Tuesday, November 11, 2003

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Am not really at a loose end, but I thought this was as good a time as any to set a quiz. This is on books and features opening lines, ending lines, reading between the lines and general phrases which should ideally start you thinking along the lines of "Hmm, where have I read that before ?". There is also a short story thrown in, by the way.

Off we go. I'm looking for the name of the book, unless specified otherwise


1. One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it - it was the black kitten's fault entirely

2. I can see by my watch, without taking my hand from the left grip of the cycle, that it is eight-thirty in the morning. The wind, even at sixty miles an hour, is warm and humid. When it's this hot and muggy at eight-thirty, I'm wondering what it's going to be like in the afternoon.

3. She gathered herself together. No one could describe the scorn of her expression or the contemptuous hatred she put into her answer.
"You men! You filthy, dirty pigs! You`re all the same, all of you. Pigs! Pigs!"
Dr. Macphail gasped. He understood

4. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

Madhav's note: Don't bother. I just threw that one in there since it was a lovely opening line. The real 4th question is the next

4. I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my ____

5. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

6. Madhav's note: This is the contents page of the book:

Prologue
Part I: The Marsten House
Ben (I)
Susan
The Lot
Danny Glick and Others
Ben (II)
The Lot (II)
Matt
Part II: The Emperor of Ice Cream
Ben (III)
Susan (II)
The Lot (III)
Ben (IV)
Mark
Father Callahan
Part III: The Deserted Village
The Lot (IV)
Ben and Mark
Epilogue


7. 1801-- I have just returned from a visit to my landlord -- the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with.

8. `This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer, `I never could get the hang of Thursdays.'

9. Madhav's note: Getting the book here might be tough. Just give me the name of the author:
I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

10. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.


Comments will be screened, by the way. The screen will be lifted after I unveil the answers. Kindly excuse.

[Update]Googling for answers is of course, frowned upon. Whats the point of a quiz if you google ? [/Update]

13 comments:

  1. 1. Thru the looking glass
    2. ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE!!!!!!!!!! (WOOOOOHOOOOOOOO..JOLLY GOOD CHOICE=)))
    3.dunno.
    4.umm..Lolita? (sounds bloody pedophilic)
    5.Awww.... One 100 years of solitude.. I will so remember this book as much as love in the time of cholera
    6.dunno
    7.Wuthering Heights.. HEATHCLIFF IS THE SOLITARY NEIGHBOUR!
    8.Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
    9.Raymond Chandler? I forgot the book though. I thought it was a kickass intro but i dunno why i put the book back on the shelf.
    10. Dunno.. the Bible? on account of the word smite..although it's probably far off.


    Ok. that's all I know. Though I really would like to know the person who got it all WITHOUT doing a google search!
    Post more! post more!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You should do this more often,in fact, I think I'll do one myself soon. Perhaps on movies.

    I could only spot:
    Zen & the art of M.cycle Maintenance(2), One Hundred Years... (5), THHGTTG(8).

    ReplyDelete
  3. 1. Through the looking glass
    2. Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenence
    3. Altogether (?). Somerset Maugham for sure.
    4. Lolita. (You trickster!)
    5. 100 years of solitude
    6. Salem's lot (?) not v sure. I am going by Ben, The lot and Marsten house.
    7. Wuthering heights

    8. Hitchhikers guide
    9. No clue :(
    10. Pilgrim's progress? A really wild guess

    This was fun! Thanx for putting this up.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Most(read all) drew a blank from me - #2, however has been frustrating me since morning, esp. the "When it's this hot and muggy at eight-thirty" bit - and yes, I have it :D

    Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance!

    ReplyDelete
  5. 1. Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
    2. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
    3. Rain by W. Somerset Maugham
    4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
    4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
    5. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
    6. Salem's Lot by Stephen King
    7. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
    8. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
    9. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
    10. Bible (King James Version) - Malachi 4:6

    ReplyDelete
  6. 5 -> One hundred years of Solitude.
    2, 7 and 9 seem darn familiar. But... But....

