Talk:Gadsby (novel)

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[edit] vote regarding lipogram

Is it strictly obligatory that this composition is a lipogram??? It's funny at first, but it's obvious that such things shouldn't stay on this wiki.

I think it's great!!! Nice work!!! Gkhan 11:28, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it's almost a lipogram, thanks to including Ernest Vincent and the letter 'e'. But I must say this is a minor fault. I also must say that this paragraph I just put on this Wiki is a lipogram, if you don't count what I put this way. — JIP | Talk 09:51, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There is no need to exclude the letter E. We are detailing a book. Not following a style from the book. Taylor 06:54, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Live a little. It's just a subtle clever joke that does nobody any harm. Jigglyman 21:41, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. And frankly, I didn't even notice that it was a lipogram until reading this page... richdiesal 20:35, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, doubly so. I suspected something was up when the article called a typewriter a 'typing contraption'. Heh. Keep up the good work! --T-Boy 21:59, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, once again. Clever and amusing for those who catch it; There's obviously no need for it, but unless someone plans on typing up a better, more informative article, what's the point in changing it? Telesque 18:40, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Mmm. I don't mind it, although it's probably not strictly in accord with WP policy. But I do think "Links Not In Wiki" is too conspicuously clumsy, and it's OK to apply our lipogram to just 'body' writing, and not to such captions. Robin Johnson 16:49, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I changed it to the somewhat inaccurate "citations". Superm401 | Talk 04:49, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

This should be moved to Gadsby (book). Novel has an e.--Cuchullain 06:00, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, keep it a lipogram. I didn't even notice! Nice work!!! Tempshill 19:49, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Not that I think that the issue is relevant anymore. --Kizor 19:16, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Voting for. I'm a fan of this approach. As a book that has utility strictly as a lipogram of significant girth, our writing stands to gain from not using such glyphs as lack in Gadsby. This would work to show its particular quality. Such portrayal would not wildly malign official policy, in my opinion. It is indubitably a fact that WP imparts much information, particularly math and physics, in ways that limit casual visitors' ability to absorb it, owing not only to difficult topics but also to using particular wordings and symbols. Why may not this composition contain a lipogram, so long as it truly imparts what our contributors can say? Is this lack of a particular symbol, or such wording as follows from this, such a bad hack that our contribution automatically has to qualify as substandard? Is it not akin to what I said about math and physics: applying a form common to this topic? That it also has artistic quality and honors Gadsby as a work of art should not, I think, disqualify this motion. Also, coming contributors can add to our work without following any lipographic notation; wordsmiths that want to polish our writing may do so if no information is lost this way. A bit of sophistication in carrying it out can also avoid a too rigid form, by not just choosing synonyms but using variant layouts, paraphrasing and colorful composition. This is not to say that visitors should find it hard to grasp it, only that it can qualify both as a lipogram and as a fitting composition for this collaboration. Zuiram 09:23, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Voting for. I support lipogrammaticity. Kudos to Zuiram, its champion. I know of no ban on "fun" nor any policy against it. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:59, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your laudation. As a majority is for this approach, I will try to find a wording for this composition that will maintain its clarity without straying from such constraints as laid down in my proposal. If I can do it, it will call for painstaking caution and many hours of work, I think, so do not count on having it on hand soon. My postings on this topic lack such quality as would avoid provoking disapproving contributors; a good wording calls for additional work, as this writing is non-trivial. Obviously, names and links will not follow such constraints as apply to its body, as this would impair visitors' ability to fully grasp it without difficulty. This also allows showing which glyph is not used in Gadsby. Any contributors that wish to aid in this composition can contact me via my account. Zuiram 07:53, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sales

Did the book sell any copies after its publication? Sales data and a contemporaneous review would be nice. Tempshill 19:49, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lipogram removed

It was fun while it lasted, but I just edited the article to remove the lipogram, for various reasons:

  • it isn't a very encyclopedic thing to do, and certainly not in keeping with house style;
  • there have already been the beginnings of edit wars in this article;
  • it was responsible for some serious ugliness in the article, and Plain English is a good thing;
  • the more information that gets put in to the article, the harder it will be to write, and we don't want to discourage expansion of the article.

If people want to see an example of a lipogram, they can follow the link to the novel itself. Robin Johnson 16:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Information should be communicated in an interesting way! I think it added significantly to the article that it wa a lipogram (seriously), as it illustrated the concept. The fact that it had a slightly different style that the rest of Wikipedia is no big deal. I say, bring it back. Thue | talk 17:26, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
Leave it delipogrammed because that seriously made the article very ungramatical. This is an encyclopedia, not a farmer's almanac (or whatever...it's 11:25 PM right now) — Ilyanep (Talk) 05:25, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I just reverted a revert by User:No Parking to attempt to get the lipogram in (which left 'typewriter' and 'accidentally' and 'key' in anyway.) I won't do this again myself, but please let's discuss it here before making this major change again. Robin Johnson 15:38, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright status of this work?

