Trivia quiz for “July’s People” by Nadine Gordimer

Trivia Quiz for July’s People by Nadine Gordimer (1981): winner of the Nobel Prize

For West Seattle Classic Novels (and Movies) book club, 4/14/24

With answers below

Gordimer’s stark economy of style plunges readers directly into the action and keeps us there. Flashbacks and random radio news leave us wondering what is happening.

1. When? The novel is set in what period? Choose one.

a. During the Boer Wars (1880–1902), when Dutch and British settlers, in alliance with various Black African groups in the region, struggled for dominance over South Africa.

b. During World War I (1914-1918), when South Africans joined forces to expel German troops, and gained control of the former German colony now known as Namibia.

c. In the 1970s and 1980s, when internal guerrilla activity exploded in opposition to the apartheid policy of the ruling government.

d. In 1994, after South Africa’s first post-apartheid national elections and the adoption of a new constitution.

2. Who is July? And who are July’s people?  Choose one.           

a. July is a little girl accidentally left behind when her family flees their home; she is rescued by a Black family who become her “people.”

b. July is a “decently-paid and contented male servant” who invites his former master and his family to take shelter in his village during the violence.

c. July is a trans person and drag performer struggling with acceptance during the AIDS epidemic, and her “people” are you the audience.

3. Where? Where does the action take place? Choose one.

a. All over the African continent, from Tangiers and Casablanca, to Cairo and Pretoria.

b. Within the landlocked state of Lesotho, which is surrounded by South Africa.

c. Somewhere in South Africa, which is bordered by the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans to the South, to the North by the neighboring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe, and to the East and Northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini.

d.  In Johannesburg, London, and finally in Swansea, Wales, as the family flees their African home and finds shelter with relatives in Great Britain.

4. The “master.” Which one of the following describes Bamford Smales? Choose one.

a. Trained as an architect, he is a suburban home-owner with left-leaning liberal beliefs, who also owns a gun and a truck—which become his most prized possessions.

b. He is described as “upright, decent, and generous,” a leader of civil rights activism, and has many friends, especially among the Black shopkeepers who live near his home.

c. Although he is a husband and father of three, he is also a voyeur who spies on people for fun.

5. The “mistress.” What describes the profile of Maureen Smales? Choose one.

a. She is the daughter of Eugène Ney Terre’Blanche, an Afrikaner nationalist who founded and led the Afrikaner Resistance Movement, a white supremacist group.

b. Daughter of a shift-boss in a gold mine, she was born into wealth and privilege, and owns DeBeers shares inherited from her maternal grandfather.

c. Although her father, “Boss Harper,” ran his ranch with strict discipline, she was allowed to roam the land freely and was home-schooled by tutors from Johannesburg.

6. The other mistresses. Choose the one quote which does not come from July’s People.

a. “The sun rises, the moon sets; the money must come, the man must go. His wife had the power of a whingeing obstinacy, shying away and insisting.”

b. The singing of one woman is described as: “something pure, resonant, airy, winged… cascades of scales which would have defeated a nightingale.”

c. “They have money, let them go to their relatives, to other white people, if they’re in trouble: the old woman talked as the little party went through the bush.”

d. “When she was not actively working she was very old and still; she leaned with a twig in her hand and blew a faint glow in the grey as if it were her own life she were keeping just alight.”

7. The village and the bush: sensual highlights.  Choose one that is not from Gordimer.

a. “The vegetation fingered and touched; there were minute ticks that waited a whole season for the passing of an animal or human host.”

b. “The sun brought the steamy smell of urine-wet cloth from the bundles of baby on the mothers’ backs.”

c. “The mists of the night left a vivid freshness that dispels the sickly ammoniacal odour of fowl droppings, the fetid cloying of old thatch, the stinks of rotting garbage.”

d. The Smales family hut is surrounded by “a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun.”

e. “Red and yellow weaver-birds … mass in shrill joy and flower briefly at the tips of tall grasses too slender for support.”

8. Confusing sights. Many images create anxiety. Which is not in July’s People?

a. “Like clouds, the savannah bush formed and re-formed under the changes of light, moved or gave the impression of being moved past by the travelling eye; silent and ashy green as mould.”

b. “The light from the fires flickered and merged with great amorphous shadows, a dog could be seen going by, looking like a man, or a man, looking like a dog.”

c. “In their houses, there was nothing. At first. You had to stay in the dark of the hut a long while to make out what was on the walls.”

9. Wisdom gained?  Which words are not from Gordimer’s novel? Choose one.

a. “We are old… very old. For more than twenty-five centuries we’ve been bearing the weight of a superb and heterogeneous civilization, all from outside, none made by ourselves.”

b. “In various and different circumstances certain objects and individuals are going to turn out to be vital. The wager of survival cannot, by its nature, reveal which, in advance of events.”

c. “It was a miracle: and one ought to have known, from the sufferings of saints, that miracles are horror.”

d. “To be seen is not necessarily to be acknowledged … Everyone was everyone else’s witness, and this bred its own discretion.”

10. Give and Take?  What, if anything, does the Smales family contribute to the village? Choose one.

a. Bam Smales rigs up a water-tank that had never been installed, so it collects rain water.

b. Maureen Smales makes friends with the young women and teaches them ballet.

c. Gina Smales becomes friends with a girl named Kyoto; they play chess together.

d. Royce and Victor build a bomb shelter out of mud, sticks, and plastic twine from a bag of oranges.

Answers

1. c.

2. b.

3. c.

4. a.

5. b.

6. b. (That quote, describing La Esmeralda, is from Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris.)

7. d. (That quote is from Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights.)

8. b. (That quote, describing the “court of miracles,” is from Hugo, Notre-Dame.)

9. a. (That quote describes the Sicilian people, according to Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard.)

