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.]
No “E”s, is it?
Expressing the same content in variant ways. I.e. repeating yourself.
Thank you, thank you. (bows) Twarn’t nothing.
Done with ease – there are no ‘E’s if you please
I always thought SDG stood for Soli Deo Gloria. Y’know, like that Händel dude scribbled on that one thing he wrote.
Mmm… Händel.
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
Hmm, so, is F. Scott Fitzgerald the anti-Chesterton?
I would be more impressed if someone wrote a novel that excluded ‘t’ or ‘h’.
That too. A happy coincidence.
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.
I don’t think that I could … got stuck already! (Original idea was “I don’t think that I could come up with ten words….” – didn’t work.)