Yes, another one that is perhaps more fun and, to fit the site, book-related. To commemorate the relaunch of the Oxford World Classics — they’re getting a fresh new design and everything! First heard about it on Bookslut — the OUP blog is posting a series of quizzes the answers to which will be posted on Friday. I’m dismal at it but maybe you could give it a go?
Section One: Their Daily Bread
1. The witch of the place presides over a rotten wedding feast.
2. His sweet tooth eats through a Wilkie Collins epic.
3. He fried his kidney in Dublin town.
4. She takes the credit for the boef en daube.
5. Her cupboard was full of jam tarts, lemon tarts, Spanish tarts and cheese-cakes.
Section Two: ‘It’s a hard-knock life’
1. Misselthwaite’s maid.
2. Raksha’s man-cub.
3. Discovered in a handbag at Victoria Station.
4. Would rather sail the Mississippi than paint a fence.
5. Left Kansas for emerald delights.
Section Three: Black and White and Read All Over
1. A seductive Mother Superior and a naïve with no vocation.
2. This cloistered anti-hero’s downfall is akin to Legion’s end.
3. An eighteenth-century reverend faces the trials of Job in Edenic England.
4. This almost-saint journeyed from Huntingdon to St Albans.
5. His saucy epic satires spite his regal Roman name.
Section Four: In the Wars
1. Russian epic retelling of the Napoleonic invasion.
2. The Wretched man the barricades in grande Paris.
3. Story of young Henry at Chancellorsville.
4. Led the invasion of Gallia and wrote about it.
5. A Prussian intellectual’s military manifesto.
Section Five: That’s Amore
1. Sanskrit text on life, love and spirituality.
2. Banned as obscene, it revolutionised the understanding of female sexuality.
3. Roman poet banished for his subject of adultery.
4. This Parisian’s deviance gave his name to unconventional proclivities.
5. Classic mother who murdered the progeny as the ultimate revenge.
Section Six: Neither Flesh, Fish, nor Fowl
1. An Italian puppet with greater ambitions.
2. This mad scientist’s creation begs for a female companion.
3. Has coffin, will travel.
4. This loch-dwelling mum seeks medieval revenge.
5. Gothic nocturnal female whose bloodlust stoked a later novel.
Keep an eye on the blog for the other two!
12 responses so far ↓
imani // April 23, 2008 at 10:28 am
Here are my pathetic attempts.
Section one #3 - something Joyce wrote
Section two #3 - Worthing in Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” (of course I knew this one)
#4 - Tom in Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer”
#5 - Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz”
Section five #1 - The Kamasutra? I kid, I kid. (Sort of. Is it?)
#3 - Ovid
#4 - Marquis de Sade
#5 - Medea
Section 6 #2 - Frankenstein’s creation in “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley
#3 - “Dracula” by Bram Stoker?
#4 - Grendel’s Mom?
#5 - Bertha Mason in “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte
That’s the best I can do!
Beepy // April 23, 2008 at 10:46 am
Let’s see what I can add:
Section 1
#1 Miss Haversham in Dicken’s “Great Expectations”
Section 2
#2 Not sure but I’d guess Mogli in “The Jungle Books” by Kipling
Section 4
#1 “War and Peace” by Tolstoy
#4 Julius Caesar
Section 5
#2 “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” by D.H.Lawrence, which, by the way, shocked me by endless repitition of “the C word.”
Section 6
#1 Pinnochio
Beepy // April 23, 2008 at 10:50 am
Is the answer to Section 4 #2 Jean Valjean from “Les Miserables”?
imani // April 23, 2008 at 11:42 am
I figured that one had to be Dumas or Hugo but I’ve yet to read either. And for that Section 5 book…I considered Lawrence as an answer but for some reason I stuck to the idea that it had to be some kind of feminist text — except that I couldn’t think of any that had been banned.
As for the Pinocchio answer — good one! I forgot that he was Italian. Also, for me puppets + literature = French Symbolists and I couldn’t shake the assumption to think of anything related to Italians.
Elizabeth // April 23, 2008 at 12:08 pm
1.3 - Leopold Bloom in Joyce’s Ulysses.
4.2 - A Tale of Two Cities?
4.3 - Red Badge of Courage?
4.5 - Something by Clauswitz?
imani // April 23, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Yes! I knew that one was Joyce but couldn’t figure if it was Ulysses or Fineggans Wake. Can’t confirm the rest for you. Haven’t read Dickens in any ages.
Btw, I’m dying to know what 3.1 (thanks for the neater version, Elizabeth) is. As soon as I find out I’ll check it out. I have an undeveloped thing for convent novels. (”Land of Spices” and “Paulina 1880″ — “The Italian” doesn’t really count for me, too silly.)
Dorothy W. // April 23, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Section 1.4 I’m pretty sure is Mrs. Ramsay from Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. 3.3 I think is Oliver Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield. I think that’s all I can add …
verbivore // April 24, 2008 at 12:42 am
3.1 is a toughie - would love to have known that one off the top of my head. hmmm
Does it say something about me that the monsters were the easiest?
Beepy // April 24, 2008 at 1:08 am
As for 3.1, has anyone read Diderot’s “The Nun”? I haven’t, but it just came to mind as a possibility.
imani // April 24, 2008 at 8:31 am
Thanks for the contributions, Dorothy. I would never have gotten those since I don’t know much details about them.
verbivore whatever it is applies to me too as those were the easiest for me to answer, as well.
Beepy ooo, I’ve never read it either but it sounds like something he would write, as the description doesn’t make the novel sound particularly pious.
Beepy // April 24, 2008 at 8:40 pm
After I posted, I checked it out on Amazon. It is “The Nun” and it has gone directly to the top of my reading list.
Thanks for posting this quiz. It’s a lot of fun.
imani // April 24, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Ha! You’re welcome and thank you for getting that confirmed. Jacques the Fatalist made me something of a Diderot fan.
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