Ths is the mysterious quote item. In this item, you have to enter a quote which, by its style or its content, should enable a liberally educated reader to guess its author without having to do a Google search. If we have to start playing 20 questions, you've probably failed.224 responses total.
Btw, the person who guesses the author gets to enter the next quote. Here's one to start: "While the eyes of all men were upon this event, admiring the justice displayed in their deserved deaths, the same eyes were suddenly taken off from this sight to admire at the mysterious ways of the same power in the melancholy fate of the young and virtuous daughter, the lady Cordelia, whose good deeds did seem to deserve a more fortunate conclusion: but it is an awful truth, that innocence and piety are not always successful in this world. The forces which Goneril and Regan had sent out under the command of the bad earl of Gloucester were victorious, and Cordelia, by the practices of this wicked earl, who did not like that any should stand between him and the throne, ended her life in prison. Thus, Heaven took this innocent lady to itself in her young years, after showing her to the world an illustrious example of filial duty. Lear did not long survive this kind child."
All I can think of is King Lear by Shakespeare but that passage doesnt sound very Shakespearian.
Nope.
The passage is certainly about King Lear, but it's also certainly a commentary on the play by some other author. No author in particular jumps out at me, but the writing style seems 20th century. Maybe some current literary critic. For no better reason than that he's the first one to come to mind, I'll guess Harold Bloom.
(Thanks to md for reviving this item, by the way!)
I would have guessed Bloom as well.
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<linked to games>
*So* not Harold Bloom.
Elia?
And...?
(That was going to be my next guess.)
But unless Elia was two people, which I don't believe he was, that's
only half the answer. McNally probably has it, though, so let's
declare him the winner. Tales from Shakespeare, by Charles Lamb
("Elia") and his sister Mary. It's a children's book, as evidence the
glossing over of the ghastly pathos of Cordelia's and Lear's deaths.
McNally's up.
Was out hiking most of the weekend and not feeling particularly bookish. I'm at work right now, but will endeavor to find a suitable quote this evening..
Hmmm.. I'm accustomed to having my own books around me but don't have
that luxury at the moment -- they're mostly in storage back in Michigan.
So I'll just make do with what's handy on my sister's bookshelves.
"Brother to a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he be found worthy.
The law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not
easy to follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again
under circumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether
the other was worthy. I have still to be brother to a Prince,
though I once came near to kinship with what might have been a
veritable King and was promised the reversion of a Kingdom --
army, law-courts, revenue, and policy all complete. But, today,
I greatly fear that my King is dead, and if I want a crown I must
go hunt it for myself."
Mark Twain?
Oh. I think I have read that but for the life of me, I cant remember what it is or who wrote it. ARGH.
Not Twain.
Oscar Wilde?
Nor Wilde.
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To the best of my knowledge this author never resided in DeSmet, SD.
Too refined for Kipling, I think. Still, with no hope of finding a suitable quote should I be right, I'll guess Rudyard.
E.M. Forrester?
re #23: you shouldn't hedge your bets like that if you're going to guess correctly. It is indeed Kipling (it's the beginning of "The Man Who Would Be King.")
Kipling's The man who would be king.
OK. Don't know why it felt like Kipling, though.
I scarely know where to begin, though I sometimes facetiously
place the cause of it all to Charley Furuseth's credit. He kept a
summer cottage in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais,
and never occupied it except when he loafed through the winter
months and read Nietzche and Schopenhauer to rest his brain.
When summer came on, he elected to sweat out a hot and dusty
existence in the city and to toil incessantly. Had it not been
my custom to run up to see him every Saturday afternoon and to
stop over till Monday morning, this particular January Monday
morning would not have found me afloat on San Francisco Bay.
Jack London?
Richard Brautigan?
slynne got it right out of the gate. It's the first paragraph of The Sea Wolf.
