Book Triv answers.
Jan. 28th, 2010 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slemslempike39 people answered the quiz, of whom 6 were American. Other nationalities were British (most people), Irish, Australian and New Zealand. Not enough for proper statistics, but I've put in the numbers of people getting each question right.
CH: What Lynne Reid Banks betstseller was blasted by Native Americans for casting its hero as the inarticulate plaything of a white child?
The Indian in the Cupboard
22 right non-US
4 right US
CL: What kind of creature is Crab, in Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona?
A dog
"I HAVE READ THIS PLAY! I don't know."
"I'd like to think Two Gentlemen of Verona has a rhinocerous in it"
Two people had fortuitiously learned it in a pub quiz the previous day.
16 right non-US
1 right US
NF: What Canadian naturalist bared all about his Saskatoon upbringing in the memoir Born Naked?
Farley Mowat
I like the answer "Margaret Atwood's father?", because CLEARLY that is the only Canadian writer that people can be expected to know.
3 right non-US
2 right US
BC: What novel by Carol Shields tells the life story of Daisy Goodwill Flett, whose father obsessisvely builds a tower of rocks to mark his wife's grave?
The Stone Diaries
11 right non-US
0 right US
AU: What 19th-century humorist noted: "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society"?
Mark Twain
Votes here were pretty evenly split between Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain.
"? (Whoever he was, he was soooo wrong.)"
16 right non-US
4 right US
BB: What science-fiction classic introduced readers to the planet Arrakis?
Dune
"The auto-text suggests 'Peanut butter sandwich'."
"oh crap, I know this one, I can picture the book cover and everything"
14 right non-US
5 right US
CH: WHat author recounts four separate but interlinked stories side by side, in Black and White?
David Macaulay
Nobody got this right at all.
CL: What West Virginia-born novelist won a Nobel Prize in 1938 for "her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China"?
Pearl Buck
7 right non-US
5 right US
NF: What true-crime author penned Red Zone, abnout the dog-mauling death of Diane Whipple?
Aphrodite Jones
"This sounds like an uplifting read."
Nobody got this right either.
BC: What university does Blue attend when he's not spying on Black for White , in Paul Auster's novel Ghost?
Brown
And again this stumped everyone. Well,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
peeeeeeet said "Oda Mae Brown", but I do not count that.
AU: What Nobel Prize-winnign U.S. novelist fathered his fourth child in 1999 at the age of 84?
Saul Bellow
"God. This sounds like something Normal Mailer would do, though I don't think the ages match up."
2 right non-US (discounting people who admitted to cheating!)
0 right US
BB: What author features L.A. cop Peter Decker and his sleuthing spouse Rina Lazarus in mysteries like A Serpent's Tooth and Jupiter's Bones?
Faye Kellerman
The accumulating stress of not knowing things shows in the answer "Your mum".
4 right non-US
0 right US
So, the conclusion is that it is VERY HARD even if you are American, and we can all stop feeling bad about our lack of knowledge and BLAME THE GAME. Ordinarily I would never criticise Triv, but in this case it seems justified. The Farley Mowatt and Pearl Buck questions were the ones where there was the clearest connection between knowing the answer and being American.
Joint winners, with 7 points each, areoursin and ramblingfancy. Well done!
I won't put names for the rest of them, as people expressed embarrassment in the previous post (you shouldn't! it was really hard!) but here are the scores, so you can check out what you got and place yourselves.
6 (two people)
5 (four people)
4 (five people)
3 (eight people)
2 (nine people)
1 (eight people)
0 (one person)
(but really, this person should get a recognition for taking part, instead of all the people who shirked the challenge because they thought they wouldn't get anything right.)
So feel free to come and claim your rank in comments, though I do have the spreadsheet open so if anyone gets TOO creative with their claims I may raise a private eyebrow. I didn't fill in the poll, but I got three, though I might have been able to think of The Stone Diaries at a push.
CH: What Lynne Reid Banks betstseller was blasted by Native Americans for casting its hero as the inarticulate plaything of a white child?
The Indian in the Cupboard
22 right non-US
4 right US
CL: What kind of creature is Crab, in Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona?
A dog
"I HAVE READ THIS PLAY! I don't know."
"I'd like to think Two Gentlemen of Verona has a rhinocerous in it"
Two people had fortuitiously learned it in a pub quiz the previous day.
16 right non-US
1 right US
NF: What Canadian naturalist bared all about his Saskatoon upbringing in the memoir Born Naked?
Farley Mowat
I like the answer "Margaret Atwood's father?", because CLEARLY that is the only Canadian writer that people can be expected to know.
3 right non-US
2 right US
BC: What novel by Carol Shields tells the life story of Daisy Goodwill Flett, whose father obsessisvely builds a tower of rocks to mark his wife's grave?
The Stone Diaries
11 right non-US
0 right US
AU: What 19th-century humorist noted: "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society"?
Mark Twain
Votes here were pretty evenly split between Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain.
"? (Whoever he was, he was soooo wrong.)"
16 right non-US
4 right US
BB: What science-fiction classic introduced readers to the planet Arrakis?
Dune
"The auto-text suggests 'Peanut butter sandwich'."
"oh crap, I know this one, I can picture the book cover and everything"
14 right non-US
5 right US
CH: WHat author recounts four separate but interlinked stories side by side, in Black and White?
David Macaulay
Nobody got this right at all.
CL: What West Virginia-born novelist won a Nobel Prize in 1938 for "her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China"?
Pearl Buck
7 right non-US
5 right US
NF: What true-crime author penned Red Zone, abnout the dog-mauling death of Diane Whipple?
Aphrodite Jones
"This sounds like an uplifting read."
Nobody got this right either.
BC: What university does Blue attend when he's not spying on Black for White , in Paul Auster's novel Ghost?
Brown
And again this stumped everyone. Well,
peeeeeeet said "Oda Mae Brown", but I do not count that.AU: What Nobel Prize-winnign U.S. novelist fathered his fourth child in 1999 at the age of 84?
Saul Bellow
"God. This sounds like something Normal Mailer would do, though I don't think the ages match up."
2 right non-US (discounting people who admitted to cheating!)
0 right US
BB: What author features L.A. cop Peter Decker and his sleuthing spouse Rina Lazarus in mysteries like A Serpent's Tooth and Jupiter's Bones?
Faye Kellerman
The accumulating stress of not knowing things shows in the answer "Your mum".
4 right non-US
0 right US
So, the conclusion is that it is VERY HARD even if you are American, and we can all stop feeling bad about our lack of knowledge and BLAME THE GAME. Ordinarily I would never criticise Triv, but in this case it seems justified. The Farley Mowatt and Pearl Buck questions were the ones where there was the clearest connection between knowing the answer and being American.
Joint winners, with 7 points each, are
oursin and ramblingfancy. Well done!I won't put names for the rest of them, as people expressed embarrassment in the previous post (you shouldn't! it was really hard!) but here are the scores, so you can check out what you got and place yourselves.
6 (two people)
5 (four people)
4 (five people)
3 (eight people)
2 (nine people)
1 (eight people)
0 (one person)
(but really, this person should get a recognition for taking part, instead of all the people who shirked the challenge because they thought they wouldn't get anything right.)
So feel free to come and claim your rank in comments, though I do have the spreadsheet open so if anyone gets TOO creative with their claims I may raise a private eyebrow. I didn't fill in the poll, but I got three, though I might have been able to think of The Stone Diaries at a push.
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Date: 2010-01-28 12:53 pm (UTC)