This is the fall edition of a Grex game that has been running for many
seasons now.

It works like this: Whoever is "up" posts a published quote. The object
is to guess the author. The first person to guess correctly gets to give
the next quote.

If you're up and people are having trouble, it's considered good form to
give hints and/or another quote by the same author.

If you're guessing, please guess one author at a time (that is, no
scattergun guessing by one person). If you're told that your guess is
wrong, then you're free to guess a different author.

Your quotes can be easy or hard, but the authors should be people that
at least some Grexers are apt to have heard of.

Since I'm entering the item, I'll start. Stay tuned for a quote to show
up momentarily...

207 responses total.

Okay, here's my quote:

        We were camping in the oasis. My companions were asleep.
        An Arab, tall and white, walked past me; he had attended
        to the camels and was going to the sleeping area.

        I flopped backwards into the grass; I tried to sleep; I
        couldn't -- the keen howl of a distant jackal; I sat up
        again. And something that had been so far away was
        suddenly near. A swarming of jackals all around me; eyes
        gleaming in matte gold and fading; lithe bodies in agile,
        regular motion as if under a whip.

        One jackal came up from behind, squeezing under my arm
        and against me as if needing my warmth; then stood before
        me and spoke to me, almost eye to eye:

        "I am the eldest jackal far and wide. I am happy to be
        greeting you here. I had already given up all hope, for
        we have been awaiting you for an eternity; my mother
        waited and her mother and every one of their mothers
        all the way back to the mother of all jackals. Believe
        me!"

Agora 36 - Fall 1998 Mysterious Quote - has been linked to Books 77.

I should add -- there's no restriction on genre. Fiction, non-fiction,
prose, poetry, all fair game.

It sounds like an American who doesn't actually have any direct
experience with North African or Middle Eastern deserts.

James Thurber?

Not Thurber. But like Thurber, the author is (a) deceased, (b) male, and
(c) very well known (probably more so than Thurber).

  re #5:  presumably well-known for reasons other than his writing?

shot in the dark= Hemingway?

  Mark Twain?

Re resp:6 - Nope, known primarily as a writer.

Not Hemingway or Twain.

kipling?

Oh!  She took my guess!  She took my guess!

Kipling's not a bad guess, but it ain't Kipling.

Kahlil gibran?

Not Kahlil Gibran.

Here's another quote by this author:

        We halted at the bridge spanning the mountain torrent;
        those who had run further doubled back. The water below
        smashed against rocks and roots as if it were not
        already late in the evening. There was no reason why no
        one jumped up to the balustrade of the bridge.

        In the distance, a railroad train emerged from behind
        some shrubbery, all the compartments were lit, the
        glass windows were probably down. One of us began
        singing a popular hit, but we all wanted to sing. We
        sang much faster than the train moved, we swung our
        arms because our voices weren't strong enough, our
        voices formed a scrimmage in which we felt cozy. If
        you blend your voice with other voices, you are
        virtually caught on a fishhook.

        And so, with our backs to the forest, we sang for the
        ears of distant travelers. The adults were still awake
        in the village, the mothers were making up the beds
        for the night.

        It was already time. I kissed the one standing next
        to me, casually shook hands with the three nearest
        ones, and began to run back; no one called out to me.
        At the first crossroads, where they could no longer
        see me, I turned off and ran back into the forest
        along dirt roads. I was heading toward the southern
        city which our villagers talk about:

        "There are people there! Just imagine, they don't
        sleep!"

        "And why not?"

        "Because they don't get sleepy."

        "And why not?"

        "Because they're fools."

        "Don't fools get sleepy?"

        "How could fools get sleepy?"

Hmm.  Sounds much more recent than Kipling, Twain, even Thurber, IMO.  I have
no idea who it is, however.

The author lived around the same time as Kipling but was considerably
younger. His life overlapped significantly with Twain's as well. He
was definitely earlier than Thurber.

Hmph.  Without checking dates, I'll guess G. K. Chesterton, then.  So much
for my ear.

Not G.K. Chesterton.

To drop a somewhat obscure and possibly annoying hint -- all the 
guesses so far make a tacit assumption that is, in fact, wrong.

 Wodehouse?

