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Grex > Books > #53: The Mysterious Quote - Summer 1996 Edition |  |
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remmers
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The Mysterious Quote - Summer 1996 Edition
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Jun 23 16:16 UTC 1996 |
Here's how this game works: The person who's "it" enters a quote
from a published work. It can be fiction, nonfiction, poetry,
anything. The challenge is to guess the *author* of the quote.
The first person to guess correctly is now "it" and gets to
choose the next quote. (You should wait for your guess to be
confirmed by the person who entered the quote before going
ahead and giving a new one.)
If people are having trouble guessing your author, it's considered
polite to give hints or offer up an additional quote by the same
author.
When you give a guess, it's always nice if you can indicate the
reasoning behind it. One object of this game is to learn a little
more about literature.
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| 230 responses total. |
remmers
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response 1 of 230:
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Jun 23 16:25 UTC 1996 |
I'll start:
Floating upward through a confusion of dreams and memory,
curving like a trout through the rings of previous
risings, I surface. My eyes open. I am awake.
Cataract sufferers must see like this when the bandages
are removed after the operation: every detail as sharp
as if seen for the first time, yet familiar too, known
from before the time of blindness, the remembered and
the seen coalescing as in a stereoscope.
It is obviously very early. The light is no more than
dusk that leaks past the edges of the blinds. But I see,
or remember, or both, the uncurtained windows, the bare
rafters, the board walls with nothing on them except a
calendar that I think was here the last time we were,
eight years ago.
What used to be aggressively spartan is shabby now.
Nothing has been refreshed or added since Charity and
Sid turned the compound over to the children. I should
feel as if I were waking up in some Ma-and-Pa motel in
hard-times country, but I don't. I have spent too many
good days and nights in this cottage to be depressed by
it.
Hint: These are the opening paragraphs of a novel published in the
1980's. Remember, the object is to guess the author.
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sackhead
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response 2 of 230:
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Jun 25 15:51 UTC 1996 |
I was going to guess Brautigan because of the "trout" reference, and the
descriptive writing. But TFinA, his seminal work was written before 1970,
so my guess is Brett Easton Ellis. Just because.
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remmers
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response 3 of 230:
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Jun 25 18:53 UTC 1996 |
Not Brautigan or Ellis.
The author is a Pulitzer Prize winner and has been writing fiction
since at least the 1940's. To the best of my knowledge he's still
alive, but I'm not certain of that. He'd be in his late eighties
now. (And yes, my referring to him as "he" indeed means that he's
male.)
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kerouac
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response 4 of 230:
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Jun 25 22:57 UTC 1996 |
Thomas Pynchon?
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remmers
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response 5 of 230:
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Jun 26 18:25 UTC 1996 |
Not Pynchon.
Here's another quote from the same novel:
It is May, only a few weeks before the end of school.
I am in my office eating a bag lunch and grading
papers, with the door closed. Most of my colleagues
eat together, but I have rarely felt that I can
afford the time. Today I am less inclined that ever
to join the cabal. The department has delayed and
delayed its decisions on promotion, and everybody
is on edge. Rumors expand to fill every pause in
the talk, rivalries and jealousies surface, we
watch each other for clues to conspiracy or secret
knowledge. I have told myself that I am not part of
that expectation, hope, and dread. I have done my
job. If they like me and feel like reappointing me,
fine. If they don't, I will manage. Meantime I
have themes to read.
Bushwah, as they would have said in Sewickley,
Pennsylvania, when Sid was growing up there. I
would sell my fair white body in the public
square to stay on.
Some deft turns of phrase there. "Rumors expand to fill
every pause in the talk..."
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rcurl
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response 6 of 230:
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Jun 26 19:11 UTC 1996 |
Remmers? Urk...it might even be me!
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void
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response 7 of 230:
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Jun 27 05:03 UTC 1996 |
shot in the dark...john updike?
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remmers
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response 8 of 230:
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Jun 27 12:15 UTC 1996 |
Not Updike, but not a bad guess. Not Curl, either.
I don't know anything about this author other than what's in the
biographical sketch included with the book I've been quoting from.
In addition to being a novelist he has had a distinguished career
as a teacher of writing, having taught at the University of
Wisconsin, Harvard, and Stanford. One of his books from the 1970's
won a Pulitzer Prize, and another from the same decade the National
Book Award.
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jerryr
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response 9 of 230:
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Jun 27 14:55 UTC 1996 |
no way could it be jonathan kozol, could it?
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remmers
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response 10 of 230:
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Jun 27 17:20 UTC 1996 |
Not Kozol. (Does Kozol write fiction?)
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rcurl
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response 11 of 230:
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Jun 27 18:20 UTC 1996 |
This item, agora 9, is now linked to books 53.
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omni
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response 12 of 230:
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Jun 27 22:35 UTC 1996 |
gay talese
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cthulhu
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response 13 of 230:
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Jun 28 02:50 UTC 1996 |
gore vidal?
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raven
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response 14 of 230:
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Jun 28 03:59 UTC 1996 |
Don Dellil, I don't know if I spelled his name right, he wrote a book called
"White Noise that i have skimmed that seemed similar to this style.
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raven
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response 15 of 230:
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Jun 28 05:50 UTC 1996 |
errr that should be Don Dellilo...
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remmers
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response 16 of 230:
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Jun 28 10:31 UTC 1996 |
Not Talese, Vidal, or Dellilo.
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kerouac
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response 17 of 230:
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Jun 28 15:22 UTC 1996 |
herman wouk?
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mooncat
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response 18 of 230:
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Jun 29 04:18 UTC 1996 |
_White Noise_ was an interesting book.... (Sorry for drift...)
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remmers
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response 19 of 230:
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Jun 29 11:42 UTC 1996 |
Not Wouk.
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kerouac
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response 20 of 230:
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Jun 29 15:08 UTC 1996 |
james michener?
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remmers
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response 21 of 230:
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Jun 29 18:14 UTC 1996 |
Not Michener.
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raven
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response 22 of 230:
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Jun 30 03:23 UTC 1996 |
Saul Bellow?
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remmers
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response 23 of 230:
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Jun 30 11:21 UTC 1996 |
Not Bellow.
I don't believe our author is quite as well-known as the folks
people have been guessing.
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lex
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response 24 of 230:
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Jul 1 03:32 UTC 1996 |
how about phillip roth? (i don't know if he's still breathing...)
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