Literary Quiz

[Newby]

Is anybody out there doing the Sunday Times / Faber Literary Quiz this year and, if so, would they like to pool information?

[phoenixxx]

I am sure mrs p is right - the picture looks about the right age for carey and although not his first publication he certainly wrote pure pleasure

[greatsage]

Also Pure Pleasure by Carey is published by... Faber, and also was originally a column in... The Sunday Times! Must be a chum, or at least a collegue of the quiz setter. So I am coming around to Carey...

[greatsage]

Also phoenixxx can you explain why you think plants 2 is thistles?

[phoenixxx]

Can't remember at the moment but a well read colleague knew it straight away and had no doubt. Will post the answer next week iwhen I see her again.

[phoenixxx]

remembered! - plants 2 is thistles because it refers to a ted hughes poem of the same name.

[greatsage]

Excellent! 'Tis only a short poem and the relevant bits are:

"From the underground stain of a decayed Viking.
They are like pale hair and the gutturals of dialects.
Every one manages a plume of blood."

[greatsage]

Plants 3: More Poetry?

How about Robert Browning's Soliloquy from a Spanish Cloister? The narrator is not named but he gives a 'He-He!" over another monk's snapped lily.

[phoenixxx]

gary yokel suggested plants 3 was harriet herriton from forster's where angels fear to tread but it is so long since i read it that i wouldn't know.

[Newby]

hi. Been away a few days. Aren't we doing well? I have an idea that Tobacco one is from Vanity Fair: Arabella or Becky Sharpe... will check as soon as I can find my Project Gutenberg DVD

[tautau]

yes i make Tobacco 1 Becky Sharpe

[tautau]

Plants 1. Uncle Pumblechook. Great Expectations

[tautau]

Opera 4. Mrs Sparsit. Hard Times

[Aschenbach]

phoenixxx

Harriet Herriton from Where Angels Fear to Tread was definitely Opera 3 not Plants 3. I'm sure that's what was meant. So there's no conflict with Browning.

[phoenixxx]

Picking up on an earlier comment I think books 1 must be Miss Smilla.

[phoenixxx]

Photographs 6 must be PMTravers who wrote Mary Poppins

[tautau]

Books 1, I thought it was Hedda gabler.

[Newby]

I flicked through Miss Smilla and could find no reference to her burning a masterpiece( Mind you after half an hour of turgid prose I felt like burning it)

[phoenixxx]

Anyone any ideas on books 4? Sounds like Hardy (Jude?) - although I don't recall this incident.

[greatsage]

Phew! Go away for a few hours and the quiz is almost completed! Books 1 is def Hedda Gabbler

[Newby]

Tarpeian Rock one is The Marble Faun by Hawthorne