Gadsby (novel)
Encyclopedia
Gadsby: A Story of Over 50,000 Words Without Using the Letter "E" is a 1939
novel by Ernest Vincent Wright
. The plot revolves around the dying fictional city of Branton Hills, which is revitalized thanks to the efforts of protagonist
John Gadsby and a youth group he organizes.
The novel is written as a lipogram
and does not include words that contain the letter "e". Though self-published and little-noticed in its time, the book is a favorite of fans of constrained writing
and is a sought-after rarity among some book collectors. Later editions of the book have sometimes carried the alternative subtitle: 50,000 Word Novel Without the Letter "E".
The story begins around 1906 and continues through World War I
, Prohibition
, and President Warren G. Harding
's administration. Gadsby is divided into two parts. The first part (about a quarter of the book's total length) is strictly a history of the city of Branton Hills and John Gadsby's place in it. The second part of the book devotes more time to fleshing out the rest of the town's characters.
The novel is written from the point of view of an anonymous narrator, who continually complains about his poor writing skills and frequently uses circumlocution
. "Now, naturally, in writing such a story as this, with its conditions as laid down in its Introduction, it is not surprising that an occasional "rough spot" in composition is found," the narrator says. "So I trust that a critical public will hold constantly in mind that I am voluntarily avoiding words containing that symbol which is, by far, of most common inclusion in writing our Anglo-Saxon as it is, today."
verbs. He focused on using verbs that do not take the -ed suffix and constructions with "do" (for instance "did walk" instead of "walked"). Scarcity of word options also drastically limited discussion involving quantity, pronouns, and many common words. Wright was unable to talk about any quantity between six and thirty.
An article in the linguistic journal Word Ways said that 250 of the 500 most commonly used words in English were still available to Wright despite the omission of words with "e".
Wright uses abbreviations on occasion, but only if the full form is similarly lipogrammatic, such as with "Dr.", and "P.S.".
Wright also turns famous sayings into lipogrammatic form. Music can "calm a wild bosom", and Keats' "a thing of beauty is a joy forever" becomes "a charming thing is a joy always."
, he wrote a letter to The Evening Independent newspaper, boasted that he had written a fine lipogrammatic work, and suggested the paper hold a lipogram competition, with $250 for the winner. The paper turned him down.
Wright struggled to find a publisher for the book, and eventually used Wetzel Publishing Co., a vanity press
. A 2007 post on the Bookride blog about rare books says a warehouse holding copies of Gadsby burned shortly after the book was printed, destroying "most copies of the ill fated novel." The blog post says the book was never reviewed "and only kept alive by the efforts of a few avant garde French intellos and assorted connoisseurs of the odd, weird and zany." The book's scarcity and oddness has seen original copies priced at $4,000 by book dealers. Wright died that same year.
In 1937 Wright said writing the book was a challenge and the author of an article on his efforts in The Oshkosh Daily wryly recommended composing lipograms for insomnia sufferers. Wright said in his introduction to Gadsby that "this story was written, not through any attempt to attain literary merit, but due to a somewhat balky nature, caused by hearing it so constantly claimed that 'it can’t be done.'" He said he tied down the "e" key on his typewriter while completing the final manuscript. "This was done so that none of that vowel might slip in, accidentally; and many did try to do so!"
, host of BBC Radio 4
's linguistics program English Now, called it "probably the most ambitious work ever attempted in this genre."
La Disparition (A Void) is a lipogrammatic book inspired by Gadsby. The French novel not only omits the letter "e" in its entirety, but is also 50,000 words long. Its author, Georges Perec
, was introduced to Wright's book by a friend of his in Oulipo
, a multinational constrained writing group. Wright's lack of success with Gadsby made Perec aware that publication of such a work "was taking a risk" of finishing up "with nothing [but] a Gadsby." As a nod to Wright, La Disparition contains a character named "Lord Gadsby V. Wright", a tutor to protagonist Anton Voyl; in addition, a composition attributed to Voyl in La Disparition is actually a quotation from Gadsby. Trevor Kitson, writing in New Zealand's Manawatu Standard in 2006, said he was prompted to write a short lipogram after seeing Wright's book. The exercise gave him an appreciation for how difficult Wright's task was, but he was less impressed with the end result. "I must say that the book leaves me in a state of non-grippedness (to quote Dave Lister from Red Dwarf)," Kitson wrote. "It seems extraordinarily twee (not that it uses that word, of course) and mostly about all-American kids going to church and getting married." Douglas Hofstadter
's book Le Ton beau de Marot
quotes parts of Gadsby for illustration.