Cool. I havent even read that but it sounded like him and I asked myself, "who would write about San Fransisco". Ok, here is mine.... "The three years that have passed have brought but few changes to the quiet family. The war is over, and [NAME DELETED] safely at home, busy with his books and the small parish which found in him a minister by nature as by grace, a quiet, studious man, rich in the wisdom that is better than learning, the charity which calls all mankind `brother', the piety that blossoms into character, making it august and lovely. These attributes, in spite of poverty and the strict integrity which shut him out from the more worldly successes, attracted to him many admirable persons, as naturally as sweet herbs draw bees, and as naturally he gave them the honey into which fifty years of hard experience had distilled no bitter drop. Earnest young men found the gray-headed scholar as young at heart as they, thoughtful or troubled women instinctively brought their doubts to him, sure of finding the gentlest sympathy, the wisest counsel. Sinners told their sins to the pure-hearted old man and were both rebuked and saved. Gifted men found a companion in him. Ambitious men caught glimpses of nobler ambitions than their own, and even worldlings confessed that his beliefs were beautiful and true, although `they wouldn't pay'. "
"Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott?
Wow. I figured that one would be easy but I didnt figure it would be *that* easy ;) You got it, Twila, so it is your turn.
15 minutes - that's pretty good!
Yeah, it's a record ejaculation time, for you.
I'll be posting something a bit later today.
I canht wait.
met too
Hmmm, since Twila has not gotten to it, I'll post a little something
in the interim.
Mr C(lavius) F(rederick) Earbrass is, of course, the
well-known novelist. Of his books, _A Moral Dustbin_,
_More Chains Than Clank_, _Was It Likely?_, and the
Hipdeep trilogy are, perhaps, the most admired. Mr
Earbrass is seen on the croquet lawn of his house,
Hobbies Odd, near Collapsed Pudding in Mortshire. He
is studying a game left unfinished at the end of the
summer.
P.G. Wodehouse?
Tom Holt?
Mickey Spillane?
Re 40,41,42. Nope. Should I give clues? The passage was first published in 1953.
GBS?
Edward Gorey.
It does match the other stuff I've seen by Mr. Gorey.
(Re #44: If you mean George Bernard Shaw, he died in 1950. Doesn't sound much like Shaw in any case.)
(Yes, I meant Mr. Shaw. I don't see a date reference in the snippet.)
Re 44,47,48. Not Shaw. I mentioned 1953 in #43. Re 45. John Perry is correct! Edward Gorey. The quote is the opening pargraph of "The Unstrung Harp", published in 1953, republished in the collection "Amphigorey".
Okay, here's the next entry. I have google-proofed it by substituting a word or two from each line, without (I hope) altering the meaning or feel of the story. --- I had soon told my tale and began to look about me. The log hut was built of unsquared trunks of pine-- roof, walls, and floor. The floor stood in several places as much as 12 inches or a foot and a half above the surface of the sand. There was a patio at the door, and under this patio the little spring welled up into an artificial bowl of a rather odd kind--no other than a great ship's pot of iron, with the bottom knocked out, and sunk "to her bearings," as the captain remarked, in the sand.
Treasure Island! I love that book. Robert Louis Stevenson
Yep. You're next! It's a great book, but for some reason I had never read it until I bought a copy at a library book sale in Tecumseh. I wasn't even familiar with the storyline until I saw the movie "Treasure Planet" last year. I have spent too much of my life reading science fiction, to the exclusion of all other types of literature.
It is a great book. Getting through the first chapter can be hard for a little kid, but after that it's gravy.
Ok, I'll do another easy one :) I have deleted names and replaced them with initials just to kind of make it a little harder. "Do not make yourself uneasy, my dear cousin, about your apparel. Lady C. is far from requiring that elegance of dress in us, which becomes herself and daughter. I would advise you merely to put on whatever of your clothes is superior to the rest, there is no occasion for any thing more. Lady C. will not think the worse of you for being simply dressed. She likes to have the distinction of rank preserved."
Charles Dickens?
Great Expectations...?
Ah, one I can get. :) Eli over here at the library likes to quote that last line occasionally in a humorous way. This would be from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
Very good Kip! You are up next. That is one of more famous lines from that book. I love it! Jane Austin really knew how to write a romantic comedy.
