Gadsby: Champion of Youth

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Gadsby: Champion of Youth
Author	Ernest Vincent Wright
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel, lipogram omitting the letter e
Publisher	Wetzel Publishing Co.
Publication date	1939
Media type	print (hardcover)
Pages	260 pp
ISBN	NA
OCLC	57759048

Gadsby: Champion of Youth is a 1939 novel by Ernest Vincent Wright. The plot revolves around the fictional city Branton Hills, primarily dealing with the transformation, through youth's vigor, of the moribund and slothful community. The story's protagonist is a fifty-year old man named John Gadsby; he calls upon the youth of Branton Hills to help him bring activity and vitality back to the town.

The novel is most famous for a letter it omits; written as a lipogram, it purposefully does not use "e" in any word. It inspired other authors to write lipogrammatic books, including Georges Perec's famous novel A Void.

Contents 1 Plot introduction 2 Plot summary 3 Characters 4 Lipogrammatic quality 5 Composition and publication 6 Criticism and acclaim 7 Footnotes 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Plot introduction

The novel is written from the point of view of an anonymous narrator, who continuously complains about his poor writing and frequent circumlocution—using many words to describe something simple. It can be surmised that the narrator is actually Wright, a Californian from Boston.^{[citation needed]} This is shown with the narrator's allusion to Wright's own nonlipogrammatic introduction:

“	(Now, naturally, in writing such a story as this, with its conditions as laid down in its Introduction, it is not surprising that an occasional "rough spot" in composition is found. So I trust that a critical public will hold constantly in mind that I am voluntarily avoiding words containing that symbol which is, by far, of most common inclusion in writing our Anglo-Saxon as it is, today. Many of our most common words cannot show; so I must adopt synonyms; and so twist a thought around as to say what I wish with as much clarity as I can.) So, now to go on with this odd contraption ....	”
—Gadsby, part 2[page needed]

Wright called his book a rollicking story of courtship and patriotism, a stand against liquor, and a portrayal of amusing political aspirations in a small growing town.^[1] It begins around the year 1906 and continues through World War I, Prohibition, and President Warren G. Harding's administration.

[edit] Plot summary

John Gadsby, a thoughtful and progressive man, is surprised to find that his town of Branton Hills is sinking into sloth. His solution is to look to the city's young people and form an "Organization of Youth" to spur transformation and convince local business owners to fund institutions such as a library, a park, and a bandstand. Against occasional opposition (such as from cantankerous councilman Old Bill Simpkins), Gadsby and his youthful army transform Branton Hills from a stagnant municipality into a bustling, thriving city.^[2] The members of Gadsby's organization receive diplomas in honor of their work, and a grand show is put on for all.^[3]

Greatly motivated by Gadsby's optimism, the organization campaigns for original civic construction, and Gadsby soon becomes mayor.

If youth, throughout all history, 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.

—Gadsby, first paragraph^{[page needed]}

[edit] Characters

Gadsby portrays many of Branton Hills' 60,000 residents. Many characters in the story marry during the narrative—and usually quickly, "thanks to rascally 'Dan Cupid'".^[4]

• John Gadsby: a family man and "loyal churchman" of "around fifty," with four children (two boys, two girls). He forms an "Organization of Youth" to aid the stagnating town of Branton Hills.
• Julius (natural historian) and Mary Antor Gadsby (Salvation Army girl)
• William "Bill" (tailor) and Lucy Donaldson Gadsby (trio vocalist)
• Addison Gadsby (baby)
• Frank and Nancy Gadsby Morgan (radio station staff)
• Lillian Morgan (child)
• John "Johnny" (organist) and Kathlyn "Kathy" Gadsby Smith (biologist)
• Councilman and Madam Antor (drunkards)
• Norman Antor (youth coach)
• Tom Donaldson (patrolman)
• Tom Young (councilman)
• Paul (odd jobs man) and Sarah Young Johnson (night school solicitor)
• Bill (grouchy councilman) and Nina Adams Simpkins (widow of Irving Adams)
• Harold (aviator) and Virginia Adams Thompson (trio vocalist)
• Patricia Thompson (baby)
• Lady Sally Standish (rich animal rights activist)
• Arthur "Art" (soapbox orator) and Priscilla Standish Rankin (night school solicitor)
• Anna (Arthur's aunt) and four orphan Rankins (Arthur's siblings)
• Parson Brown (pastor)
• Tom Wilkins (doctor)
• Clancy and Dowd (night patrol)
• Old Man Flanagan and Old Lady Flanagan (Irish townsfolk)
• Marian Hopkins (funds solicitor)
• Pat Ryan (railwayman)
• Councilman Banks (councilman)
• Allan Banks (funds solicitor)
• Tony Bandamita (Italian councilman)
• Doris Johnson (trio vocalist)
• Mayor Brown (prior mayor)
• Miss Chapman (cook)
• Mary (girl with puppy)
• Harry Grant (highway patrolman)
• John Allison, Dorothy Fitts, Cora Grant, John Hamilton, Oscar Knott, William Snow, Abigail Worthington (additional youths)