1939 in literature
The year 1939 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*December 25 - A Christmas Carol is read before a radio audience for the first time....
novel by Ernest Vincent Wright
Ernest Vincent Wright
Ernest Vincent Wright was an American author known for his book Gadsby, a 50,000 word novel which, except for the introduction and a note at the end, did not use the letter "e".-Biography:...
. The plot revolves around the dying fictional city of Branton Hills, which is revitalized thanks to the efforts of protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
John Gadsby and a youth group he organizes.
The novel is written as a lipogram
Lipogram
A lipogram is a kind of constrained writing or word game consisting of writing paragraphs or longer works in which a particular letter or group of letters is avoided — usually a common vowel, and frequently "E", the most common letter in the English language.Writing a lipogram is a trivial task...
and does not include words that contain the letter "e". Though self-published and little-noticed in its time, the book is a favorite of fans of constrained writing
Constrained writing
Constrained writing is a literary technique in which the writer is bound by some condition that forbids certain things or imposes a pattern.Constraints are very common in poetry, which often requires the writer to use a particular verse form....
and is a sought-after rarity among some book collectors. Later editions of the book have sometimes carried the alternative subtitle: 50,000 Word Novel Without the Letter "E".
Plot and structure
Fifty-year-old John Gadsby is alarmed by the decline of his hometown Branton Hills and rallies the city's young people to form an "Organization of Youth" to build civic spirit and improve living standards. Gadsby and his youthful army, despite some opposition, transform Branton Hills from a stagnant municipality into a bustling, thriving city. Towards the end of the book the members of Gadsby's organization receive diplomas in honor of their work. Gadsby becomes mayor and helps increase Branton Hills's population from 2,000 to 60,000.The story begins around 1906 and continues through World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Prohibition
Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
, and President Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States . A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential self-made newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate , as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S. Senator...
's administration. Gadsby is divided into two parts. The first part (about a quarter of the book's total length) is strictly a history of the city of Branton Hills and John Gadsby's place in it. The second part of the book devotes more time to fleshing out the rest of the town's characters.
The novel is written from the point of view of an anonymous narrator, who continually complains about his poor writing skills and frequently uses circumlocution
Circumlocution
Circumlocution is an ambiguous or roundabout figure of speech...
. "Now, naturally, in writing such a story as this, with its conditions as laid down in its Introduction, it is not surprising that an occasional "rough spot" in composition is found," the narrator says. "So I trust that a critical public will hold constantly in mind that I am voluntarily avoiding words containing that symbol which is, by far, of most common inclusion in writing our Anglo-Saxon as it is, today."
Lipogrammatic quality
The novel's 50,110 words do not contain a single "e." In Gadsbys introduction Wright says his primary difficulty was avoiding the "-ed" suffix for past tensePast tense
The past tense is a grammatical tense that places an action or situation in the past of the current moment , or prior to some specified time that may be in the speaker's past, present, or future...
verbs. He focused on using verbs that do not take the -ed suffix and constructions with "do" (for instance "did walk" instead of "walked"). Scarcity of word options also drastically limited discussion involving quantity, pronouns, and many common words. Wright was unable to talk about any quantity between six and thirty.
An article in the linguistic journal Word Ways said that 250 of the 500 most commonly used words in English were still available to Wright despite the omission of words with "e".
Wright uses abbreviations on occasion, but only if the full form is similarly lipogrammatic, such as with "Dr.", and "P.S.".
Wright also turns famous sayings into lipogrammatic form. Music can "calm a wild bosom", and Keats' "a thing of beauty is a joy forever" becomes "a charming thing is a joy always."
