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risk_is_our_business t1_ixuppxk wrote

I guess the warehouse had no mrgncy xits.

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xdzgor t1_ixurzrd wrote

You mean the warhous

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SplendidPunkinButter t1_ixvha0f wrote

A lack of ports allowing dispatch of any books within

This is how said author actually did it, and you might find it is difficult to scan

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InappropriateTA t1_ixwq128 wrote

It’s actually because nobody saw any trees during the conflagration, so nobody thought to pull the Fir Alarm.

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LanceaRupta t1_ixulfao wrote

French author Georges Perec did it too in a book named "La Disparition" published in 1969

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Lupercali OP t1_ixulpeu wrote

Yes, and it presented great difficulties for translators when it was published in English, as, for a start, the actual name of the book in English contained the letter e.

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paolog t1_ixumwqq wrote

The literal translation would be "The Disappearance"* (three e's), but I think they renamed it "A Void".

The point of the book was that "e" is the most common letter in French, making it hard to write, and in various other languages too, making it hard to translate. ("The" is one of the most common words in the English language.)

* Ironic, considering the fate of the book.

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M0rqu1ng4 t1_ixv3yyk wrote

E is also the most common letter in English usage - E, T, A, O, N, R, I, S and H in that order, if I recall correctly...

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Cetun t1_ixvzq20 wrote

There was a guy on Reddit who had a comet history years long that had never used the letter H or or F or something.

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aSimpleWardrobe t1_ixvskll wrote

I assume Q or Z are rarest?

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M0rqu1ng4 t1_ixvxse2 wrote

Yes, along with X and J. The numbers of tiles of each letter in Scrabble is a good indicator - different languages have different letter frequencies (and therefore different numbers of tiles in Scrabble).

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c2srq t1_ixv3xjp wrote

An unusual book that sounds a tiny bit borish without an important part to fill in any blanks.

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squigs t1_ixy9h10 wrote

I can spot what you did in this post!

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ChrisWilding t1_ixutgnw wrote

The perfect book for /r/AVoid5/

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Killawife t1_ixv1z9q wrote

I once wrote a book that was written solely in the letter R. But sadly, pirates stole it.

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RandoCalrissian11 t1_ixvmust wrote

What’s a pirates favorite letter?

You’d think it’s Rrrrrr but it’s actually the C!

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SlightlyScruffy t1_ixunsj5 wrote

Check out oulipo for more.

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Lupercali OP t1_ixuobjj wrote

You reminded me of the excellent novel Ella Minnow Pea, written as a diary, on an island where the government progressively bans letter of the alphabet until it becomes virtually impossible to write.

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SlightlyScruffy t1_ixuom61 wrote

I've read that too. Nice. I've got an entire book of different oulipo, some of which is hard going.

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zixx t1_ixuos8e wrote

TIL of Wright's 50,000-word book, Gadsby, containing no Es; Gadsby's only print run was mostly lost in a conflagration.

FTFY

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Downtown-Regret-505 t1_ixvde06 wrote

Mr. Burns was going to fire Lenny unless he could convince him to keep his job without using the letter "E"

I am convinced the writers were referencing this book...some 30 years later I finally get the reference.

(Lenny did come out with a great sentence - "I'm a good work guy" - but Burns fired him anyway.)

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GusHowsleyESQ t1_ixuvz3c wrote

How did the author put his name on it? It contains the letter E.

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DaedalusRaistlin t1_ixvfiv1 wrote

I think the foreword page was the only place he used the letter e, to explain to the reader the premise of no e. Everything after that adhered to the rule.

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badamache t1_ixv1ipr wrote

Burnt down. Not burned

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mikeonmaui t1_ixv2aqk wrote

It burnt in a fir

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ZhouDa t1_ixwdugl wrote

It burnt in a conflagration, as it had a low oxidation point.

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SignificantView1671 t1_ixv7ec3 wrote

That's crazy. How could you ink down a book without it occurring?

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Blutarg t1_ixwop4b wrote

By golly!

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Scat_fiend t1_ixyldgk wrote

Which set off a series of events which caused world war 2. Thanks Ernie!

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PMzyox t1_ixvnxzu wrote

Yeah I did something cool once too but all evidence of it was destroyed also

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TheLastWeird t1_ixvv40e wrote

Let’s get Dimitri Martin to re-write it.

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Offbeatsofa t1_ixx2234 wrote

There's a subreddit dedicated to the same idea, r/aVoid5

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Nightblade t1_ixyezco wrote

More accurately, I think, it uses words that do not contain the letter 'e'.

From Wikipedia:

> The book's opening two paragraphs are as follows: > > If Youth, throughout all history, had 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. > > Up to about its primary school days a child thinks, naturally, only of play. But many a form of play contains disciplinary factors. "You can't do this," or "that puts you out," shows a child that it must think, practically, or fail. Now, if, throughout childhood, a brain has no opposition, it is plain that it will attain a position of "status quo," as with our ordinary animals. Man knows not why a cow, dog or lion was not born with a brain on a par with ours; why such animals cannot add, subtract, or obtain from books and schooling, that paramount position which Man holds today. >

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