10. a.

Brave is done! Long live Brave! (now what shall I make?!)

This photomontage follows the progress of a quilt named “Brave” in honor of the painting by the same name by Seattle artist Stephanie Scott (below). I began on February 15 and finished on April 12. It was quite a challenge and took four tries to get the center right. Can’t wait to see what paintings I’ll transform into quilts next!

(after the RARE quilts, the Wegner family repair jobs, and other items on my Quilts to do list…)

P.S. If you have any ideas of another painting that could work for a project like this, let me know! It’s fun and meaningful to collaborate.

Trivia quiz for “Go Tell It On the Mountain” by James Baldwin

                Trivia Quiz for Go Tell It On the Mountain

by James Baldwin (1953)

For West Seattle Classic Novels (and Movies) book club, 3/24/24

With answers below

1. Classical structure: the three unities. Despite its flashbacks, the central narrative adheres to the three unities. Which one of the following does not fit?

a. The action opens on the morning of John Grimes’s fourteenth birthday, in 1935.

b. The action happens in Harlem, NY, in his apartment and the church he attends on Lenox Ave.

c. The day is in November—a dark and gloomy month—which prepares the tragedy to come. 

d. Protagonists include his stepfather, mother, aunt, two sisters, a brother, and other church members.

2. What question preoccupies the boy on that morning? Choose one.

a. “What presents will I get?!”          

b. “How many kids will come to my party?”

c.  “Will Aunt Florence arrive in time to eat with us?”         

d. “Will anyone remember?”

3. John’s dream. Inspired by a teacher, John has ambition. Which one is not an aspiration?

a. He becomes a rich banker.

b. He becomes a poet.

c. He becomes a college president.

d. He would one day have a horse named Rider, a wife, a big house, and children who called him Papa and for whom at Christmas he’d buy electric trains.

4. Proverbs, Truisms, and Lessons to take away. Which one of the following precepts is not from Baldwin’s novel?

a. “Your daddy beats you because he loves you.”

b. “If man had a tough, hairy hide like a bear, his world would be different indeed.”

c. “The menfolk, they die, and it’s over for them, but we women, we have to keep on living and try to forget what they done to us.”

d. “Folks can change their ways much as they want to. But… what’s in you is in you, and it’s got to come out.”

e. “It was he who had told her to weep, when she wept, alone; never to let the world see, never to ask for mercy.”

5. Family Secrets. Which of the following secrets is not avowed by a character in Baldwin’s novel? Choose one.

a. While married to his first wife, Deborah, Gabriel loved Esther who gave birth to a son named Royal; he stole Deborah’s money to make Esther go away. Later Esther died yet he never acknowledged the son nor contributed to his wellbeing.

b. Elizabeth’s first love, Richard, committed suicide (slit his wrists) after a false arrest and a police beating left him shaken, despite his innocence.

c. Florence left her dying mother and younger brother to seek her fortune up North.

d. Thanks to diligence, John is becoming a skilled trumpeter, without anyone realizing his talent.

e. Deborah was once raped by a group of white men; an event known as her “accident.”

6. The uneasy truths of men’s lives. Go Tell It On the Mountain includes numerous hopes, fears, and warnings related to the lives of Black boys and men. Which one of the following quotes is not from this novel? 

a. “This burden was heavier than the heaviest mountain and he carried it in his heart … he longed to lay it down.”

b. “A man by himself can always get by. … My kind can find work anywhere.”

c. “People say it’s hard, but, let me tell you, it ain’t as hard as living in this wicked world and all the sadness of the world where there ain’t no pleasure no how, and then dying and going to Hell.”

d. “I can climb back up. If it’s wrong, I can always climb back up.”

7. Fathers and Sons. Which of the following is not from Baldwin’s work?

a. “Between the pride and intellectuality of his mother and the sensuality and irresponsibility of his father, poor X lived in perpetual discontent under his Jovelike frown.”

b. “His father had once had a mighty reputation; but all this, it seemed, had changed since he left the South.”

c. “This man, God’s minister, had struck X’s mother… and X wanted to kill him still.”

d. “It came to him that this living son … might be cursed for the sin of his mother, whose sin had never been truly repented.”

8. Lyricism. James Baldwin is known for the emotional resonance of his writing, which is sometimes associated with gospel hymns or spiritual poetry. Which one of the following is not from Go Tell It On the Mountain?  Choose one.

a. “Dragonflies were bobbing about in countless swarms, like dandelion floss on the wind.”

b. “The naked branches of the trees seemed to be lifting themselves upward toward the pale sun, impatient to put forth leaf and flower.”

c. “He had not been in the house five minutes before he was aware that a change had occurred in the quality of her silence: in the silence something waited, ready to spring.”

d. “Then the anguish subsided for a moment, as water withdraws briefly to dash itself once more against the rocks: he knew that it subsided only to return.”

9. The Church: haven and prison. Which one of the following is not from Baldwin’s work?

a. “The darkness and silence of the church pressed on him, cold as judgment.”

b. “On this threshing-floor the child was the soul that struggled to the light, and it was the church that was in labor, that did not cease to push and pull, calling on the name of Jesus.”

c. “The church seemed to swell with the Power it held, and, like a planet rocking in space, the temple rocked with the Power of God.”

d. The building is described as a “vast symphony in stone … the colossal work of a man and a people.”

10. Doubts amid the Faithful. Many actions in the novel seem doomed to fail yet hope prevails, for a while. Which is not from Baldwin’s book?

a. “Why did his mother weep? Why did his father frown? If God’s power was so great, why were their lives so troubled?”

b. “Two black men alone in the dark and silent town where white men prowled like lions—what mercy could they hope for, should they be found here, talking together?”

c. “Men and women make sad mistakes about their own symptoms, taking their vague uneasy longings, sometimes for genius, sometimes for religion, and oftener still for a mighty love.”

d. “I been thinking how you better commence to tremble when the Lord, He gives you your heart’s desire.”