Branton Hills's radio station is KBH, from west-of-the-Mississippi River radio call sign "K", plus the initial letters of "Branton Hills". Broadway, a main highway, runs through its financial district.

[edit] Lipogrammatic quality

Gadsby is famous for being written as a lipogram; for all of its 50,110 words,^[5] it avoids words that contain the letter "e".^[6] In spite of these constraints, the novel remains grammatically correct. The introduction explains that Wright's primary difficulty was avoiding the "-ed" suffix for past tense verbs; the only ways he could write them were to use ablauts (sing, sang, sung), modal auxiliary forms, and a short list of participles. Scarcity of word choice also drastically limited discussion involving quantities, pronouns, and many common words; Wright lamented his inability to use any number from seven to twenty-nine.^[1] Word Ways, a linguistics journal, stated that Wright's vocabulary could contain only about half of Kucera and Francis's Brown Corpus, a computational analysis that lists common words. However, by using the lipogram with such tight constraints, Wright restricted himself to one-sixth that list.^[7]

Wright uses abbreviations on occasion, but as he explains in the introduction, only if a full form is similarly lipogrammatic. Examples include "Dr.", "P.S.", and "T.N.T.". He avoids abbreviations like Mr. or Mrs. that, when expanded, would contain the letter "e".

Wright avoided spelling words differently just to avoid the letter E. This standard held for common contractions, including "ain't" (is not), "atta" (that a), and "dunno" (do not know). It was also upheld for non-standard forms by an Irishwoman ("shmokin'" for "smoking"), an Italian ("buncha" for "bunch of"), and a young vagrant ("brung" for "brought"). Wright's word choices also included such long words as "dissatisfaction", "hospitalization", or "philosophically". Wright also turned famous sayings into lipogrammatic form, such as "Music truly hath charms to calm a wild bosom", and "A charming thing is a joy always".^[4]

[edit] Composition and publication

Wright was motivated to write Gadsby after noticing a four-stanza lipogram in print that had won significant acclamation. He balked at claims that such a composition's style and grammar could not flow smoothly.^[8] He wrote that "this story was written, not through any attempt to attain literary merit, but due to a somewhat balky nature, caused by hearing it so constantly claimed that 'it can’t be done; for you cannot say anything at all without using E, and make smooth continuity, with perfectly grammatical construction—' so ‘twas said." In initial drafts, Frank Morgan was originally cast as "Bob": "First 'Bob' was Wright's romantic swain, but a kibitzing companion said Bob was short for a word containing a taboo symbol, so it is 'Frank' now, not Bob".^[9] Wright found it "particularly annoying" that "almost through a long paragraph you can find no words ... and must go way back and start" from scratch, as if "stuck" in a hand of cards. Starting his manuscript in longhand, Wright brought it to fruition through manual typing—but "blacking",^[10] or tying down, the "E type-bar of the typewriter" with string, so as to forbid nonlipogrammatic words that "might slip in ... and many did try to do so."^[1]

In autumn 1930, while Wright was living near Tampa, Florida, he told a local newspaper columnist about his work in producing an initial lipogrammatic draft. By his own account, Wright had at that point written a long, grammatical, flowing story, without any abnormally short phrasing or implicit missing idioms; he did not wish to share his manuscript, but had told his story to a handful of fans, for whom it was without rival in its bulk and in its clarity of lipogrammatic composition. Wright thought that his local daily might want to sponsor a lipogram contest by proposing a 250-dollar award ("if you think you can outdo ... a man of 60") in order to inspire thousands of writers to work under such constraints. (In fact, only at that dollar amount was Wright willing to risk his own story, worrying vocally about "[losing] all control of it and it is worth fully that.") But The Evening Independent said "that it was hardly worth" fronting a high capital award for such a poor opportunity, and did not follow through on his proposal, anticipating a scarcity of rival contributions.^[10]

