h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was hoping some researchers might be able to name some unusual books. Unusual in a different sense though. For example, I know there's a book that doesn't use the letter 'e' once. Are there any more examples of this? Perhaps a book with only words of one syllable, or a book where every sentence is a pangram?

Peter Carey's "True History of the Kelly Gang" doesn't have any commas in it ...

That book without the letter 'e' is written in French, I believe. It suspect it might be more difficult to manage in English.

I did once hear of a book written without any semi-colons. Can't remember the title, though.


Geggs

The book 'The Autumn of the Patriarch' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez has sentences that run on and on for several pages, without any punctuation and swift changes in perspective. It's actually quite good, though.

The book without the letter 'e' was originally written in French, called 'La Disparition' by Georges Perec. Amazing, considering it's been translate into English as 'A Void'.

If I remember correctly Jeff Noon's 'Pixel Juice' is written in the form of song lyrics. Hence there are no capital letters, or full stops, just a / to denote a line division.


Geggs

Oh I know that one. The book without semicolons is 'Coming Up For Air' by George Orwell.

Ah, that's it. I knew it was a well-known author, but the details excaped me. I believe he wrote the book like that because he thought the semi-colon was an unnecessary bit of punctuation, and so wrote a book without using it in order to prove his point.

I also recall that his was slightly miffed that no-one noticed, and he had to point it out to them!


Geggs

Do you want books that are only unusual in their writting, or would you allow books that are unusual in concept?

For example, I know of a book where the plot is based on a chess game. Every character represents a piece, each time someone disappears or dies represents a piece being captured, and so on. The book is 'Squares of the City' by John Brunner.


Geggs

Anything really!

I was thinking about a story where the first letters of all the sentences combine to form a story themselves. I wonder if that's been done...

I wouldn't have thought so, but then again, if you didn't know that was a feature of the story, would you be inclined to check on the off-chance?

In Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl books there's a code running along the bottom of every page that forms a message connected to the story, though not part of the story itself.


Geggs

There was a book I saw - can't remember it's name - it was two chapters long, and about 300 pages ... nothing odd about that, except each chapter was only one sentence long ...

Isn't one of the chapters in Finnegans Wake 'e' free?

253 - a book about an underground railway train and its 253 passengers, each person getting a one page description, each description being 253 words. Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

Another unusual concept that I quite liked was in Jeff Ryman's '253'.

The idea is that on a London underground train there are enough seats of 253 people (including the driver). In the book each of the 253 people have 253 words written about them. There are maps of each carridge, and various fake adverts throughout the book. Some the connection as quite interesting. Like finding out that a person in carridge 6 is trying to avoid people in carridges 2, 3, and 4, and so on.

It's deeply ingrossing an a god-like view kind of way.


Geggs

Simul-post!

Nice to know someone else has read it, though.


Geggs

Jinx! It was enjoyable, and easy to pick up and put down - always good to have a book like that around Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

This form of writing with missing letters is called a "lipogram" (even if it sounds more like some embarrassing medical procedure).

Details and examples at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipogram

The most interesting one appears to be Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn, which is described as a "progressively lipogrammatic novel": the plot of the story deals with a small country which begins to outlaw the use of various letters, and as each letter is outlawed within the story, it is no longer used in the text of the novel.

Icy

Iain Banks' Feersum Enjin has chapters written by one of the protagonists, who has an intresting writing style. Princess Bride has the author talking to the reader in a different colour to the main story text. Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

Time's Arrow, by Martin Amis, is written backwards (in the original edition, at least).

RF

What an interesting concept! (The Brunner book) Can non-chess people enjoy it?

I heard there's a version of chess called 'infinite chess'. I wonder what that's like to play.