I was going to guess D. H. Lawrence but I guess that's a little obvious.
Since no new posting has appeared, here's one: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - In my native town of [name], at the head of what, half a century ago, in the days of old King Derby, was a bustling wharf, -- but which is now burdened with decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no symptoms of commercial life; except, perhaps, a bark or brig, half-way down its melancholy length, discharging hides; or, nearer at hand, a Nova Scotia schooner, pitching out her cargo of firewood, -- at the head, I say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflows, and along which, at the base and in the rear of the row of buildings, the track of many languid years is seen in a border of unthrifty grass, -- here, with a view from its front windows adown this not very enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbour, stands a spacious edifice of brick. From the loftiest point of its roof, during precisely three and a half hours of each forenoon, floats or droops, in breeze or calm, the banner of the republic; but with the thirteen stripes turned vertically, instead of horizontally, and thus indicating that a civil, and not a military post of Uncle Sam's government, is here established. Its front is ornamented with a portico of half a dozen wooden pillars, supporting a balcony, beneath which a flight of wide granite steps descends towards the street. Over the entrance hovers an enormous specimen of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears, by the fierceness of her beak and eye and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and especially to warn all citizens, careful of their safety, against intruding on the premises which she overshadows with her wings. Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking, at this very moment, to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle; imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eider-down pillow. But she has no great tenderness, even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later, -- oftener soon than late, -- is apt to fling off her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows.
Wow, did that need some more periods.
I disagree. It is an absoluty beautiful piece of writing.
[ahem] I disagree. It is an absolutely beautiful piece of writing.
Please go ahead and identify the person responsible.
Almost certainly not correct, but knowing of his efforts to promote the turkey as the national bird in preference to the bald eagle, I'll guess Benjamin Franklin.. For what it's worth, since moving to Alaska I've had plenty of opportunities to observe bald eagles and while they are beautiful and majestic in appearance, they really are pretty ill-tempered and petulant birds.
Like our Congress......
I'll guess Edward Everett Hale.
re #66: except for the "beautiful and majestic in appearance" part..
The sentences are actually kind of short, but I'll venture Faulkner.
Hawthorne, "The Custom House." Prose doesn't get much better-written than that.
Here's the next one: "Frank has acknowledged the safe return of the galleys I had been sent here and has asked me to mention in my Preface -- and this I willingly do -- that I alone am responsible for any mistakes in my commentary. Insert before a professional. A professional proofreader has carefully rechecked the printed text of the poem against the phototype of the manuscript, and has found a few trivial misprints I had missed; that has been all in the way of outside assistance."
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re #72: how many late 1700s manuscripts do you think talk about
"phototypes"?
but even apart from "phototypes" I'm just not seeing
whatever clues led you to that conclusion..
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Do #72 and #74 really refer to #71? If, instead, they refer to the previous quote, identifed as from Hawthorne's "The Custom House", then the "late 1700s" isn't too far off.
Hawthorne wrote "The Custom House" in probably in the 1840s, when he was actually wroking there. The current mystery quote is: "Frank has acknowledged the safe return of the galleys I had been sent here and has asked me to mention in my Preface -- and this I willingly do -- that I alone am responsible for any mistakes in my commentary. Insert before a professional. A professional proofreader has carefully rechecked the printed text of the poem against the phototype of the manuscript, and has found a few trivial misprints I had missed; that has been all in the way of outside assistance."
Walt Whitman?
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True story: I thought I might give "The Custom House" another read, so I took down my LoA _Complete Tales and Sketches_ and looked it up in the ToC. Not there. I slapped my forehead as I realized that "The Custom House" was the standalone introduction to _The House of the Seven Gables_. So, I replaced my LoA _Complete Tales and Sketches_, took down my LoA _Complete Novels_, and turned to H7G. *Still* not there. Getting seriously alarmed now. As a last resort, I turned to the beginning of _The Scarlet Letter_, thinking that surely can't be it, and there it was. It was like arriving at a familiar intersection from an unfamiliar direction. Anyway, some Hawthorne fan. Not Walt Whitman. Not Stephen King. I'd've thought "Insert before a professional" gave it away. Here's another excerpt from the same work: "Let me state that without my notes [...]'s text simply has no human reality at all since the human reality of such a poem as his (being too skittish and reticent for an autobiographical work), with the omission of many pithy lines carelessly rejected by him, has to depend entirely on the reality of its author and his surroundings, attachments and so forth, a reality that only my notes can provide. To this statement my dear poet would probably not have ascribed, but, for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word."
