Literary Quiz - July/August 2003

Do you know what famous book the following passage is taken from? If you can figure out the book title and author, you will be entered to WIN a copy of Selected Short Stories of John O'Hara, courtesy of Modern Library. [About this Prize]

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

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Answers to Previous Literary Quizzes

June/July
"We were studying when the headmaster came in, followed by a new boy, not yet wearing a school uniform, and a monitor carrying a large desk. Those of us who had been sleeping awoke, and we all stood up as if we had been interrupted in our work. The headmaster motioned to us to sit down again; then, turning toward the teacher, he said in a low voice, 'Monsieur Roger, here is a student I'm placing in your charge...'"

Answer: Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert

May/June
"Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the members of their family and household, were painfully conscious of it."

Answer: Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Congratulations to our winners for this month: Amelia from New York, NY; Jenny from Brooklyn, NY; David from Albuquerque, NM

April/May
"If I have told you these details about the asteroid, and made a note of its number for you, it is on account of the grown-ups and their ways. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?" Instead, they demand: "How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?" Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him."

Answer: The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Congratulations to our winners for this month: Nancy from Oshawa, ON; Sandra from Dartmouth, NS; Gail from Las Vegas, NV

March/April
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. At that time Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs. The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point. Every year during the month of March a family of ragged gypsies would set up their tents near the village, and with a great uproar of pipes and kettledrums they would display new inventions."

Answer: One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Congratulations to our winners for this month: Julie from Elmira, NY; Ralph from Miami Shores, FL; Ari from Denver, CO

February/March
"In the Morning I saw to my great Surprise the Ship had floated with the high Tide, and was driven on Shore again much nearer the Island, which as it was some Comfort on one hand, for seeing her sit upright, and not broken to Pieces, I hop'd, if the Wind abated, I might get on board, and get some Food and Necessaries out of her for my Relief; so on the other hand, it renew'd my Grief at the Loss of my Comrades, who I imagin'd if we had all staid on board might have sav'd the Ship, or at least that they would not have been all drown'd as they were; and that had the Men been sav'd, we might perhaps have built us a Boat out of the Ruins of the Ship, to have carried us to some other Part of the World."

Answer: Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
Congratulations to our winners for this month: Keith from Houston, TX; Grace from Clarksville, VA; Marcus from Bonners Ferry, ID

January/February
"As soon as the light in the bedroom went out there was a stirring and fluttering all through the farm buildings. Word had gone round during the day that old Major, the prize Middle White boar, had a strange dream on the previous night and wished to communicate it to the other animals. It had been agreed that they should all meet in the big barn as soon as Mr. Jones was safely out of the way."

Answer: Animal Farm, George Orwell
Congratulations to our winners for this month: Mary from Charlotte, VT; Jill from Camp Douglas, WI; Bob from Morgantown, IN

December/January
"Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail."

Answer: A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
Congratulations to our winners for this month: Ruth from Edmonton, AB; Rod from LA, CA; Alan from Phoenix, AZ