ANSWERS

1. c.

2. d.

3. a.

4. b. (This quote is from Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata.)

5. d.

6. b. (This quote, which should read “A woman by herself…”, is from Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata and describes the work of a geisha.)

7. a. (This quote is from Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard.)

8. a. (This quote is from Snow Country.)

9. d. (This quote describes the cathedral of Notre-Dame, from Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris.)

10. c. (This quote is from George Eliot, Middlemarch.)

A quilted painting comes to life! And it’s Brave.

(Left) Brave by Stephanie Scott

(Right) Brave by me, ready for assembly

Media: Oil on canvas

Media: Two layers: Cotton and satin, lined with cotton

What a fun collaboration!

Can’t wait to make another quilted painting. If you’re a painter with an idea, let me know!

Trivia quiz for “Notre-Dame de Paris” by Victor Hugo

Trivia Quiz for Notre-Dame de Paris (aka The Hunchback of Notre-Dame)

by Victor Hugo (1831-32)

For West Seattle Classic Novels (and Movies) book club, 2/25/24

With answers below

1. 15^th-century Paris. Which one of the following descriptions is from Notre-Dame de Paris? 

a. Paris is described as: a national creuset or melting-pot where people from all corners of the country come together to work, trade, and shop in the new department stores.

b. The Tuileries gardens are described as “exhaling scents that were cloying, fleshy, and slightly putrid, like the aromatic liquids distilled from the relics of certain saints.”

c. Walking through the streets is described: “He had gone scarcely more than a few steps down the long alley, which was on a slope, unpaved and increasingly steep and muddy … vague shapeless masses crawled, all moving towards the light … like those heavy insects which at night drag themselves along.”

2. The cathedral of Notre-Dame. Which one of the following does not describe N-D?

a. Hugo despairs about the renovation of the monument, sighing, “Time is blind, man is stupid.”

b. It is called: a “vast symphony in stone … the colossal work of a man and a people.”

c. The cathedral is surrounded by rosebushes that are: “heavy with middle-aged blooms, like women whose corseting no longer conceals a thickening stomach, no matter how pretty their legs may remain.”

d. It is described as Quasimodo’s world: his “egg, his nest, his home, his country, his universe.”

3. History-in-the-Making.  Hugo began writing the novel in July 1830, during and after the violent events that were later called the July Revolution (July 27-30, 1830) when the Bourbons were finally expelled but a cousin of theirs, the Duc d’Orléans, took over as a “constitutional monarch”.

Which one of the following scenes in the novel mirror the actual action in the capital?

a. the crowd movements, i.e. when an armed crowd of truands or petty criminals converges on Notre-Dame to defy the king’s orders.

b. the diplomacy, seen in the dignified coalitions between French and German dignitaries.

c. the ruler’s behavior, as in King Louis XI’s defeat and secret escape through the sewers of Paris.

4. The priest. Which does not describe Claude Frollo, archdeacon of the cathedral?

a.  He saved Quasimodo from the foundling’s basket and raised him from age four.

b. He is described as “upright, decent, and generous” and has many friends, especially among the shopkeepers and homeowners on the Île de la Cité.

c. He is a voyeur who spies on people from various secret places.

d. In the chapter “Fever,” we learn of his secret lust for La Esmeralda and the torture he feels.

5. The hunchback Quasimodo. Which one of the following passages does not describe him?

a. His name may designate the day when he was found: it was Quasimodo (or Low) Sunday; the second Sunday after Easter.

b. His face shows a mixture of “malice, amazement, and sadness.” 

c. “All he had known was humiliation, contempt for his condition, disgust for his person.”

d. As if his physical appearance were not sad enough, he is also deaf from ringing the bells.

e. Cunning and clever, he has long been plotting to bring down King Louis XI, thinking: “I’ll have my revenge… I’ll have my revenge if he behaves badly.”

6. The gypsy girl. Which one of the following passages does not describe La Esmeralda?

a. “Her common sense was always at work; the fact of being weak and alone strengthened her resolve.”

b. Her singing is “something pure, resonant, airy, winged… cascades of scales which would have defeated a nightingale.”

c. She is usually careful to protect herself against men: “The dragonfly had become a wasp and would be only too happy to sting.”

7. The author. Which one of the following does not describe Pierre Gringoire?

a. He is constantly broke and known to moan comments such as, “That’s all very wonderful, but where the devil am I going to find some supper?”

b. He is married to La Esmeralda in the court of miracles by the Duke of Egypt.

c. Longing for pretty Fleur-de-Lys is the idea “which kept returning, torturing him, eating away at his brain, tearing at his vitals. … he would rather see her in the executioner’s hands than on the captain’s arm.”

8. Confusing sights. Many images create anxiety. Which is not in Notre-Dame?

a. When a character wanders in the street he encounters a cat who demands, “Passport !” and stretches out a chubby paw to receive it.

b. “The light from the fires flickered and merged with great amorphous shadows, a dog could be seen going by, looking like a man, or a man, looking like a dog.”

c. “It was like a new world, unknown, unheard of, misshapen, reptilian, teeming, fantastic.”

d. “The spectator arriving breathless at the summit was met first by a dizzy confusion of roofs, chimneys, streets, bridges, squares, spires, steeples.”

9. The triangular relationships.  Which of the following triangular relationships is not here?

a. Claude Frollo is jealous of Quasimodo over the affections of La Esmeralda.

b. La sachette is actually the birth mother of Quasimodo and La Esmeralda: they are siblings.

c. La Esmeralda loves Phoebus who is planning to marry an aristocrat named Fleur-de-Lys.

d. Gringoire must choose between saving La Esmeralda or her goat Djali. (He chooses the goat.)