Starting his final draft of Gadsby: Champion of Youth in 1936 during almost six months at a California military nursing home, Wright took thirty months to locate a publishing firm. Finally choosing vanity press Wetzel Publishing Co., Wright saw his manuscript into its first run of author drafts. Rumors of his dying within hours of his book's publication are unfounded; a print copy exists with an August inscription, two months prior to Wright's passing away.^[11] Gadsby was his fourth and final book.^[4] Most of the novel's printing run was lost in a printing-plant fire; a public library microform's proof copy informs most printings today, such as the Amazon.com softback. Accordingly, an original hardcover is today worth up to four thousand dollars.^[11]

[edit] Criticism and acclaim

Upon Gadsby's publication, it was heralded as being "amazingly smooth. No halting parts. A continuity of plot and almost classic clarity obtains".^[12] One critic in particular wrote that "On and on it flows. No shortcuts of words on phrasing is found, which in full would contain taboo symbols".^[13] The novel's plot, however, was found by some to be "languorous", and its quality both "lofty ("It is an odd kink of humanity which cannot find any valuation in spots of natural glory") and rambunctious ("Books!! Pooh! Maps! BAH!!")".^[4] Although authors awarded Jay Gatsby the honor of being the most famous fictional character,^[4] journalists jokingly mentioned Wright's circumlocutory stylings: "Lipogram aficionados—folks who lash words and (alas!) brains so as to omit particular symbols—did in fact gasp, saying, 'Hold that ringing communication tool for a bit! What about J. Gadsby?'" said a typical column.^[4] David Crystal, host of BBC Radio 4's linguistics program English Now, compared Gadsby favorably to The Cat in the Hat,^[14] calling it a "most ambitious work", painting a social portrait contrasting starkly with that of its famous inspiration, The Great Gatsby.^[15]

La Disparition (in translation, A Void) is a similarly lipogrammatic book, arguably taking inspiration from Gadsby;^[16] the French novel not only omits the letter "e" in its entirety, but the work is also 50,000 words long.^[11] Its author, Georges Perec, was drawn to Wright's book by a friend of his in Oulipo, a multinational constrained writing group.^[17] Wright's non-critical success with Gadsby served as a warning for Perec, in that he was aware that publication of such a work "was taking a risk" of finishing up "with nothing [but] a Gadsby".^[18] As a nod to Wright, La Disparation contains an Oxford don and Auctor Honoris Causa known as "Lord Gadsby V. Wright",^[19] a "grand anglais savant" and tutor to protagonist Anton Voyl, or Vowl; a composition of Voyl's is actually a quotation from Gadsby.^[4] In addition to Perec, aspiring lipogrammatists still point to Gadsby as an inspiration today.^[20] Douglas Hofstadter's book Le Ton beau de Marot quotes parts of Gadsby for illustration;^[21] writing "occasionally lipogrammatically", Hofstadter also wrote a thousand-word "autolipography", or lipogrammatic autobiography, published by Stanford University.^[22]

