Characters kept appearing and then disappearing and I wasn't ever sure if the "ants" were a metaphor for soldiers or not.

The story flows more freely and you find yourself feeling more at ease, in a familiar place—only to have that familiarity slowly taken from you and the unease setting back in, as you pass the halfway point, the process reverses, and you begin to lose letters again. Abishs Afrika, gebeutelt von kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen, Überbleibseln europäischer Kolonialherrschaft und den Versuchen des Transvestiten Queen Quat, den Kontinent orange zu streichen, durch den wir die zwielichtigen Protagonisten Alex und Allen sowie den Autor A. I'm not entirely sure what the story was about, except that it was some rather undefined travels through an unrealistic Africa. While the “geoglyphic” African landscape forms and crumbles, it is, among other things, attacked by an army of driver ants, invaded by Zanzibar, painted orange by the transvestite Queen Quat of Tanzania, and becomes a hunting ground for a pair of murderous jewel thieves tracking down their nymphomaniac moll.Throughout -- even as the book grows -- there is always the awareness that Africa is shrinking, vanishing. There is a lot of alliteration throughout the novel, which has to happen at the early and late parts of the book. It's a rather amazing feat to attempt and when I found the first word that didn't fit the pattern, I was crushed.

citation needed] One point of dispute is whether the failures to meet the constraint are intentional, and therefore potentially meaningful, or are simply editing mistakes.Alphabetical Africa, Walter Abish's delightful first novel, is an extraordinary linguistic tour de force, high comedy set in an imaginary dark continent that expands and contracts with ineluctable precision, as one by one the author adds the letters of the alphabet to his book, and then subtracts them. Change country: -Select- Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Azerbaijan Republic Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil British Virgin Islands Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Cape Verde Islands Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Cook Islands Costa Rica Cyprus Czech Republic Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) Fiji Finland Gabon Republic Gambia Georgia Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iraq Ireland Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macau Macedonia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Republic of Croatia Republic of the Congo Romania Rwanda Saint Helena Saint Kitts-Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines San Marino Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Korea Sri Lanka Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda United Arab Emirates United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City State Vietnam Virgin Islands (U. In chapter 2 he can use A and B words, and so on until the first and second Z chapters, when he is briefly unconstrained.

Post modern way of creative writing, this way could inspire, but also, I feel my imagination is as well constrained. A central figure is Queen Quat, but predictably -- indeed inevitably -- her presence is carefully circumscribed. Apparently it would be in “bad taste” if Govt published the report now w/out “concrete and solid next steps.The second C-chapter contains an impermissible I near the end of the first paragraph : "After considering all alternatives, I capture a couple crocodiles. Alphabetical Africa by Walter Abish is a language game which provides beauty and ugliness, story and non-story and make for a difficult read. As an admitted maximalist myself, Walter Abish’s Alphabetical Africa (1974) has come as an extremely rewarding reading experience that deals brilliantly with both experimentation and constraint (theoretical positions of omission/addition) equally in a way that uses a uniquely constructed set of limitations or patterns to achieve potentially new outcomes in artistic and literary possibility. It takes the child on an African safari of sorts, bringing animals alive in the text and illustrations, especially animals that are new or unfamiliar to the child/reader.