Ella Minnow Pea
question
Similar Books
Kasper
Sep 08, 2018 07:57AM
Has anyone read a book like this? I read this book in four hours and it was imho the greatest literary masterpiece I've ever had the pleasure of reading. The ending shocked me and gave me goosebumps all over. Such a delightful unexpected ending. I love how the book itself is so vital in the story. It would never work to read this book to someone or listen to it on audio bc the joy is the words in the book that are ever changing. I would like to find a book similar to this. Please help me! I'd like to know what book, why it is similar, what makes it so great, and please no spoilers.
reply
flag
I would also like to know if anyone has read any of his other books and what you thought about them. A friend let me borrow LMNOP so it was the first I'd heard of the author and know little about his works.
Kasper wrote: "Has anyone read a book like this? I read this book in four hours and it was imho the greatest literary masterpiece I've ever had the pleasure of reading. The ending shocked me and gave me goosebump..."
You mention that you like the relation between the book itself and the story, so I've gone a bit overboard and broken down the ways that happens in Ella Minnow Pea so you can go out and find other books like that...
It sounds like you might be interested in reading more constrained writing. Ella Minnow Pea is a lipogram, and there are several more of those out there, perhaps the most famous of which is La Disparition by Georges Perec, translated into English by Gilbert Adair as A Void. I've never personally read it, but it's the sort of work that gets brought up in literary history classes, because Perec was part of OuLiPo, a group of mostly French writers interested in experimenting with form. They even have a website now, where you can learn more about that if you're interested: https://www.oulipo.net/
If you prefer the epistolary nature of the book, there are plenty of other wonderful epistolary novels out there, one of my favorites being The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Anne Shaffer. I always find epistolary novels interesting because of how they limit our perspective on the events of the story while giving a giving the letter-writing characters their own voices...
Finally, the idea that the book is vital to the story is also explored in meta fiction, in which the books are part of the story in very aware ways (if that makes any sense). This is a bit harder to define, so if that's what interests you, I suggest a bit of googling; there are plenty of interesting lists of varying quality you can take as a jumping-off point for exploring more books about...themselves?
I hope this is helpful...
You mention that you like the relation between the book itself and the story, so I've gone a bit overboard and broken down the ways that happens in Ella Minnow Pea so you can go out and find other books like that...
It sounds like you might be interested in reading more constrained writing. Ella Minnow Pea is a lipogram, and there are several more of those out there, perhaps the most famous of which is La Disparition by Georges Perec, translated into English by Gilbert Adair as A Void. I've never personally read it, but it's the sort of work that gets brought up in literary history classes, because Perec was part of OuLiPo, a group of mostly French writers interested in experimenting with form. They even have a website now, where you can learn more about that if you're interested: https://www.oulipo.net/
If you prefer the epistolary nature of the book, there are plenty of other wonderful epistolary novels out there, one of my favorites being The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Anne Shaffer. I always find epistolary novels interesting because of how they limit our perspective on the events of the story while giving a giving the letter-writing characters their own voices...
Finally, the idea that the book is vital to the story is also explored in meta fiction, in which the books are part of the story in very aware ways (if that makes any sense). This is a bit harder to define, so if that's what interests you, I suggest a bit of googling; there are plenty of interesting lists of varying quality you can take as a jumping-off point for exploring more books about...themselves?
I hope this is helpful...
all discussions on this book
|
post a new topic
