Steve Greydanus Can't Say His Own Name (Either Of Them)

Not in his introduction to the great novel Gadsby, anyway.

He writes:

What’s missing from this story?, a curiosity

Look at this quotation, from a starting paragraph of a 50,000-word story, Gadsby, found at this link (but don’t click now).

This

is a story with a highly unusual formal oddity — an oddity that I am

aping thoughout this post. Try to work out what this oddity is if you

can.

Branton Hills was a small town in a rich agricultural

district; and having many a possibility for growth. But, through a sort

of smug satisfaction with conditions of long ago, had no thought of

improving such important adjuncts as roads; putting up public

buildings, nor laying out parks; in fact a dormant, slowly dying

community. So satisfactory was its status that it had no form of

transportation to surrounding towns but by railroad, or “old Dobbin.”

Now, any town thus isolating its inhabitants, will invariably find this

big, busy world passing it by; glancing at it, curiously, as at an odd

animal at a circus; and, you will find, caring not a whit about its

condition. Naturally, a town should grow. You can look upon it as a

child; which, through natural conditions, should attain manhood; and

add to its surrounding thriving districts its products of farm, shop,

or factory. It should show a spirit of association with surrounding

towns; crawl out of its lair, and find how backward it is.

Any notion what I’m talking about? If you want to look at a long portion of this story without spoiling its oddity, try this link, which will bring you to its first part.

Writing

this way, as I am doing now, is actually uncommonly difficult. To turn

out such a long story as this following this approach is a

mind-boggling stunt — and a crazy thing to try. What is it that I’m

doing in this short post, and which is drawn out across fifty thousand

words in Gadsby?

That’s it. I quit. I’m done.

[ORIGIN.]

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

10 thoughts on “Steve Greydanus Can't Say His Own Name (Either Of Them)”

  5. I always thought SDG stood for Soli Deo Gloria. Y’know, like that Händel dude scribbled on that one thing he wrote.

    Mmm… Händel.

  6. Followed the links to: “A lipogram is a text that purposefully excludes a particular letter of the alphabet….In 1969, Perec completed Las Disparitions, a novel without the letter E. In 1994, Gilbert Adair translated this novel into English as A Void. The translation also does not contain the letter E. Think about that.”

    http://www.spinelessbooks.com/table/forms/lipogram.html

  9. I always thought SDG stood for Soli Deo Gloria. Y’know, like that Händel dude scribbled on that one thing he wrote.

    That too. A happy coincidence.

    I would be more impressed if someone wrote a novel that excluded ‘t’ or ‘h’.

    Well, AFAIK, “e” is the single most common letter in the English language. “T” is #2, followed by “A” at #3. And “T” is probably #2 significantly on the strength of “the,” which it shares with “E.” So, on the face of it, omitting the “E” would seem to be the more difficult stunt.

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