In the novel 'Gadsby' why does the letter 'e' not occur even once in its 50,000 words?

Question

This has got to be deliberate, surely? Why would anyone impose such a restriction on their writing? Was it being done for a bet? Did somebody say, "It cannot be done!" so the author muttered, "Just watch me...!"

Answer 1

By Jove, you're right! There's a very interesting article about it in Wikipedia. Thanks for showing me something new and different!

Answer 2

Because the guy decided to write a whole book like that.

Incidentally, there is an even longer novel written entirely without the letter 'e', called 'La Disparition' (The Disappearance), by Georges Perec. It's in French. However, it's been translated into English by a guy called Gilbert Adair, and the translation also lacks the letter 'e', which when you think about it is maybe even more incredible. The translation is called 'A Void'. You can get them on Amazon.

Restrictions on writing are nothing new. Writing a sonnet is a restriction. Writing a comedy show for TV is a restriction - you have to be funny. Georges Perec wrote a novel without the letter 'e' because he wanted to see what it was like to have a whole novel without the most common letter in French ('e' is the most common letter in French as well as in English). This may well have had something to do with the fact that Perec's parents, who were French Jews, were taken away by the Nazis during WW2 and he never saw them again - they 'disappeared'. Oddly enough, one of the original reviewers of 'La Disparition' didn't even notice that the book didn't have the letter 'e'...

Sorry for going on about a different book than the one you asked about, but people like me who relish this kind of thing mostly agree that 'La Disparition' (or 'A Void') is a way better book than 'Gadsby'.

Because he had a weird sense of humour, Perec went on to write a short novel called 'Les Revenentes' in which the only vowel is 'e'. That too has been translated into English, under the title 'The Exeter Text: Jewels, Secrets, Sex', by a guy named Ian Monk.

Answer 3

Gadsby is a novel by Ernest Vincent Wright, written around 1939. It is famous for not containing the letter 'e'.

The lack of the letter 'e' makes Gadsby a lipogram, or an example of constrained writing. Wright explains in the introduction that he had to tape down the 'E' key of his typewriter to avoid mistakes.

The story tells how the main character, John Gadsby, transforms his home town of Branton Hills into a bustling city by tapping the vigour and original thought of youth. Quoting from its first paragraph:

"If youth, throughout all history, 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."
The use of odd punctuation, contrived language, and disjoint air carry on throughout the book.

As well as having to avoid common words such as 'the', 'he', and 'she', Wright made the task particularly hard for himself by setting Gadsby in the past tense, while avoiding the verb ending '-ed'. He also made valiant attempts to include objects that ordinarily require the letter E, such as a horse-drawn fire engine; he achieved this by describing the object without quite naming it.

Wright never saw his work in print - he died at the age of 66 on the day it was published.

Answer 4

Read the whole story - just put gadsby in the yahoo search box. Such a piece, avoiding particular letters, is called a lipogram.

Answer 5

because it is a lipogrammatic book. A lipogram (from Greek lipagrammatos, "missing letter") is a kind of constrained writing or word game consisting of writing paragraphs or longer works in which a particular letter or group of letters is missing, usually a common vowel, the most common in English being e (McArthur, 1992). A lipogram author avoiding e then only uses the 25 remaining letters of the alphabet.

Answer 6

It was done on purpose as Ernest Vincent Wright tied down the E on his typewriter, but apparently he was fed up hearing e letter words all the time, funny thing is, the prose does make sense, he hasn't just filled the gaps with apostrophes. my guess boredom does funny things to ones mind...
ttfn ;o)

Answer 7

That seems rather hard since "e" is the most used letter out of the entire alphabet.

I am impressed!

Answer 8

Never heard of it, who wrote it? Tried to search for it on Amazon and couldn't find it, is it in print? I would be interested to read this!

Addition: sorry, yes, found it now - looks like a gimmick to me.

Answer 9

i think the author was trying to make a point, that he is some kind of smart guy, but hey, if you could be arsed to putting in alternative words.

Answer 10

it was a rubbish computer, with a keyboard that had qwrty keys
instead of qwert keys
either that the author was no fan of the rave culture because he hated
e's

Answer 11

Wiki says it was deliberate. It was his best known book. Probably a publicity stunt.