Wednesday, November 5, 2008

The Thursday Quiz LX

The Thursday Quiz!

The Thursday Quiz is an "Is It or Isn't It" game. From the list of twelve items, your job is to determine whether each IS or ISN'T a true example of the week's category.

Remember always the ultimate authority on the matter:

No research, Googling, Wikiing, or use of reference books. The Thursday Quiz is a POP quiz. Violators will emerge almost entirely intact at the bottom of a glacier, centuries hence.
This Week's Category has a certain finality!

Last Lines

Below are twelve concluding lines from twelve books you may have read. Which ones are attributed to the correct novel?

1. All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque: I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

2. Catch-22, Joseph Heller: The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off.

3.Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger: Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.

4. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky: yes I said yes I will Yes.

5. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell: Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.

6. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad: So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

7. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte: Daily He announces more distinctly, ‘Surely I come quickly!’ and hourly I more eagerly respond, ‘Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!’

8. Lady Chatterley's Lover, D.H. Lawrence: L--d! said my mother, what is all this story about?——A COCK and a BULL, said Yorick——And one of the best of its kind I ever heard.

9. Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs: The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

10. Rabbit, Run, John Updike: But that is the beginning of a new story - the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.

11. The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov: His ravaged memory quiets down, and no one will trouble the professor until the next full moon: neither the noseless murderer of Gestas, nor the cruel fifth procurator of Judea, the knight Pontius Pilate.

12. Ulysses, James Joyce: He drew a deep breath. “Well, I’m back,” he said.


Post your answers in the comments.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

1 / Y
2 / N
3 / Y
4 / N
5 / Y
6 / Y
7 / Y
8 / N
9 / N
10 / Y
11 / Y
12 / Y

Not sure what you're referring to when you say the ultimate authority...the rules are the authority?

Cartophiliac said...

Mostly guessing:

1. isn't
2. isn't
3. isn't
4. is
5. is
6. is
7. isn't
8. isn't
9. is
10. is
11. is
12. is

d said...

1y, 2n, 3y, 4y, 5n, 6y, 7n, 8n, 9n, 10y, 11y, 12y

i'm sure i got all of those wrong.

Elizabeth said...

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. No (sounds like Emily Dickenson, actually)
5. Yes
6. Yes. No? I don't know. I'll stick with Yes.
7. Yes
8. No (Tristam Shandy?, some English dude)
9. No (Animal Farm, Orwell)
10. Yes
11. Yes
12. No (Return of the King, Tolkein)

Guess I have to start reading some classics - I've never read 1, 6, 9, 10, 11, or 12 (though I tried 12), and 2,3,4 were so long ago ...

DrSchnell said...

1. yes
2. yes
3. yes
4. no
5. yes
6. no - that's Gatsby
7. Isn't that Debbie Does Dallas? I say nope.
8. No
9. no that's Animal Farm
10. Ah, a native of Berks County, PA. Haven't read the book though How about yes?
11. no
12. sure, why not?

Rebel said...

1 no idea... sure
2 mmm... I don't think so.
3 sounds angsty and immature - sure
4 no idea... nope
5 Yes... and I really wish I had this book with me. It feels wrong not to have this nearby.
6 sure
7 um... no
8 sure
9 no... thats Animal Farm
10 sure
11 sure
12 nope

Rebel said...

1 no idea... sure
2 mmm... I don't think so.
3 sounds angsty and immature - sure
4 no idea... nope
5 Yes... and I really wish I had this book with me. It feels wrong not to have this nearby.
6 sure
7 um... no
8 sure
9 no... thats Animal Farm
10 sure
11 sure
12 nope

Anonymous said...

1 heath and hare-bells, I should know this one. . . no
2 uh, yes
3 sounds good. yes
4 decidedly not! Ulysses
5 sure
6 maddeningly familiar. no
7 no
8 no! Tristram Shandy
9 sounds like Animal Farm to me. no
10 he's running when it ends. . .
I think yes
11 yes
12 ah, the secret shared identity of Sam Gamgee and Leopold Bloom. no

blythe said...

dude, why can't this be over the ouvre of such literary heavyweights as rl stine, candace bushnell, robert b. parker, and a one jk rowling? or also perhaps stan and jan berenstein, then i would win.

Rex Parker said...

3
5
6
7
10
11

=

yes

Almost all guesses!

rp

MJ said...

1. mmm, isn't?
2. isn't?
3. no idea, is?
4. isn't?
5. is?
6. is?
7. isn't, i think
8. isn't?
9. is?
10. is?
11. isn't?
12. is?
ufff, i must really find some time to read

Dan Nolan said...

Great quiz idea. Out of respect for the idea, I will abstain. Or out of respect for my cowardly ignorance. You decide.

Jenners said...

1. Is
2. Isn't
3. Is
4. Isn't
5. Is
6. Is
7. Isn't
8. Isn't
9. Is
10. Isn't
11. Is
12. Isn't

This was really guesswork. Feel very unliterate. I think I could do better with first lines.

McGuff said...

1. No?
2. Yes
3. yes
4. No - Joyce
5. Yes
6. No - Fitzgerald

7. Yes
8. Guessing yes - to make it 6y and 6n
9. No - Orwell
10. No - Russian?
11. Yes
12. No. that would be 4 too many punctuation marks than seen in the last 40-50 pages or so, which could be considered the last line.

Michael5000 said...

Oops. Got carried away with the Quiz-making fun again, and made it a bit tough. But I'm sure everyone had a great time with it. Right? Right?

Sigh...

1. NOT All Quiet on the Western Front; rather, it's Wuthering Heights.

2. YES, Catch-22.

3. YES, Catcher.

4. NOT Crime and Punishment, but rather Molly getting friskily nostalgic at the end of Ulysses.

5. YES, Gone With the Wind.

6. NO, I was tricksy, that was Gatsby.

7. YES, that really is Jane Eyre.

8. NOT Lady Chatterley, but rather Tristram Shandy.

9. NOT Naked Lunch, but Animal Farm.

10. NOT Rabbit, Run, which if I remember right ends with the sentence "Run!" It's Crime and Punishment.

11. YES, Master and Margarita.

12. NOT Ulysses, but the Lord of the Ring trilogy. Same diff.

Michael5000 said...

...and in the final Quiz of season six, it's Phineas with the Gold Star. The TQLX is Phineas' 5th, putting him in a tie for second in all-time Gold Star ownership. With 15 Stars overall, he's in fifth spot on the all-time leaderboard.

Mrs.5000 takes her ninth Silver Star, continuing to dominate that category. With 20 total Stars, she remains in second on the leaderboard.

Rex Parker takes home his sixth Blue Star, which ties him for first in that Star category. With 23 Stars in his trophy case, Rex keeps the top spot on the leaderboard for an unprecidented, well, 60th week.

Michael5000 said...

@karma: Not sure what I was refering to either. I'm sure it wasn't important.

@Elizabeth: Eh. You start reading the classics and next thing you know I'm doing John Grisham or something.

@Blythe: Actually, this crowd would give you pretty good game with those authors too. We have a broad range of diverse dorkinesses in this tent.

@Dan: I like the way you abstain.

@Jenners: Welcome to the show! To test your first lines theory, may I recommend The Thursday Quiz XII?

@Phineas: I don't know if anyone has ever noticed this, but I think I've done a 6 & 6 Quiz maybe twice. For some reason, I prefer having an imbalance.

McGuff said...

It helped having read 9 of the 12, several multiple times, as well as most of the fakes. In fact, having read the entirety of Joyce, Conrad, Heller, Burroughs, Orwell and Fitzgerald and a good dose of Updike made the game one of simply recognizing style, not content. Thanks to the M5K reading list for making Bulgakov a gimme. It wouldn't have been last year. You'll never pitch so well into my wheelhouse again.

M5: I know you rarely go 6/6, but when there are 2-3 guesses involved it's a place I prefer to land if the quesses are somewhat equally half-informed.