Publication and composition
Wright appears to have worked on the manuscript for a number of years. Though its official publication date is 1939, references in newspaper humor columns are made to his manuscript of a book without an "e" years earlier. Prior to publication he occasionally referred to his manuscript as Champion of Youth. In October 1930, while Wright was living near Tampa, FloridaTampa, Florida
Tampa is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County. Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida. The population of Tampa in 2010 was 335,709....
, he wrote a letter to The Evening Independent newspaper, boasted that he had written a fine lipogrammatic work, and suggested the paper hold a lipogram competition, with $250 for the winner. The paper turned him down.
Wright struggled to find a publisher for the book, and eventually used Wetzel Publishing Co., a vanity press
Vanity press
A vanity press or vanity publisher is a term describing a publishing house that publishes books at the author's expense. Publisher Johnathon Clifford claims to have coined the term in 1959. However, the term appears in mainstream U.S...
. A 2007 post on the Bookride blog about rare books says a warehouse holding copies of Gadsby burned shortly after the book was printed, destroying "most copies of the ill fated novel." The blog post says the book was never reviewed "and only kept alive by the efforts of a few avant garde French intellos and assorted connoisseurs of the odd, weird and zany." The book's scarcity and oddness has seen original copies priced at $4,000 by book dealers. Wright died that same year.
In 1937 Wright said writing the book was a challenge and the author of an article on his efforts in The Oshkosh Daily wryly recommended composing lipograms for insomnia sufferers. Wright said in his introduction to Gadsby that "this story was written, not through any attempt to attain literary merit, but due to a somewhat balky nature, caused by hearing it so constantly claimed that 'it can’t be done.'" He said he tied down the "e" key on his typewriter while completing the final manuscript. "This was done so that none of that vowel might slip in, accidentally; and many did try to do so!"
Reception and influence
An article in the Oshkosh Daily in 1937 wrote (lipogrammatically) that the manuscript was "amazingly smooth. No halting parts. A continuity of plot and almost classic clarity obtains." After Book magazine named Jay Gatsby the greatest fictional character of the 20th century in 2002, the Village Voice wrote a humor column about Gadsby. Author Ed Park jokingly aped Wright's style ("Lipogram aficionados—folks who lash words and (alas!) brains so as to omit particular symbols—did in fact gasp, saying, 'Hold that ringing communication tool for a bit! What about J. Gadsby?'"). David CrystalDavid Crystal
David Crystal OBE FLSW FBA is a linguist, academic and author.-Background and career:Crystal was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. He grew up in Holyhead, North Wales, and Liverpool, England where he attended St Mary's College from 1951....
, host of BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
's linguistics program English Now, called it "probably the most ambitious work ever attempted in this genre."
La Disparition (A Void) is a lipogrammatic book inspired by Gadsby. The French novel not only omits the letter "e" in its entirety, but is also 50,000 words long. Its author, Georges Perec
Georges Perec
Georges Perec was a French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist and essayist. He is a member of the Oulipo group...
, was introduced to Wright's book by a friend of his in Oulipo
Oulipo
Oulipo is a loose gathering of French-speaking writers and mathematicians which seeks to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais...
, a multinational constrained writing group. Wright's lack of success with Gadsby made Perec aware that publication of such a work "was taking a risk" of finishing up "with nothing [but] a Gadsby." As a nod to Wright, La Disparition contains a character named "Lord Gadsby V. Wright", a tutor to protagonist Anton Voyl; in addition, a composition attributed to Voyl in La Disparition is actually a quotation from Gadsby. Trevor Kitson, writing in New Zealand's Manawatu Standard in 2006, said he was prompted to write a short lipogram after seeing Wright's book. The exercise gave him an appreciation for how difficult Wright's task was, but he was less impressed with the end result. "I must say that the book leaves me in a state of non-grippedness (to quote Dave Lister from Red Dwarf)," Kitson wrote. "It seems extraordinarily twee (not that it uses that word, of course) and mostly about all-American kids going to church and getting married." Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Richard Hofstadter is an American academic whose research focuses on consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics...
's book Le Ton beau de Marot
Le Ton beau de Marot
Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language , published by Basic Books in 1997, is a book by Douglas Hofstadter in which he explores the meaning, strengths, failings, and beauty of translation....
quotes parts of Gadsby for illustration.