Sir Winston Churchill?

re #19: aha!  I conclude that remmers is pulling everyone's leg, and all 
the hints are lies; that the author doesn't meet any of the stated 
criteria, and didn't write the quotes.

Arthur C. Clarke

(I so rarely get to make a guess in these items that I just couldn't 
resist, though clearly I should have.)

None of the above.

All the guesses so far still share the same erroneous assumption.

The author is *very* well known. However, I have not been quoting from 
the author's better-known works. If nobody has it by this evening, I 
think I'll post another quote.

though i have no idea about the author, a common assumption about all the the 
authors givin is that they were/are  not natives of the settings described
in the selections. 
I don't think that makes as much sense as it should. anyway, bait us some more.

That's a common assumption, but not the one I had in mind.

C. S. Lewis?

This response has been erased.

Arthur Conan Doyle?

Having entered that guess, I suddenly realize that the likely erroneous
assumption is that the author is male.

Not C.S. Lewis, not Arthur Conan Doyle.

All the guesses so far have been male authors, but that's not the
incorrect assumption I had in mind either. (Note that I'm not saying
whether the assumption that the author is male is correct or not.)

I looked through my copy of one of the author's best-known works but
couldn't find anything that wouldn't be a dead giveaway. So I'll quote
again from something less well-known. It's a little more characteristic
of the themes and style associated with this author than my previous
quotes, however:

        Schmar, the murderer, stationed himself toward nine P.M.,
        in the moonlit night, at the corner where Wese, the victim,
        had to turn from the street where his office was into the
        street he lived on.

        Cold night air sending shudders through everyone. But Schmar
        was wearing only a blue suit; furthermore, his jacket was
        unbuttoned. He felt no cold; besides, he was constantly
        moving. He kept a tight grip on his murder weapon, half
        bayonet, half kitchen knife, fully exposed. He peered at the
        knife against the moonlight; the blade flashed; not enough
        for Schmar; he banged it against the pavement bricks, 
        striking sparks; regretted it perhaps; and to fix the damage,
        he drew the blade over the soles of his boots like a violin
        bow while, standing on one leg and leaning over, he drew the
        blade over the soles of his boots like a violin bow while,
        standing on one leg and leaning over, he also listened to
        the grinding of the knife on his boots, though alert to
        any sound from the fateful side street.

        Why was all this tolerated by Pallas, a private citizen,
        who was nearby, watching everything from his window on the
        second landing? Try and fathom human nature! With his collar
        turned up, his dressing gown belted around his wide waist,
        he peered down, shaking his head.

   Hah!

   I think I got it -- for the first time ever I think I got it.

   Franz Kafka.

   Racking my little brains, I think it's from the story "Fratricide".

Excellent! Franz Kafka it is. And STeve got the story right too.

The first quote was from the story "Jackals and Arabs," the second from
"Children on the Highway."

The "erroneous assumption" that everyone made was that the quotes were
originally written in English.

STeve's up for the next quote.

drat drat drat. i knew this one. steve got to it first. 
and the ironic thing is I wanted to put some kafka on here if I ever won. 
drat.

I read only one story by Franz Kafka and it is metamorphosis. I think Steve
is a voracious reader. I would enjoy talking to him.

   Thanks...  I guess I am.  Early on, a teacher in *grade school* suggested
that I read him.  I weirded him out, by saying I'd already read Metamorphosis,
because my mother was in the film. If you ever see it, she is the maid who
walks in to Gregor's room, sees him and lets out a blood curdling scream.

   I'll come up with a quote by tomorrow.  Is that OK, timewise?

Perfectly fine, timewise.

I was tempted to quote from "Metamorphosis." But on looking through it,
I found that practically every page referred to the protagonist's
unusual state in some explicit way. Any quote would be a dead giveaway.

   Sigh.  The book I thought I had, I don't.  The book that just
slithered out from under the couch is the one I wanted 3 weeks
ago but isn't right for this.

   So it's off to the library tomorrow so I can xox the needed
page(s) for inclusion in this item.

   Forgive my lack of speed here, but I would have bet last
months's salary that I wouldn't have gotten one of these...

(Is xox an abbreviation for xerox? That's neat...)

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss