What’s missing?
A book has been written by a French author containing no verbs, according to an article in the Telegraph.
Perhaps inevitably, critics have commented unfavourably on the lack of action in Michel Thaler’s work, The Train from Nowhere, which runs to 233 pages.
Mr. Thaler considers verbs to be “invaders, dictators, and usurpers of our literature”. Hmmm.
Perhaps even more ambitious is the work of Georges Perec. His novel, La Disparition, does not contain the letter ‘e’. It has been translated into english, by Gilbert Adair. Going one better, Perec’s sequel, Les Revenentes, is written with no other vowel apart from ‘e’.
So, brilliantly intelligent and fun, or literary willy-waving? Make your own uninformed judgement, in underblog’s Comment-o-rama! Or just bugger off, I don’t care either way.
This post was stolen pretty much wholesale from Ben Hammersley
May 11th, 2004 at 22:30
Well, it’s all very good and well, but do the books themselves actually make any sense? I think that’s the questions we should be asking. Still, kudos to them, those bunch of literary wranglers.
May 14th, 2004 at 08:08
If you me, I thy’r a coupl of psuds.
So thr.
May 14th, 2004 at 08:09
Obviously I allowed myself one ‘e’ in ‘me’ as I’m new at this style of writing.
I’ll shut up now.
May 16th, 2004 at 18:47
I think you should have written the post in some sort of clever e-less way too! But you didn’t.
May 16th, 2004 at 19:14
Who, me? Well I did think about it, but then I realised that
a) All the authors mentioned have e’s in their names.
b) I’m not that clever.