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[[quoteright:299:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/void456_7366.jpg]]
In 1968, a group of companions are looking for their odd insomniac pal, Anton Vowl, who is missing. Rooting through his flat for hints, said companions find his compulsion with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipogram lipograms]] and wordplay, but dismiss it as unimportant. But as this group sifts through his syntactical manipulations and find additional occasions of this constraint, individuals in this inquiry start to vanish...

Written by Georges Perec in 1969, it's [[DancingBear noted]] for being a book without the letter "e" which is the most common letter in the French language (and also the English language). Its original title was ''La Disparition'' (''The Disappearance'') and was translated into English by Gilbert Adair in 1994 and managed to keep the letter "e" from appearing at all. This translation has subsequently been heavily criticised by another of Perec's translators, so it could be that another version is in the offing.

One of the reasons Perec wrote the book is that both his parents went missing, presumed dead during World War 2 (his family were French Jews), and the official document confirming his mother's disappearance was headed ''Acte de Disparition''.

Later Perec penned ''Les Revenentes'' (''The Exeter Text'' in English) which doesn't have a single vowel in it ''except'' the letter "e".

!!Tropes:

%%* ArcNumber: Twenty-six. Usually within the twenty-six things, one is missing and it's always the fifth one.
%%* ChildByRape: [[spoiler:Subverted with Olga]].
* CrapsackWorld: The prologue goes into a lot of detail about France and how unpleasant it is.
%%* {{Cult}}: Othon Lippmann's cult, that Augustus was a part of.
* DeathByFallingOver: [[spoiler:Douglas]] after somebody cries out and he loses his footing.
* FramingDevice: Squaw telling everybody the story of Augustus telling Vowl about Douglas and Olga.
%%* GirlFriday: Garamond is referred to as a "Man Friday"
* GodIsInept: In Anton's story, after the Vatican is unable to elect a new Pope, God talks to them and tells them to get Aignan (who has put himself on an island) as he is the perfect image of a martyr and would be perfect. After some problems, several members of the Church get to the island except he isn't there.
--> "... proof that Our Lord is occasionally wrong, a notion that brings about a profound diminution of faith in His flock... So God, too, alas is only human."
%%* HeroicBastard: [[spoiler:Douglas Haig and Olga]].
%%* {{Hallucinations}}: Anton suffers from these.
%%* TheInsomniac: Anton, of the realistic variation.
* InWhichATropeIsDescribed: The summary of the majority of the chapters, though they are usually unimportant to the plot.
--> ''In which you will find a carp scornfully turning down a halva fit for a king''
* LargeHam: Subverted:
--> '''Aignan:''' "Now, now, Sphinx, no hamming it up."
* MacGuffin:
** Discussed in the chapter titled: ''Which, notwithstanding a kind of [=McGuffin=], has no ambition to rival [[Creator/AlfredHitchcock Hitchcock]]''
** Augustus' ring.
* {{Meaningful Name}}s: The friends' names refer to each of the vowels (including "y") except "e"
* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: Douglas Haig
* OneSteveLimit: There is the fictional character Aignan and Conson's son, Aignan. "Odd, that"
* OutWithABang: Inverted. [[spoiler:Olga's mother, Anastasia, is saved by having sex]]. Except [[spoiler:she's not really Olga's mother]].
* PostModernism: The characters are aware of the limitations in the language.
** [[Literature/MobyDick Ismail]] (a character from a book Anton is reading - possibly) becomes aware that he's in a film from the 1930s.
* RiddleOfTheSphinx: The fictional Aignan meets the Sphinx, though it asks a different question. It laments that it figured a kid would bring out its downfall.
* SelfImposedChallenge: A meta-example, obviously.
* ShoutOut: Many.
** [[Literature/OliverTwist "Food, glorious food!"]]
* TitleDrop: In reference to the missing book in a collection.
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