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More of same book: "What if we awake one day, all of us, and find ourselves utterly unable to read? I wish you to gasp not only at what you read but at the miracle of its being readable (so I used to tell my students). Although I am capable, through long dabbling in blue magic, of imitating any prose in the world (but singularly enough not verse -- I am a miserable rhymester), I do not consider myself a true artist, save in one matter: I can do what only a true artist can do -- pounce upon the forgotten butterfly of revelation, wean myself abruptly from the habit of things, see the web of the world, and the warp and the weft of that web. Solemnly I weighed in my hand what I was carrying under my left armpit, and for a moment I found myself enriched with an indescribable amazement as if informed that fireflies were making decodable signals on behalf of stranded spirits, or that a bat was writing a legible tale of torture in the bruise and branded sky."
"bruised and branded sky" sorry.
Pynchon
Not Pynchon.
Well damn. YOu have stumped me. I dont even have a good guess. So I will take a bad guess. = Virginia Wolfe
I haven't got the foggiest. It's nothing I've read, I'm sure of that. T. H. White?
H. L. Mencken
The "Insert before a professional" didn't give it away to me, and I'm still puzzling over what it means. In the last quote the author refers to his "students", which strongly suggests that he's an academic. The guy also seems excessively fond of alliteration: "utterly unable", "the web of the world, and the warp and the weft of that web" (sheesh!), "stranded spirits", etc.
I interpreted the "Insert before a professional" as a proof-reading note that got incorporated into the text. But I've not read the piece (before), nor do I know the author.
One more quote from the same book: "I was the shadow of the waxwing slain By the false azure in the windowpane; I was the smudge of ashen fluff -- and I Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky."
Still stumped.
All I know is that I havent read it. Maybe you could give us some non- literary clues. *shrug*
Nope. One more.
"English was not taught in Zembla before Mr. Campbell's time. Conmal
mastered it all by himself (mainly by learning a lexicon by heart) as a
young man in 1880, when not the verbal inferno but a quiet military
career seemed to open before him, and his first work (the translation
of Shakespeare's _Sonnets_) was the outcome of a bet with a fellow
officer. He exchanged his frogged uniform for a scholar's dressing
gown and tackled _The Tempest_. A slow worker, he needed half a
century to translate the works of him whom he called "dze bart," in
their entirety. After this, in 1930, he went on to Milton and other
poets, steadily drilling through the ages, and had just completed
Kipling's "The Rhyme of the Three Sealers" ("Now this is the Law of the
Muscovite that he proves with shot and steel") when he fell ill and
soon expired under his splendid painted bed ceil with its reproductions
of Altamira animals, his last word in his last delirium being "Comment
dit-on 'mourir' en englais?" -- a beautiful and touching end."
Anyone mention Kipling yet?
Yes, but not in relation to this quote.. :-)
In one of the quotes, the author says that he's a lousy poet. Would Kipling have said that?
Heh...
I had not read this either, so I looked it up. I only read one of his books, and I would be surprised if most of us had not read that one at some point beyond high school.
Last quote: "_Dim Gulf_ was my first book (free verse); _Night Rote_ Came next; then _Hebe's Cup_, my final float In that damp carnival, for now I term Everything "Poems" and no longer squirm. (But *this* thransparent thingum does require Some moondrop title. Help me, Will! _Pale Fire_.)"
Vladimir Nabokov.
And we have a winner!
