Tuesday, January 19, 2010

To E or Not To E

No one ever said writing a novel was easy. Even choosing the right words can be tough. But it could be worse.

In 1969, a French writer named Georges Perec wrote La Disparition, a 200-page novel that does not contain words spelled with the letter E. Then Gilbert Adair translated La Disparition into English, also refraining from words containing the letter E.

This post has 340 characters. 39 are E. That is 11%.

2 comments:

Jacqui said...

Ah, but could he write a novel using only the letter E?

Ann Finkelstein said...

Jacqui:
Maybe a book written with only I (by Narcissus)