10. “This Will Kill That” (V, 2). Which one of the following best captures the meaning?

a. “The same law that you apply to truands, the truands apply to you.”

b. “Good will never put an extra onion in the soup.”

c. “The King only loosens his hold when the people snatch.”

d. “The printing press will kill the Church.”

11. Bonus question! FATALITY.  This word signifies many things. Which one does not fit?

a. King Louis XI, known as the Universal Spider, is killed by a venomous spider bite at the end.

b. The word was carved by hand on a wall of Notre-Dame that is now gone; it was once discovered by the author and inspired this book.

c. Claude Frollo labels his unrequited love for La Esmeralda thus: “Oh! What a fatality!”

d. The final scene, when someone tries to remove one skeleton from the other, “it fell to dust.”

ANSWERS

1. c.

2. c.  (That quote is from Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent.)

3. a.

4. b.

5. e. (That quote describes a woman in The Ladies’ Paradise by Zola.)

6. a. (That quote is also from Zola’s Ladies’ Paradise.)

7. c. (That quote is from “Fever” and describes Frollo’s mad passion for La Esmeralda.)

8. a. (That quote is from Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita.)

9. b.

10. d.

11. a.

Quilted painting: a new genre!

For the past week, I’ve enjoyed stitching together bits of blue, pink, white, black, purple, rust and gold fabrics in an effort to replicate a painting called “Brave” by Seattle painter Stephanie Scott. At first I called it a painted quilt, but realized that conjures up a wholly different experience as immortalized by the quilt in Tar Beach:

Here, the artist has painted imagery onto the quilt. So lovely and amazing! See “Faith Ringgold’s ‘Tar Beach’ is the epitome of summer dreaming” here.

For my part, the job lies elsewhere. My mind and hands are deeply engaged with “Brave” as a constellation of colors and shapes I aim to reproduce, in fabrics that happen to be here. They have arrived here by meaningful connection.

Those connections to the fabric at hand were the same for Faith Ringgold too, I hear: her mother was a seamstress and the colorful border on “Tar Beach” is made of scraps from the dresses she once made. (Btw: Faith Rinngold is a recipient of one of my “Respect” quilts. I’m such a fan!)

Some of the fabrics in “Brave” are from new Seattle friends (thanks, Kathy and Bernie!), others were purchased at cool stores (thanks, Hosekibako!) or inherited from the dear grandma of a far away pal (thank, Pam). The white at the center is the wedding dress of a dear friend, now a widow. Satin and cotton sit side by side, pulling the eye in or sending out a shiny beam.

Here is a line-up of what’s been done so far:

Stand by for more work-in-progress. Brave is as brave does!

Trivia quiz on “Swann’s Way” by Marcel Proust

Trivia Quiz for Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust (1913)

For West Seattle “Classic Novels (and Movies)” book club, 1/28/24

With answers below

1. Bedrooms.  As a place for observing reality, one might think a bedroom a poor site for a writer to spend his days. Yet for the narrator of Swann’s Way, such reasoning rings false, because… why? Many reasons exist in the narrative. Of the following, which one quote is not by Proust?

a. The little boy’s bedroom is described as a ship: “It was the completest and most desirable bedroom ever seen—in the stern of the vessel; with a little window, and a little looking-glass, just the right height for me, framed with oyster shells.”

b. The narrator explains, “A sleeping man holds in a circle around him the sequence of the hours, the order of the years and worlds.”

c. He describes his aunt’s bedrooms as being “saturated with the finest flower of a silence so nourishing, so succulent”: that place is where his imagination awoke to the powers of memory.

d. One might say that his greatest psychic wound came from the fact that “For a long time, [he] went to bed early.”

2. The writer’s method. The novel contains many hints at how the writer worked and thought about his fellow humans. Which one of the following does not come from Proust?

a. “A real human being, however profoundly we sympathize with him, is in large part perceived by our senses, that is to say, remains opaque to us, presents a dead weight which our sensibility cannot lift…. The novelist’s happy discovery was to have the idea of replacing these parts, impenetrable to the soul, by an equal quantity of immaterial parts… which our soul can assimilate.”

b. “Smell and taste still remain for a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping…”

c. “I imagined, like everyone else, that the brain of another person was an inert and docile receptacle.”

d.  “The highest sort of immediate happiness” comes when he creates a writing club, with his friends Bloch and Gilberte close by writing in their own notebooks.

3. Female power: a warning?  Women are a force to be reckoned with in this novel. Which one of the following is not in the book?

a. “The good intentions of a third person have no power over a woman who is annoyed to find herself pursued … by someone she does not love.”

b. “Alas! I am unclean,” notes one female character with bite marks on her throat.

c. After informing the young narrator that “[his] great-aunt had had a wild youth and had been known to be a kept woman,” an indiscreet school friend is banned from the household.

d. “Maybe two or three times,” when spoken by a lover, are words that “can make you as sick as if you had swallowed poison.”

e. Upon asking to stay up later, the little boy’s mother reacts: “An expression of anger came over her face, she did not say a single word to me.”