Yah, Nabokov's Pale Fire. The prose is by Charles Kinbote and the poetry is by John Shade. Here's a review I wrote of it recently: Once upon a time, a judge named Goldsworth who lived in the college town of New Wye, Appalachia, sent a homicidal maniac named Jack Grey to an Institute for the Criminal Insane. But Grey escaped, and set out to find Judge Goldsworth and take revenge on him. When Grey arrived in New Wye, Goldsworth was away on sabbatical. Unfortunately, Goldsworth's nextdoor neighbor, a famous poet named John Shade, resembled Judge Goldsworth a bit. At the very moment Jack Grey arrived at the Goldsworth house, Shade was on his way there. Thinking Shade was the judge, Grey opened fire on the unfortunate poet, killing him instantly with a bullet through the heart. The reason Shade was at Goldsworth's house was that the man who was temporarily renting it while the judge was away, a Russian emigre named Vseslav Botkin, had lured him there with promises of liquor. (Shade was on the wagon, or at least trying.) Now this Vseslav Botkin was insane. After leading a dismal life of pederasty and persecution he had retreated into a desperate fantasy in which he imagined himself to be Charles the Beloved, last king of the kingdom of Zembla. In Botkin's paranoid world, the extremists had taken over Zembla and King Charles was forced to flee to America, where he changed his name to Charles Kinbote and found a teaching job at Wordsmith University, in New Wye. Botkin believed that Grey was actually an incompetent assassin sent by the extremists to murder King Charles (i.e., him), but who murdered John Shade by accident. The fantasies of this lunatic might be of little interest to the rest of the world, except for one thing. Botkin had been confiding his Zembla fantasies to John Shade in the hope that Shade would bring them to life in an epic poem. And in fact, Shade had been hinting to Botkin that he was writing a long poem, which Botkin crazily assumed would be his Zembla poem. On that fateful afternoon, Botkin had induced Shade to bring the almost-finished manuscript of the poem to Goldsworth's house, where Botkin (as he believed) would finally see his Zembla come to life. When the police had left and Botkin was alone at last with "his" poem, he was horrified to find that it had nothing at all to do with Zembla. It was an autobiographical poem addressed to the poet's beloved wife, whom Botkin despised, as he despised all women. The poem was very personal, containing many intimate details of the poet's marriage. It is doubtful, in fact, whether Shade ever meant to publish it. Undeterred, Botkin absconded with the manuscript to a motel room in a mountain town in the far west where he proceeded to write a long series of notes to the poem in which, taking off from a phrase here and a word there in Shade's poem, he detailed his "Zembla" fantasy. He even managed to find an unscrupulous publisher. The resulting book -- Shade's poem "Pale Fire" together with Botkin's preface, table of contents, notes and index -- comprise the novel _Pale Fire_, by Vladimir Nabokov. It is an artifact of the fictional world of Nabokov's novel, created by two of Nabokov's characters, that has somehow escaped from the fictional world into our "real" world. With the possible exception of a copy of _Alice in Wonderland_ autographed by Alice Liddell herself that I once held in my hands, it is the strangest book I have ever seen in my life. It is also filled with puzzles and paradoxes. From something as simple as the location of New Wye (somewhere in the hills of western Virgnia, judging from the butterflies that fly there), to whether the kingdom of Zembla actually exists in the fictional world of the novel (apparently not -- only where did that little Zemblan translation of Timon of Athens come from?), to the identity and motives of Shade's murderer, nothing in _Pale Fire_ is easy or obvious. Things get so complicated, in fact, that you start to wonder if maybe Nabokov didn't outsmart himself in this one. I still don't know. I do know that _Pale Fire_ is a masterpiece that deserves all the praise it gets.
Yep, I've verified it. I'd been assuming that md was quoting from a work of non-fiction. Instead, it was from the fictitious diary in Nabokov's _Pale Fire_ (which I haven't read, I'm ashamed to confess). Assuming that md certifies my guess as correct, I'll post a new quote soon, hopefully later today.
(Md's review in #102 slipped in. Very interesting. Now I'm motivated to read the book. I'll be posting a new quote soon. Stay tuned.)
