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Gadsby(novel)

Not to be confused withThe Great Gatsby.

Gadsbyis a1939novel byErnest Vincent Wright,written without words that contain the letterE,the most common letter in English. A work that deliberately avoids certain letters is known as alipogram.The plot revolves around the dying fictional city of Branton Hills, which is revitalized as a result of the efforts ofprotagonistJohn Gadsby and a youth organizer.

Gadsby
Front dust jacket of the 1939 first edition
AuthorErnest Vincent Wright
LanguageEnglish
GenreNovel,lipogram omitting the letterE
PublisherWetzel Publishing Co.
Publication date
1939
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardcover)
Pages260 pp
OCLC57759048

Thoughvanity publishedand little noticed in its time, the book has since become a favorite of fans ofconstrained writingand is a sought-after rarity among some book collectors. The first edition carries on title page and cover thesubtitleA Story of Over 50,000 Words Without Using the Letter "E"(with the variant50,000 Word Novel Without the Letter "E"on the dust jacket), sometimes dropped from late reprints.

Lipogrammatic quality

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In the introduction to the book (which, not being part of the story, does contain the letter 'e'), Wright says his primary difficulty was avoiding the "-ed" suffix forpast tenseverbs. He made extensive use of verbs that do not take the -ed suffix and constructions with "do" and "did" (for instance "did walk" instead of "walked" ). Scarcity of word options also drastically limited discussion involving quantity – Wright could not write about any number between six and thirty – pronouns, and many common words.[1]

An article in the linguistic periodicalWord Wayssaid that 250 of the 500 most commonly used words in English were still available to Wright despite the omission of words withe.[2]

Wright usesabbreviationson occasion, but only if the full form is similarly lipogrammatic, e.g. "Dr." (Doctor) and "P.S." (postscript) would be allowed but not "Mr." (Mister).

Wright also turns famous sayings into lipograms. Instead ofWilliam Congreve's original line, "Musick has charms to soothe a savage breast", Wright writes that music "hath charms to calm a wild bosom."John Keats' "a thing of beauty is a joy forever"becomes" a charming thing is a joy always ".[3]In other respects, Wright does not avoid topics which would otherwise require the letter "e"; for example, a detailed description of a horse-drawn fire engine is made without using the words "horse", "fire", or "engine".

Plot and structure

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John Gadsby, 50, is alarmed by the decline of his hometown, Branton Hills, and rallies the city's youth to form an "Organization of Youth" to build civic spirit and improve living standards. Despite some opposition, Gadsby and his youthful army transform Branton Hills from a stagnant town into a bustling, thriving city. Towards the book's conclusion, members of Gadsby's organization receive diplomas honoring of their work. Gadsby becomes mayor and helps grow Branton Hills' population from 2,000 to 60,000.

The story starts around 1906 and continues throughWorld War I,Prohibition,and PresidentWarren G. Harding's administration.Gadsbyis divided into two parts: the first, 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, while the second part of the book fleshes out its main characters.

The novel is written from the point of view of an anonymous narrator, who continually complains about his poor writing skills and often usescircumlocution."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".[4]

Example prose

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The book's opening two paragraphs are:[5]

If Youth, throughout all history, had had a champion to stand up for it; to show a doubting world that a child can think; and, possibly, do it practically; you wouldn't constantly run across folks today who claim that "a child don't know anything." A child's brain starts functioning at birth; and has, amongst its many infant convolutions, thousands of dormant atoms, into which God has put a mystic possibility for noticing an adult's act, and figuring out its purport.

Up to about its primary school days a child thinks, naturally, only of play. But many a form of play contains disciplinary factors. "You can't do this," or "that puts you out," shows a child that it must think, practically, or fail. Now, if, throughout childhood, a brain has no opposition, it is plain that it will attain a position of "status quo," as with our ordinary animals. Man knows not why a cow, dog or lion was not born with a brain on a par with ours; why such animals cannot add, subtract, or obtain from books and schooling, that paramount position which Man holds today.

Publication and composition

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Wright appears to have worked on the manuscript for several 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 asChampion of Youth.In October 1930, while Wright was living nearTampa, Florida,he wrote a letter toThe Evening Independentnewspaper, 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.[6]

Wright struggled to find a publisher for the book, and eventually used Wetzel Publishing Co., aself-publishing press.A 2007 post on theBookrideblog about rare books says a warehouse holding copies ofGadsbyburned 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[7]to $7,500[8]by book dealers. Wright died the same year of publication, 1939.