4. Family fears and anxieties. Which one of the following is not mentioned as a subject of concern, in “Combray”?

a. a social slight or lack of courtesy from fellow church-goers

b. German soldiers and other violent thugs roaming the country after the Franco-Prussian War

c. A person “whom one does not know at all” seen from Aunt Léonie’s window

d. “barbarians”                      

e. lesbians                  

5. Odette’s many faces. Which one of the following descriptors does not apply to Odette?

a. “the lady in pink” met at his uncle’s house            

b. a lady who grows stout in later years

c. a prostitute; as one man says, “I remember I slept with her the day MacMahon resigned.”

d. the mother of Gilberte       

e. a liar                       

f. an actress on the Parisian stage

6. Novels, letters, and other textual dreams!  Which one of the following texts is seen to exert the greatest charm on the narrator, as “that most intoxicating of romances”?

a. Rousseau’s Confessions                            

b. a railway timetable

c. Swann’s study of Vermeer                        

d. an erotic novel by a famed courtesan named Pinky

7. Power and control: a paradox.  The novel’s curious asides on power include all but one of the following. Which one is not from Proust?

a. “Knowing a thing does not always allow us to prevent it, but at least the things we know, we hold, if not in our hands, at any rate in our minds, where we can arrange them as we like.”

b. “Well piracy is out, but I guess the impulse lingers. … Something for nothing. Wealth without effort.”

c. “Already a man in my cowardice, I did what we all do … when confronted with sufferings and injustices: I did not want to see them; I went up to sob at the very top of the house.”

8. The asparagus. Why is asparagus described in such detail? Choose one.

a. Françoise chooses to cook asparagus many times one summer, because preparing it made the kitchen-maid sick and thus incited the girl to quit (to Françoise’s secret, mean-spirited satisfaction).

b. The colors are iridescent like a flower.

c. Eating the vegetable causes one’s urine to make a strong and memorable odor.

d. All of the above.

9. Triangular relationships.  Which one of the following triangles does not appear in Swann’s Way?

a. Legrandin, the Guermantes family, and famed novelist Victor Hugo

b. Mother, Father, and Son                            

c. Françoise, Aunt Léonie, and Eulalie

d. Swann, Odette, and all other men             

e. Vinteuil, his daughter, and his daughter’s “friend”

10. The sad truth. What realization arises from reading Swann’s Way?  (choose one or two)

a. “You have gone from corruption to corruption, and now you have culminated in crime.”

b. “What a contradiction it is to search in reality for memory’s pictures, which would never have the charm that comes to them from memory itself and from not being perceived by the senses.”

c. “You don’t know it when you’re happy. You’re never as unhappy as you think.”

ANSWERS

1. a. (That quote is from Bleak House by Dickens.)

2. d. (There is no writing club in Swann’s Way!)

3. b. (That quote is from Stoker, Dracula.)

4. b.

5. f.

6.  b.

7. b. (That quote is from Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent.)

8. d.

9. a.

10. Both b. and c. are correct.

Trivia Quiz for “Snow Country” by Yasunari Kawabata

Trivia Quiz for Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (1935-37)

For West Seattle “Classic Novels (and Movies)” book club, 12/17/23

With answers below

1. History-in-the-Making?  For a novel published during the intense militarization of Japan in the run-up to the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and reprinted in 1948 to great applause, Snow Country seems aloof and unconnected to history. Yet there are traces of modernity.

Which three of the following modern technologies are mentioned?   Choose one group of three.

a. railroads, digital clocks, and computers

b. televisions, telephones, and X-rays

c. movies, electric avalanche-warning systems, and railroads

d. snowplows, telegrams, and compact disc players

2. Characterization: not the point? Which one of the following does not apply to the main character, Shimamura?

a. He is a solitary artist whose foreign travels—especially in Italy—often come to mind.

b. He lives in Tokyo with his wife and children who are never named or described.

c. He is an idle member of the wealthy class, with no particular occupation or job.

d. He resembles many other men who go on solitary visits to enjoy hot springs and the attention of resident geishas, in the remote western regions of the country.

3. The colors red, white, and black. These three colors, more than any others, run through the narration and refer to all but one of the chains of associations below. Choose the one that does not fit with Snow Country.

a. red sunset, white snowy peaks, black hair

b. red cheeks, white make-up, black night sky

c. red maple leaves, white Chijimi linen, charred black beams

d. red passion flower blossoms, white wedding dresses, black licorice

4. Proverbs, Truisms, and Lessons to take away. Which one of the following precepts is not from Snow Country?

a. “Pay for field hands. Ninety sen a day, meals included. Women forty per cent less.”

b. “Everything is broken to little bits.”

c. “Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man’s face. It cannot be concealed.”

d. “If man had a tough, hairy hide like a bear, his world would be different indeed.”

5. Why travel? What impetus is explicitly cited as the protagonist’s reason for going to the mountains? Choose one.

a. “He tended to lose his honesty with himself.”

b. “He needed an outlet for things forbidden at home: his perverse longings and ‘sick ideas’.”

c. His wife’s family lived in the region, and he liked to visit them with her.

d. He had long been fascinated by the local basket-weaving industry which creates Chiki boxes.

6. The uneasy truths of women’s lives. Snow Country includes numerous hopes, fears, and warnings related to the lives of geishas. Which one of the following quotes is not from this novel? 

a. “No one forces a geisha to do what she doesn’t want to.”

b. “Like some dumb creature who has been brought up to a gate for an unknown purpose, and stands there longing to gallop away, X sat silent.”

c. “A woman by herself can always get by. … My kind can find work anywhere.”

d. “She received a fixed amount for herself from each party, and the larger number of parties therefore meant relatively more for her and less to the man to whom she was indentured.”

7. Troubling beauty. Choose the one answer with the correct words to complete the following description of Komako: “The high, thin nose was a little lonely, a little sad, but the bud of her lips opened and closed smoothly, like …”

a. “like a slice opened in a quivering piece of cow liver.”

b. “like a pool of blood rippling after a pebble has fallen in.”

c. “like a beautiful little circle of leeches.”

d. “like a bunch of ripe litchis rotting in the sun.”

