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The English translation of 'La Disparition', a 1969 novel by Georges Perec written entirely without the letter 'e'. It has been translated into several other languages, including Spanish in which it is written entirely without the letter 'a'. The plot (concerning people looking for a missing acquaintance) references its lipogrammatical nature often: a missing part 5 of 26 and the missing person being named Vowl to name but two.
Perec was not the first to attempt the feat - Ernest Vincent Wright's 'Gadsby' (available in full here) was an earlier ('39), and more challenging, effort - Wright liked to try including many items with the letter 'e' in them, such as a horse-drawn fire engine, by describing and not naming them. He also set his story in the past and managed avoiding the verb ending '-ed'. However, 'A Void' is generally considered a better literary work overall.
A synopsis (from the rear cover):
As his country is torn apart by social and political anarchy, A Void's protagonist, Anton Vowl, a chronic insomniac, is unaccountably found missing. Ransacking his Paris flat, a group of his faithful companions trawl through his diary for any indication, for any faint hint, as to his location. All that it brings to light, though, is Vowl's liking for parody, wordplay and dazzling fictional constructs - and gradually, insidiously, a ghost from Vowl's past starts to cast its malignant shadow...
This is a story chock-full of plots and subplots, of trails in pursuit of trails, all of which allow its author an occasion to display his customary virtuosity as an avantgardist magician, acrobat and clown.
A Void's translator, too, is just brilliant at such linguistic conjuring tricks, fully, unflinchingly assuming a monstrous constraint laid down by its author - to propound a gripping Gothic fiction with lots of twists and turns and without at any point invoking that most basic prop of traditional syntax: an e!
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Alas, it is so. I was proud of my first half, but half no. two is of dubious construction, I fully admit!
Our grand capital was grand, thank you! It cost a lot of cash, as London usually will.
"Lipogrammaniac". Amusing!
Washington DC is not costly, if you don't count our tax dollars. In truth, DC is famous for having lots of criminals, and low-class folk. The historical buildings and monoliths shown in photographs contain that town's only omission from filth, criminality, and privation. But don't think any showy buildings in that district contain any additionally virtuous individuals.
Any politician or lobbyist as a law of thumb, including most administration officials.
Hah! HM's snappy back talk puts Finrod right in his... position.
I'm thinking about rhyming again - not four nor six groups of words, but halfway - with an Irish lilt. I'll allow you folks to know as it grows into my mind, but now I'm going.
Somnus calls. Night, all.
Morning all!
I know what you talk of, Finrod. And damn, now my cranium is working on 1 also! (I think as it's Irish that lim'rick is okay!).
I look forward to yours!
You push limits of my thinking, always, you guys!
With child barin' hips, and a pink colour ass..."
(I took that from a famous, witty musician)
Damn and blast it! I was just typing a post and had a crash! I lost a big post, too, dammit! Aaargh!
HM and PO, I find that a small plastic... thing on my 'fifth symbol' is a big aid to typing lipogrammatically.
Rhyming is...going on in my cranium.
I find that a thumb tack on said button is also discouraging.
Good point, HM (atrocious pun!)
I (and PO, too) call it a 'drawing pin,' though. God knows why.
Thanks for that clarification, octopodal pal! I didn't know that at all.
Irish rhyming is still going on in my brain - but no full stanzas as of now.
Mayhap tomorrow... I can boast two parts of a stanza involving 'That monocular sailor, Horatio' but am having difficulty with working in Lady Hamilton. Maps and history of wars may assist.
I can also boast about 'Mary, that Monarch of Scots,' but Mary had such difficult husbands! A Dauphin is okay, but Guil(d)ford and that third roguish man - I groan inwardly, I must say.
A month and no word. Soon salsola shall pass through as whistling wind starts saloon doors flapping.
How forms your stanza, Finrod?
Oh, damn! Just dandy, PO...
No full success at all. HM groans; so do I, now.
Somnus calls. Talk soon, pals.
Haha, wow… I long ago had a try or two at writing, say, a riddling paragraph, without using that most common symbol of ours, but I didn't know anybody could fill a book that way! During my intial go at making do with such a lingual handicap, it was all too soon that I had run into things I thought wouldn't flow right without introducing this or that totally off-limits word. I'm glad this author – and individuals following him – could so slyly show this world how to do it with flair.
Knowing I got through "Taboo" cards quickly in my past, winning with swift skill, I now find it fit that I should go at it again. Although, comparing a full, naturally-flowing story's composition to my basic acts of avoiding only six words just to hint at an individual word (or occasionally a pair or such), my trick was still small by comparison.
It's tough to say if I'd plan on looking this book up, but if this is as grand a parody as I find from its summary (a missing fifth part? brilliant! XD), I wouldn't want to miss out on it!
Though I got along smoothly with my own similar "void" throughout this post, I found that that's truly a hard thing to do with such a limit of words to show, particularly, any misgivings I hold toward my own thoughts. To avoid just blandly piling on a lot of "I think" this or that, I had to control a habit I don't usually watch.
I say, good show! Congratulations on such a fantastic post that your arrival has brought with it! And such kind words too!
It's up to you if you hunt out a copy or not - I own it, but it sits on my big mound of books only occasionally having random parts of it occupying my sight. I couldn't possibly push it on that, though.
I maintain that I will find occasion to plow through any and all books that I own in front of my shuffling off this mortal coil...
Gosh, my last posting was two months ago...
Congratulations, Albino Fox, on a smooth, flowing post that fits in our A-Void discussion as a hand fits in a glov... um, mitt.
Mayhap it will attract HM's vision, too - alas, that pal visits all too occasionally, now.
How about this for rhyming?
Mary, that monarch of Scots,
Had a trio of husbands, all clots:
A Dauphin (otitic)
Cousin D. (paralytic)
And Bothy, who didn't pray lots.
[Her first husband was the Roman Catholic Dauphin Francis, the heir to the throne of France, who died of an ear infection. The fiery Scottish Protestant preacher John Knox commented that he died 'of a deaf and rotten ear that would never hear the word of God.' The second was her Church of England cousin Lord Darnley, who soon showed himself to be a pretty worthless drunk. The third was Lord Bothwell, who was 'not troubled by religious scruples of any kind'. If you think I'm going to try to explain all that lipogrammatically, you can think again!]
I'll think again ;)
Good stuff, Finrod! Brilliant - a lim'rick both amusing and informing, whilst staying within our rigid limitation (clarification notwithstanding!)
*Finrod bows *
As Titian is mixing his paints,
For making a portrait of saints,
His patron, King Philip
Of Spain, tots his bill up.
Procuring a total, Phil faints!
*Finrod folds his arms and stands waitng with stanzas at tips of his hand-digits*