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] References

• Abish, Walter (March 12, 1995), "Vanishing Act. Review of A Void", The Washington Post: X11, http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-824926.html, "The history of the lipogram dates back to the ancient Greeks. Its many more recent practitioners include Mallarme, Rimbaud, Thomas Hood and an American, Ernest Vincent Wright, who omitted the letter "e" from his novel Gadsby, published in 1939. Indeed, Wright may have served as a model for Perec, for he is referred to a number of times in A Void as "The Boss" to highlight his significance." .
• Baldick, Chris (2004), "Lipogram", The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (2nd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0198608837, http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1O56-lipogram.html .
• Bellamy, Francis Rufus (March 1936), "Glancing Through", Fiction Parade and Golden Book Magazine 2 (5): 62, http://books.google.com/books?id=hVNZAAAAIAAJ&q=gadsby&pgis=1 .
• Bellos, David (1993), Georges Perec: A Life in Words in Words: A Biography, ISBN 978-0879239800, http://books.google.com/books?id=hxKxoGAuEgcC&pg=RA1-PA399&sig=ACfU3U2URyv5rycNERdSDTSQj0oHIfINCg#PRA1-PA399,M1 .
• Bookride (2007), "Gadsby. A Story of Over 50.000 Words Without Using the Letter E. 1939", Bookride, http://www.bookride.com/2007/02/gadsby-story-of-over-50000-words_24.html, retrieved on 2008-11-04 .
• Burton, Walt (March 25, 1937), "Fifty Thousand Words Minus", Oshkosh Daily, http://www.newspaperarchive.com/LandingPage.aspx?type=glpnews&search=%22wright%2066%20sat%20down%22&img=\\na0014\1347132\8899981_clean.html, "Publication of a composition without a common fifth symbol and acclaim of it as most odd got him to thinking. And so Wright got to it writing .... It was difficult at first. Most nouns would not do. 'Just try it,' Wright said, grinning and pulling at gray hairs of his trim, triangular growth on his chin. Four months and 30 days it took to do it all .... Writing this way is a good thing for an insomnia victim to try." .
• Colman, Andrew M. (2001), "Lipogram", A Dictionary of Psychology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0192800237, http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1O87-lipogram.html .
• Crystal, David (1988), The English Language, London: Penguin, ISBN 978-0140227307, http://books.google.com/books?id=kbd4AAAAIAAJ&q=gadsby&pgis=1 .
• Crystal, David (2001), Language Play, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ISBN 978-0226122052, http://books.google.com/books?id=yTgi2Kn5VBIC&pg=PA63&sig=ACfU3U37rDqCoGsokIlOxv8BJS0jELMkig .
• Eckler, Albert Ross, ed. (1986), Names and Games: Onomastics and Recreational Linguistics: An Anthology of 99 Articles Published in Word Ways, the Journal of Recreational Linguistics from February 1968 to August 1985, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, ISBN 978-0819153500, http://books.google.com/books?id=Lk1iAAAAMAAJ&q=gadsby .
• Grambs, David (1985), Literary Companion Dictionary: Words about Words, Routledge, ISBN 978-0710200525, http://books.google.com/books?id=PUYOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA86&sig=ACfU3U0iLV1h_nC4iAW0vSAyP2_dJ3c20A#PPA86,M1 .
• Gross, Ronald; Murphy, Judith (1964), The Revolution in the Schools, Harcourt, Brace & World, OCLC 177549, http://books.google.com/books?id=y-shAAAAMAAJ&q=gadsby&pgis=1 .
• Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1998), Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language, Perseus Books Group, ISBN 9780465086450, http://books.google.com/books?id=btIDAAAACAAJ .
• Hofstadter, Douglas R. (2006), Lipogrammatic Autobiography ... or ... Autobiographical Lipogram, Stanford, http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/hofstadter/autolipography.html, retrieved on 2008-11-04 .
• Kitson, Trevor (May 24, 2006), "It Isn't Easy", Manawatu Standard, http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-125672386.html, "A piece of writing such as this is known as a lipogram (from the Greek for "missing a letter"). I was prompted to try it by seeing the book of over 50,000 E-less words called Gadsby written by Ernest Vincent Wright in 1939 (strange he didn't change his name to something without "E"). I found it hard enough doing the 220 words above, so Gadsby is certainly a monumental achievement. However, I must say that the book leaves me in a state of non-grippedness (to quote Dave Lister from Red Dwarf). It seems extraordinarily twee (not that it uses that word, of course) and mostly about all-American kids going to church and getting married." 
• Lederer, Richard (1998), The Word Circus: a Letter-Perfect Book, Springfield: Merriam-Webster, ISBN 978-0877793540 
• Park, Ed (August 6, 2002), "Egadsby! Ernest Vincent Wright's Machine Dreams", The Village Voice, http://www.villagevoice.com/arts/0232,171103,37208,12.html .
• Salomon, David (2004), Data Compression: The Complete Reference (3rd ed.), Springer, ISBN 978-0387406978, http://books.google.com/books?id=FlWjiShUst0C&pg=PA135&sig=ACfU3U3ST8EF-JLNv0RtK6pwkEaZ1PLN2A#PPA135,M1 .
• Staff (April 3, 1937), "The Rambler", The Evening Independent (St Petersburg, FL) 30 (130): 11, http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ivgLAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NFUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4308,839245, retrieved on 2008-11-04 .
• Sturrock, John (1999), The Word from Paris: Essays on Modern French Thinkers and Writers, Verso, ISBN 978-1859841631, http://books.google.com/books?id=VEp1NAmrpVcC&pg=PA195&sig=ACfU3U1Yk7GAJZnq0orRBGuY9J5VZa7EGQ#PPA195,M1 .
• Wright, Ernest Vincent (1939), Gadsby: A Story of 50,000 Words, Spineless Books, http://www.spinelessbooks.com/gadsby/index.html .

[edit] External links

• "Miscellany", Time, April 5, 1937, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,757557,00.html . Notification of Wright finishing Gadsby at 66.