8. Lyricism. Yasunari Kawabata is known for the emotional resonance of his writing, which is sometimes associated with poetry or haiku. Which one of the following is not from Snow Country?  Choose one.

a. The last scene takes place on a day described as: “clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold” with “Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air”.

b. “The dark needles blocked out the sky, and the stillness seemed to be singing quietly.”

c. “Her skin, suggesting the newness of a freshly peeled onion or perhaps a lily bulb, was flushed faintly, even to the throat. More than anything, it was clean.”

d. “Dragonflies were bobbing about in countless swarms, like dandelion floss on the wind.”

9. The depth of a nobody. The local girl-woman, Komako, is endowed with a richer inner life than any of the other characters. Which one does not refer to her life and thoughts?

a. “I never go to parties. Why should they ask me? I’m plain, I’m unhappy.”

b. “When I start writing, I want to write on and on.”

c. “I’m never able to be completely open with living people.”

d. “Her face was strained and desperate … X struggled forward as if she bore her sacrifice, or her punishment.”

10. Life: a waste of effort? Many actions in the novel are likened to “wasted efforts,” yet they are recorded anyway. Which one of the following is not considered a “wasted effort”?

a. “She had carefully catalogued every novel and short story she had read since she was fifteen or sixteen.”

b. “It had been a great victory of the will, … for her to learn complicated airs from only a score, and presently go through them from memory.”

c. The time-consuming creation of Chijimi linen by mountain maidens living in the snowy area.

d. Yoko’s care for the dying Yukio, in the train journey at the novel’s beginning.

e. All of the above are arguably “wasted efforts.”

ANSWERS

1. c.

2. a.

3. d.

4. c. (That is a quote from Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray.)

5. a.

6. b. (That is a quote from Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.)

7. c.

8. a. (That is a quote from Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.)

9. a. (That is a quote from Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.)

10. d. and e. are both acceptable answers.

p.s. Apologies to the members who came to today’s meeting. MISTAKE! My edition says 1948, but the novel is actually from 1935-37 (in serial form), before the second edition of 1948. So I rewrote Question no. 1.

Trivia quiz for “The Leopard” by Lampedusa

Trivia Quiz for The Leopard [Il Gattopardo] by Giuseppe di Lampedusa (1958)

For West Seattle “Classic Novels (and Movies)” book club, 11/26/23

With answers below

1. An Uncomfortable Place: Sicily. Which one of the following descriptions is from The Leopard? 

a. The national dish, a chicken done up with paprika, is said to be “very good but thirsty”.

b. “The garden … was exhaling scents that were cloying, fleshy, and slightly putrid, like the aromatic liquids distilled from the relics of certain saints.”

c. The hills were covered with wild sheep, buzzards, and ravens: “all solitary things”

d. “The rain came down through the curtain of mist, and it seemed as though she could hear the sea on every side of her and there was no escape from it.”

2. History-in-the-Making.  What is the name of the unification movement in Italy which took place between 1848 and 1861, partly under the helm of the revolutionary general Giuseppe Garibaldi?

a. The Renaissance                            

b. The Risorgimento

c. The Rinforzando                            

d. The Rococo

3-6. The Prince’s transformation. Match the following sentences to their respective chapters in chronological order, using the dates of the chapters:

a. May, 1860 (Intro to the Prince; chap. 1);

b. August, 1860 (Donnafugata; chap. 2);

c. November, 1862 (The Ball; chap. 6);

d. July, 1888 (Death of a Prince; chap. 7)

3. “He had said that the Salinas would always remain the Salinas. He had been wrong. The last Salina was himself. That fellow Garibaldi, that bearded Vulcan, had won after all.”

4. “A man of forty-five can consider himself still young till the moment comes when he realizes that he has children old enough to fall in love.”

5. “All these faded women, all these stupid men, these two vainglorious sexes were part of his blood, part of himself; only they could understand him, only with them could he be at his ease.”

6. “Between the pride and intellectuality of his mother and the sensuality and irresponsibility of his father, poor Prince Fabrizio lived in perpetual discontent under his Jovelike frown.”

7. Fear, War, Violence: Where are they?  Lampedusa’s narrator evokes the strife which led to Garibaldi’s victory over the royalists of Sicily with powerful yet indirect imagery. Which one of the following is from this novel?

a. The family’s house is surrounded by “a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun.”

b. “On their slopes and peaks glimmered dozens of flickering lights, bonfires lit every night by the royalists, silent threats to the city known for its universities and love of learning.”

c. “Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally, but women feel just as men feel.”

d. “He remembered the nausea diffused throughout the entire villa by certain sweetish odors before their cause was traced: the corpse of a young soldier of the Fifth Regiment of Sharpshooters… the dead man had not been mentioned again … but the image of that gutted corpse often recurred.”

8. Uneasy truths. The Leopard includes numerous hopes, fears, and warnings. Which one of the following quotes is not from this novel? 

a. “The Sicilians never want to improve for the simple reason that they think themselves perfect; their vanity is stronger than their misery.”

b. “I don’t feel sure about doing good … unless it were building good cottages—there can be no doubt about that. Oh, I hope I should be able to get the people well housed!”

c. “We are old… very old. For more than twenty-five centuries we’ve been bearing the weight of a superb and heterogeneous civilization, all from outside, none made by ourselves.”

d. “A great deal of the slackness and acquiescence for which the people of the South were to be criticized during the next decades was due to the stupid annulment of the first expression of liberty ever offered them.”

9. The Weight of the Past: symbols of what is to come. Which one of the following quotes is found in chapter 2 on Donnafugata, describing the Salina family possessions in 1860? 

a. “Over the great solid but sagging door, a stone Leopard pranced, in spite of legs broken off by flung stones.”

b. “As the carcass was dragged off, the glass eyes stared at her with the humble reproach of things that are thrown away, that are being annulled.”