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ah.
    I shall answer 6 first. Salem's Lot. The King.

    I hate myself for not remembering Q1.
    Q3 was an old chestnut from Quiz Mountain, also one of the questions in my first college cul-fest quiz. Somerset Maugham. but i forget the short story.
    Q4. Lo.Lee.Ta.Last.Lines. :)
    Q7. Wuthering Heights.
    Q8. H2G2.
    Q9. It's either Hammett or Chandler. I go with Chandler.

    I suck. :(

    ReplyDelete
  8. Random thought: good ones. Some are famous as questions, but good ones

    1. Through the looking glass
    2. Zen and the art of Luna maintainence
    3. Tess of the de'Aurbvilles??
    4. Hannibal?!?
    5. One hundred years of solitude ?!?
    6. Ben Bova?
    7. Heart of Darkness ..?!?
    8. Bah, the title. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
    9. Has to be Rayond Chandler, book ... no clue!
    10. Suspect Issac Asimov... Robot Series?

    ReplyDelete
  9. 7. sounds like Crime and Punishment, but I don't think it is.

    8. is, of course, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the book, not the series. It is said after Arthur has been extracted from the mud in front of the bulldozer trying to knock down his house in order to build a bypass, and just before he is transported onto a ship of the Vogon Constructor Fleet destroying the Earth in order to build a bypass.

    ReplyDelete
  10. > 1. One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had

    Nice and easy one - Alice through the Looking Glass

    > 2. I can see by my watch, without taking my hand from
    > the left grip of the cycle, that it is eight-thirty in

    Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance

    > "You men! You filthy, dirty pigs! You`re all the same
    >, all of you. Pigs! Pigs!"
    > Dr. Macphail gasped. He understood

    Rain, W.Somerset Maugham

    > 4. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin,

    yeah, nice line

    > 4. I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of

    Again... Lolita

    > 5. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad,
    > Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant
    > afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

    One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

    > Part I: The Marsten House
    > Ben (I)

    What a lousy turkey this one is. One of stephen king's worse ones ... The Lot or something.

    > 7. 1801-- I have just returned from a visit to my
    > landlord -- the solitary neighbor that I shall be
    > troubled with.

    Wuthering Heights

    > 8. `This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself,
    > sinking low over his beer, `I never could get the hang
    > of Thursdays.'

    Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

    > everything the well-dressed private detective ought
    > to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

    Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep"

    > 10. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to
    > the children, and the heart of the children to their
    > fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

    With all that smite stuff in there, I'd guess the old testament somewhere.

    -srs

    ReplyDelete
  11. 1. Through the Looking Glass.
    2. Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
    3. Dunno.
    4. Lolita ;-)
    5. One Hundred Years of Solitude.
    6. Dunno.
    7. Dunno. (Definitely not Dickens)
    8. HHGttG.
    9. Raymond Chandler. (The Big Sleep???)
    10. Song of Solomon???

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hmm, toughie but nicey. :) I know I will get only a
    couple of them but like Syed Kirmani once told me
    (anda couple of hundred others, there have to be losers otherwise the winners win is meaningless. :)

    1. One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it - it was the black kitten's fault entirely

    Through the looking glass - Lewis Carroll.

    2. I can see by my watch, without taking my hand from the left grip of the cycle, that it is eight-thirty in the morning. The wind, even at sixty miles an hour, is warm and humid. When it's this hot and muggy at eight-thirty, I'm wondering what it's going to be like in the afternoon.

    Something by Grahame(sp?) Greene


    5. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

    100 years of solitude

    7. 1801-- I have just returned from a visit to my landlord -- the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with.

    Stoker's Dracula?

    8. `This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer, `I never could get the hang of Thursdays.'

    9. Madhav's note: Getting the book here might be tough. Just give me the name of the author:
    I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

    Hadley Chase?


    Comments will be screened, by the way. The screen will be lifted after I unveil the answers. Kindly excuse.

    Thank you for the quiz. I had fun! Awaiting the results.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Panicky me only got 8=F(42)

    ReplyDelete