Newspaper Article

NOVEL CLEVERLY PLUNDERS ALPHABET

Corey Mesler Special to The Commercial Appeal Corey Mesler is a longtime book reviewer for The Commercial Appeal

2001

Overview

Here's the extravagant plot: On the fictional island of Nollop, off the coast of South Carolina, a small kingdom exists, its progenitor and hero one Nevin Nollop, the man who invented the famed pangram \"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.\" A pangram is \"a phrase, sentence or verse composed of all the letters of the alphabet.\" A statue of Nevin Nollop stands in the center of this \"quasi-communal society\" and on the base of that statue, spelled out in ceramic tile, is the famous pangram. A sort of hysteria grips the island, as neighbor begins to turn in neighbor to the authorities. As one civic-minded citizen explains, \"We believe . . . that Nollop does indeed speak to us from his place of eternal rest, through the manipulation of the tiles upon his hallowed cenotaph, and that the Council serves only as his collective interpreter.\" And from the Council: \"Adhering to the commandments of Nollop leaves no room for fear of punishment or forfeiture. (He who walks in the light has no reason to fear the darkness.)\" [Mark Dunn]'s sly send-up of religious zealotry resonates throughout the story. It's Arthur Miller's The Crucible with word-puzzles.

• Publisher: Gannett Media Corp
• Subject: Dunn, Mark / Pea, Ella Minnow