10. Comedy, Tragedy, or Farce?  Which one of the following quotes is not from Lampedusa’s book? 

a. “The thought occurred to Don Fabrizio that it was ignorance of this supreme consolation that made the young feel sorrows much more sharply than the old; the latter are nearer the safety exit.”

b. “There can be no Venetian business without patience.”

c. “Dying for somebody or for something, that was perfectly normal, of course; but the person dying should know, or at least feel sure, that someone knows for whom or for what he is dying… that was where the haze began.”

d. “The rains had come, the rains had gone, and the sun was back on its throne like an absolute monarch kept off it for a week by his subjects’ barricades, and now reigning once again, choleric but under constitutional restraint.”

e. “And with them always was Eros, malicious and tenacious, drawing the young couple into a game full of risk and fun.”

f. All of the above are in The Leopard.

11. Bonus question!  A broad range of cultural references peppers Lampedusa’s narration. Which of the following is included in this novel describing Italian life, ca. 1860-1880?

a. Eisenstein’s baby carriage, from the 1925 film, Battleship Potemkin (the Odessa Steps scene)

b. an American bomb that would explode in Sicily in 1943

c. Antoine Watteau’s 1717 painting Embarkation for Cythera

d. All of the above.

ANSWERS

1. b.
2. b.
3. d.
4. b.
5. c
6. a.
7. d.
8. b. (That quote is from Middlemarch by George Eliot.)
9. a.
10. b. (That quote is from Henry James, The Aspern Papers.)
11. d. All of the above.

Gratitude for kids and their creativity

On this Thanksgiving Day, I feel so grateful to be in frequent contact with kids and their creativity.

Tuesday I held “Write YOUR Story” class as planned, but when I arrived at the school, the doors were locked! It was pitch black, as is usual around here at 6:30pm, and cold and windy.
Argh!
No matter what I tried, no one could open them. (The Seattle Parks Dept., which administers this class, is hopelessly disorganized, alas.)
Yet when the five kids arrived (with parents of course) no one wanted to leave! So we finished writing our story while sitting on the cold pavement, and some kids climbed nearby trees. One little girl had to pee, so she went behind a nearby bush. It was the craziest and most endearing experience ever!
Our finished story is pasted below just for fun. The image above, by Sophie J., is juxtaposed to a wrapper from Spud Fish and Chips on Alki Way–a perfect model for our trickster salmon, Whistler.

This story will be featured alongside four others, in Five Seattle Stories by Seattle Kids, to be published next year by Honey Girl Books and Gifts!

Our story, finished as of November 21, 2023!   TITLE?

By Hadley Dertinger, Ruah DeWeege, Evan Jacolev, Sophie Jacolev, Vivianna Pinkerton, and Eleanor Warren (ages 8-12; author bios forthcoming)

With the help of Elaina Harris, Shepherd Siegel, and Julia Douthwaite Viglione, co-teachers of the Fall 2023 session of Write YOUR Story

p. 1

A grandpa seal had three grandsons, and when he departed from this world, he gave them nothing but a bunch of kelp, a pearl, and a salmon. The grandsons didn’t get a mermaid to solve their problem because mermaids are very rare. However, it was a quick process to choose who would receive each item. The oldest took the kelp, the middle one got the pearl, and nothing remained for the littlest but the salmon.

p. 2

He wasn’t pleased. “My brethren will collaborate and make a good profit and have an amazing life, whereas I’m left with a salmon,” he said. “So I’m just gonna eat the salmon and make some jerky out of the skin, and then I won’t have anything.”

p. 3

The salmon, who had overheard that he was going to be eaten, leaped high into the air and when he landed with a splash, blubbered, “Don’t eat me. I can help you survive. Just give me a tiny little top hat and a whistle, and you’ll see what I can do.”

The salmon’s new companion did not quite believe it, however he recalled that he had seen the salmon do some very strategic things, such as changing color and confusing predators by swimming in large schools. So he barked to himself, “Might as well try it!”

p. 4 When the salmon had gotten what he requested, he put on his top hat and placed the whistle around his neck.  And then, fiddling with the string of the whistle, he set out for the nearest dock where there were lots of fishermen.

p. 5

He blew his whistle, and as the fishermen looked toward the sound, he jumped straight into the air and snatched a trout out of a bucket on the dock. That’s how he earned his name, Whistler.    

p. 6

Pleased about his steal, he swam to the kelp bed and asked to see Sea King. A school of little fish dove underwater to the sea lion’s lair and Whistler followed. He did a humble flip in the air to show his respect and said, “My mighty sea lion King of the Seas, I have brought you some trout which the noble seal of Puget Sound, Master Chase”—that was the name Whistler had made up for his companion—”has requested I offer you as a fine banquet.”  “Report to Master Chase,” said the Sea King, “that I enjoyed his gift; it smells scrumptious.”

p. 7  The next day, Whistler ventured into the muddy shallows. He dug his flippers into the muck and pulled out some kelp-roots. He thought to himself, “This will make a grand soup.”

The Sea King took the kelp-roots with a happy twitch of his whiskers and directed the little fish to give Whistler a thank-you gift.

As time went on, Whistler brought the Sea King more and more offerings.

p. 8  Then one day, when Whistler knew the Sea King would be going for a swim along the current with his friend Si’ahl, who owned a very fine canoe, he told the seal: “Just do what I tell you to, and you will have good fortune and a good life, just like your brothers.”

“Just go swim over there by that big boat, and I’ll do the rest.”

p. 9  The seal listened to Whistler’s instructions, even though it didn’t make much sense. While he was drifting toward the big boat, a small cedar canoe powered by. Whistler blew his whistle as hard as he could to get the sea lion’s attention, and then splashed around the canoe with such force that it capsized.        

p. 10 “Quick!” Whistler screeched to Master Chase, “Grab that line!” The seal bobbed up by the canoe and easily wrapped the rope around his flipper. But while that was happening, Si’ahl the canoer was frantically trying to stay afloat, by flailing around and waving his arms.

