) )and wordplay is a word in the record description...

I absolutely could not live without the help of the fiction_l listserve and its members!!! Customers are amazed and grateful on a regular basis, too!

Thanks,
Martha Garbison

FROM: Dennis Lien <Dennis.K.Lien-1@tc.umn.edu>
REC'D: 3/1/01, 11:04 AM

Just for the record, while Perec's VOID (DISPARITION in the original
French) is a lot easier to find today, it was not the *first* novel to
be written without the use of letter "E": that dubious honor goes to
GADSBY by E.V. Wright (1939). Even earlier, Henry Holland (1773-1840)
wrote a (short, admittedly) novel, EVE'S LEGEND, using no vowels OTHER
than "E." The "modern" edition of this (1928) is unfortunately rare...


ACCESSION: 14526294
AUTHOR: Holland, Henry Richard Vassall, Baron, 1773-1840.
TITLE: Eve's legend /
PLACE: London :
PUBLISHER: Etchells & Macdonald, Chiswick Press)
YEAR: 1928
PUB TYPE: Book
FORMAT: 65, 2Ø p. : col. ill. ; 31 cm.
SERIES: Haslewood books
NOTES: Illustrated t.p.
Recto of every leaf is blank; illustrations included in the
pagination.
Uses no vowel but e throughout.
Final page has a double-e monogram.
Issued in a slip case.
"Of this edition ... 300 copies are for sale of which no. 1 has
with it an additional set of the engravings ... and nos. 2 to 23
have with them 3 additonal engravings--P. 5Ø.
OTHER: Sainsbury, Hester, ill.
Chiswick Press, printer.

A sample:

"Men were never perfect, yet the three brethren Veres were ever
esteemed, respected, revered, even when the rest, whether the select
few, whether the mere herd, were left neglected..."

And Perec, not to outdone in pointlessness, has also produced a story
(LES REVENENTES, Paris, 1972) using no vowels OTHER than "E." It's
appeared in English (as part of the collection THREE BY PEREC) under
the title THE EXETER TEXT: JEWELS, SECRETS, SEX.

Quotes from GADSBY and some accounts of other related literay stunts
can be found at

http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/11/11-1701.html

see also (on Perec's stunts)

http://www.themodernword.com/scriptorium/perec.html
http://www.philobiblon.com/isitabook/games/


At 07:51 PM 2/28/01 -0700, you wrote:
>WOW!! I think this is a record...even for fiction_ler's...
>
>Yes, Perec's The Void is the book. I am curious...what do you all have
this >indexed under; any great subject headings besides "wordplay?" We
don't have >any subject tracing attached at all (I will be asking to have
that changed :) >and wordplay is a word in the record description...


The technical term for this specific sort of wordplay is: lipogram

Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // d-lien@tc.umn.edu

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