In 1937, Wright said writing the book was a challenge and the author of an article on his efforts inThe Oshkosh Dailyrecommended composing lipograms forinsomniasufferers.[9]Wright said in his introduction toGadsbythat "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!"[10]And in fact, the 1939 printing by the Wetzel Publishing Co. contains four such slips, the word "the" on pages 51, 103 and 124, and the word "officers" on page 213.[11][12][13][14][non-primary source needed]

Reception and influence

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In her 1943 novelThe Fountainhead,Ayn Randsatirically imagines a "Council of American Writers", who include "...a youth who had written a thousand-page novel without a single letter o..."[15]

La Disparition(A Void) is a 1969 lipogrammatic French novel partly inspired byGadsby[16]that likewise omits the letter "e" and is 50,000 words long.[7][better source needed]Its author,Georges Perec,was introduced to Wright's book by a friend of his inOulipo,a multinational constrained-writing group.[17]Perec was aware from Wright's lack of success that publication of such a work "was taking a risk" of finishing up "with nothing [but] aGadsby".[18]As a nod to Wright,La Disparitioncontains a character named "Lord Gadsby V. Wright",[19]a tutor to protagonist Anton Voyl; in addition, a composition attributed to Voyl inLa Disparitionis actually a quotation fromGadsby.[3]

Douglas Hofstadter's 1997 bookLe Ton beau de Marotquotes parts ofGadsbyfor illustration.[20]

An article in theOshkosh Dailyin 1937 wrote (lipogrammatically) that the manuscript was "amazingly smooth. No halting parts. A continuity of plot and almost classic clarity obtains".[9]The Village Voicewrote a humor column aboutGadsby.AuthorEd Parkjokingly 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?'".[3]David Crystal,host ofBBC Radio 4's linguistics programEnglish Now,called it "probably the most ambitious work ever attempted in this genre".[21]Trevor Kitson, writing in New Zealand'sManawatu Standardin 2006, said he was prompted to write a short lipogram after seeing Wright's book. The attempt gave him an appreciation for how difficult Wright's task was, but he was less impressed with the result. "It seems extraordinarilytwee(not that it uses that word, of course) and mostly aboutall-Americankids going to church and getting married "he wrote.[22]

References

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Footnotes

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  1. ^Gadsby: A Story of 50,000 WordsIntroduction, online copy hosted at Spineless Books
  2. ^Eckler, Albert Ross, ed. (1986).Names and Games: Onomastics and Recreational Linguistics: An Anthology of 99 Articles Published in Word Ways, the Journal of Recreational Linguistics from February 1968 to August 1985.University Press of America.ISBN978-0-8191-5350-0.
  3. ^abcPark, Ed (6 August 2002)."Egadsby! Ernest Vincent Wright's Machine Dreams".The Village Voice.
  4. ^"Gadsby: A Story of 50,000 Words".Archivedfrom the original on August 17, 2003.Retrieved2003-08-23– via Spineless Books.[page needed]
  5. ^GadsbyatProject Gutenberg
  6. ^"The Rambler (humor column)".The Evening Independent. 3 April 1937.
  7. ^ab"Gadsby. A Story of Over 50.000 Words Without Using the Letter E. 1939".Bookride blog. 24 February 2007.
  8. ^"Online List, September 2013: Recent Acquisitions".Rulon-Miller Books. 2013. Archived fromthe originalon 2014-02-02.Retrieved2013-11-06.
  9. ^abClausen, Walter B. (March 25, 1937). "Fifty Thousand Words Minus". The Oskhosh Daily.
  10. ^Gadsby: A Story of 50,000 WordsOnline copy hosted at Spineless Books, Introduction
  11. ^Gadsby: A Story of 50,000 Wordspage 51 of 1939 printing by Wetzel Publishing Co.
  12. ^Gadsby: A Story of 50,000 Wordspage 103 of 1939 printing by Wetzel Publishing Co.
  13. ^Gadsby: A Story of 50,000 Wordspage 124 of 1939 printing by Wetzel Publishing Co.
  14. ^Gadsby: A Story of 50,000 Wordspage 213 of 1939 printing by Wetzel Publishing Co.
  15. ^Ayn Rand,The Fountainhead,Penguined., p.313
  16. ^Abish 1995,p. X11
  17. ^Bellos 1993,p. 395
  18. ^Bellos 1993,p. 399
  19. ^Sturrock 1999
  20. ^Hofstadter, Douglas (1998).Le Ton beu de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language.Perseus Books Group.ISBN978-0-465-08645-0.
  21. ^Crystal 2001,p. 63
  22. ^It Isn't Easy,Manawatu Standard, Trevor Kitson, 24 May 2006

Sources

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