“I’ve got your canoe, and now I’ll rescue you too,” yelled Master Chase. “In fact, if you follow me a while, I’ll give you some swimming lessons.”

p. 11

Si’ahl was still struggling to keep his head above water, when Master Chase assured him, “It’s OK! All you have to do is wave your arms in the water and kick your legs.  That’s called treading water.”

But that was just the first step.

Master Chase also taught him how to do the crawl and the backstroke, how to swim underwater, how to dive, and many more important things for surviving rough seas.

p. 12

Whistler was amazed at how fast Chase could teach swimming. But Whistler was not the only one who was impressed. The Sea King had been watching the whole time from a big rock nearby.

“I could really use a good teacher in my court,” he murmured, then he said to the seal: “Thereby I, as King of the Sea, invite you to join us on the journey of a lifetime.”

So Chase kept swimming between the two. He had Si’ahl in his canoe on one side, and the kingly sea lion on the other. The fisherman admired the seal’s grace and playful moves, and the two grew close together.

p. 13

Thrilled that his plan succeeded so far, Whistler swam west. When he saw a school of little gold fish making their way alongside Alki Beach, he asked them, “Guppy friends, I need a favor. Remember that time I didn’t eat you? Well now it’s your turn. When the Sea King comes by, tell him Master Chase taught you how to dogpaddle.” 

p. 14

When the sea lion and his group floated by, he asked the gold fish who taught them such wonderful tricks. They bubbled back, “Master Chase taught us.”

“Well, I think you’ve bubbled to the top!”  He chuckled, pleased with his joke (even though hardly anyone in the whole wide ocean got it).

“Yes, I taught those guppies well,” Master Chase replied modestly.

p. 15

Then Whistler swam north alongside the muddy shore and the Pioneer Square docks. After a while, he passed by some frogs jumping around and doing cool tricks on the mudflats.

He whistled to get their attention, and then yelled, “Friendly frogs! Remember that time I didn’t eat you? It’s your turn to pay me back. When the Sea King passes by, say that Master Chase taught you everything you know, ok?”

The frogs croaked, “Ribbit ribbit, right on!”

p. 16

Soon Sea King swam by the mudflats with his guests, and they saw the frogs leaping gracefully.

“Who taught you to leap like that?” he asked them.

The frogs replied, “Ribbit ribbit, Master Chase did.”

“Good job, teach! Those frogs leap as gracefully as bunnies,” the King smiled at the seal, who bowed his head.

p. 17

Meanwhile Whistler was swimming on ahead and searching for the mysterious temple of the Orca whales. Its tower had slightly sunken under the waters of Elliott Bay but the building was still magnificent. The current owner, however, was the dumbest whale of the pod.

Whistler, who had been careful to find out all about this Orca, ventured into the temple and requested to see him.

“It would be so sad to swim past this stupendous site and not offer my compliments,” he said.

The Orca, flattered by such sweet talk, let him in with a flap of the flipper, and ushered him directly into the secret throne room where he kept all his treasures.

p. 18

After admiring the riches, Whistler turned to the Orca and said, “I heard you can eat anything, no matter how big. Surely that’s not true. You couldn’t possibly eat something huge, could you? For example, a blue whale as big as three school buses?”

“Uh, like, maybe,” babbled the Orca, “Wanna see?”

“Oh yes! But sadly, there aren’t any blue whales in Puget Sound,” said Whistler. “How about you try something that tastes bad? Let’s go exploring.”

So the two headed out of the temple to see what they could find on the bottom of the bay.

“That looks good and bad!” Whistler said, pointing to a spiny orange sea urchin glowing in some rocks.

“I guess I could eat that,” the Orca gulped nervously.

p. 19

The Orca stared at the sea urchin for a little while.

“Are you going to eat it or not?” taunted Whistler. “You wouldn’t want to be the biggest chicken of the sea, would you?” 

“You can’t stop me from eating that, you guppy!” the Orca said arrogantly, while pointing to Whistler.

And in a less than a second, he gulped down the sea urchin, spines and all.

p. 20

Everything was still for a few heartbeats.

Then he gulped, burped, and his chubby black and white body shook with pain. The sea urchin’s poison had drained down his throat into his gullet. A few more moments later, the whale’s carcass floated to the surface, leaving a trail of messy, oily black poison in its wake.

“Dumb Orca!” Whistler said triumphantly, as he swam back into the temple, grabbed the crown out of the treasure chest, and made it to the entrance just as the Sea King, Si’ahl, and Master Chase floated up.

p. 21

“Where have you been?” whispered Master Chase.

“You don’t want to know,” murmured Whistler.

“Sire,” he said loudly so the sea lion could hear, “You forgot your crown.” Whistler placed the crown on the seal’s head with a solemn flourish.

“Master Chase,” grumbled the King, “Is all this really yours as well? What could be more beautiful than this palace full of precious jewels, mermaids, and funny clownfish?!”

p. 22

From that point on, Whistler and Master Chase made the temple their home. They became famous for leading fishing boats past the rocks on foggy nights, and teaching local children how to swim. Si’ahl, who had become their best friend, spread the good word about them in legends that you can still hear today.

Whistler accompanied Master Chase for many years, while enjoying his own servants and private tower.

p. 23

They never had to worry about starving again. In fact, they had such stocks of food and such kindly hearts, that they donated generously to the locals in every season.

That’s why there are always fish in Elliott Bay, and all the salmon wear a smile.

END

Acknowledgments: The authors would like to acknowledge the inspiration and model for this work: Charles Perrault, Puss in Boots, (first published as “Le chat botté”, 1697), illus. Fred Marcellino (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1990).

AUTHOR BIOS