Can anyone confirm, or even point to some evidence that suggests, that this work is in the public domain now? If it is, I'd like to add it to Project Gutenberg. It definitely doesn't qualify under the "easy" public domain rule (meaning it was published after 1923), so the only chance is that the copyright lapsed before the rules were re-written in the Seventies. Anyone know for certain?

I can even provide a lead - Douglas Hofstadter excerpted sections of Gadsby in his 2004 book, "Le Ton beau de Marot", and I checked the "Acknowledgements" section in the back and there were no mention of copyright holders or permission. If the book was still under copyright, Hofstadter and Basic Books would've had to credit somebody, right? Just a thought...

Just because someone else is doing it usually isn't a good reason ;) — Ilyanep (Talk) 05:26, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I have a copy of Gadsby - actually a photocopy of the original edition, made for me by Cambridge University Library - and can confirm it is out of copyright, or at least was when they made the copy for me (in c.1991) - can't recall if the copyright period changed after then. It has the publication date in it so I'll look it up when I get a chance. Ben Finn 14:18, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lippograms Redux

I think it is rather sad that we cannot have a lippogrammatical version of this article. I don't think such a constraint necessarily means losing a great deal of clarity - and if this can be agreed upon, then it is rather humbug to force more vowels onto us. If the Ancient Hebrews did not need vowels (well, sort of), then I think we can do without the much-overrated epsilon.

Anyway, here is my attempt at it (copied-and-pasted from the main page, 23/10/06, and not without immense debts to the previous attempts):

GADSBY is a book by Ernest Vincent Wright, "A Story of Over 50,000 Words" dating from around 1939. It is famous for not using any word with an 'e' in it. Wright's book is a lipogram and (arguably) the most popularly-known occasion of an unusual sylistic constraint. Nor was this particular handicap without difficulty for Gadsby's author, who admits in his introduction to sticking down parts of his old Smith-Corona whilst typing it, so to avoid having any of his lipagrammatoi (or missing symbols) "slip in" to his writing - though still "many did try to do so!"

Synopsis

Gadsby's plot is an account of how its protagonist, John Gadsby, transforms his local town of Branton Hills into a bustling city by tapping into his own youthful vigour and capacity for original thought. Quoting from its first paragraph:

"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."

(This combination of odd punctuation, tortuous grammar, and arguably disjoint air carry on throughout). In addition to having to avoid common words (and particularly pronouns), Wright adds complications to his task by writing of the (uncontinuous) past, whilst also having to avoid constructions such as '-ed' and '-ve'; finally taking a still more valiant risk by writing about things that ordinarily contain 'e', such as a "Thanksgiving National Bird" or "an astonishing loaf of culinary art"...

A popular account has Wright dying in 1966, just days prior to his book going into print; though this is uncomfirmed [NB - sounds apocryphal, add a citation if not].

Gadsby was his last work. A similarly lipogrammatic book is Georges Perec's La Disparition (1969; trans. 1994 by Gilbert Adair as 'A Void').

[Well, there you are. Is this really substantially less clear than the current version, with 'e's and all? I would be interested to hear your comments; I hope you appreciate that I did not simply change the page as I saw fit without first discussing it here.] Dogbox 19:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I too think we should use a Lippogrammatic version - yes, it will be slightly less clear, but it will make the article much more interesting :). Thue | talk 15:43, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Change

You know what, I'm in a daring mood tonight so I'm going to change it to the lipogrammatic version and see if anyone complains. Dogbox 20:16, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm complaining. The lipogram makes the article harder to read and much harder to maintain - both completely against the goals of Wikipedia. It's just not part of encyclopedic reporting. Robin Johnson (talk) 23:11, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
It is kind of cool though. Robin Johnson (talk) 23:16, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
But you've missed several e's. Robin Johnson (talk) 12:14, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Where it would have been obviously ridiculous to avoid the letter 'e', like in the author's name or so on, I've left an 'e' in, of course. If you want to revert it back then I won't meddle any further. But as for encylopaedic reporting, surely 'easter eggs' appear in lots of resources like maps and so on, and its not like fiction is being presented as fact. See also http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=879. And as for maintenance: I really, really, doubt that much more will be said on the subject of Gadsby, I've never seen it in a bookshop or heard it mentioned for any reason other than its use of lipogrammatoi. And even if it is, then there's no flashing light saying "don't update this article unless you can play along with it".Dogbox 17:35, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
You have 'more' and a few 'the's. And 'unconfirmed', if that counts (notes like that shouldn't appear in article text anyway. Maybe I'll fix it.) Robin Johnson (talk) 18:13, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
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