I did a WWW search on one of Mike's quotes, and got the name of Nabokov. I assume you're not supposed to answer the quotes that way and so didn't answer it. I'd never heard of Nabokov.
re #105: Quick! Someone get md some smelling salts..
Hey, I bet he's heard of _Lolita_.
Heh, I was contemplating guessing Nabokov based solely on the fact that it was md posting. :)
Nabokov -- and md by default -- is a paedophile.
Zembla sounds a lot like the Russian word for land/country (with a b thrown in to make it easier for Americans to pronounce).
Right.. It put me in mind of Novaya Zemla in the Arctic Ocean.
"Nova Zembla" is what Botkin/Kinbote imagined the "extremists" called Zembla after they took it over. It is most certainly a version of Novaya Zemlya.
Okay, ready or not, here comes the next Mysterious Quote:
Haven't you heard about the new truant officer?
Nobody knows [who he is]. He wears disguises. All
the kids say he's so slick he can see around two
corners. Thirty kids played hooky from Bugmont
School last week, and he caught every one of them.
That's enough for me!
Jim Carroll
Not Jim Carroll.
Only one guess in twenty-four hours. Okay, I'll give a hint and
another quote.
Hint: This popular works of this prolific author, originally marketed
to children, later became widely admired by adults.
Next quote:
Fox hunting! Of all the asinine, stupid,
crazy, *useless* sports in the world, fox
hunting is the worst. That's why I thought
of you. If there is any member of the [name
omitted] family that is ideally suited for fox
hunting, you're it! His lordship is staging a
mass fox hunt at his estate tomorrow. I told
him you'd be there to bring in the first fox.
(Note: The first quote is in resp:113)
(Should've be "The popular works..." in the response above.)
Judy Blume? haha. I know *that* one is a long shot!
Not Judy Blume. Our author's active period is somewhat earlier.
Sounds almost like a Jeeves and Bertie line.
Hm, perhaps so. But I notice that you're not going so far as to guess explicitly that the author is P. G. Wodehouse. Good thing too, as you'd be wrong. :)
A.A. Milne?
I wasn't going to go for the gold, because I have no quote to offer should I get it. But guessing is fun anyway.
I'm reading the quotes and thinking, but I don't have a guess yet.
Not A.A. Milne. Our author is American.
Here's another quote:
I have startling news this evening, listeners. News from
the vast reaches of outer space. Our latest satellite,
orbiting the earth over two thousand miles out, has sent
back the most amazing pictures ever seen. It peeked
around the edge of the moon from away out at the apogee
of it's swing, and what do you think it saw? Another
moon! Another moon that hides in the dark sky beyond
our regular moon. The moon is smaller than our regular
moon, but -- oh brother! Is it rich! It's not
a *silvery* moon -- it's a *golden* moon! Scientists
checked its spectrographs and verified that it is...
TWENTY-FOUR CARAT SOLID GOLD!
Isaac Asimov
Interesting guess, but not Asimov.
Another hint: The author's most creative period extended from the early
1940s to around 1960.
Another quote:
Two thousand years ago, a Mayan ruler tossed his crown
into a "well of sacrifice."
"We must appease the angry gods. They made the
mountains rain fire on our city. Perhaps our
jewels and groceries will soothe them."
But the gods stayed grumpy, and the great Mayan city
slowly became a deserted ruin. Soon no one could tell
that a city once stood by the dark pool that had been
a "well of sacrifice."
Steinbeck?
Not Steinbeck.
H. Allen Smith?
Not H. Allen Smith.
I can't emphasize enough how popular this author's works were. I've
been unsuccessful so far in tracking down sales figures, but I'd guess
that the original editions sold in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps
millions. And this author turned out a *lot* of stuff.
Another hint: The author is deceased.
Another quote:
Ladywimmin an gints, I never expected to see this here
gold agin, so I'm gonna do a right handsome thing with
it! I'm gonna spend the WHOLE MILLION for MORE PENICILLIN
for these brave boys to fly to more sick Eskimos!
L. Frank Baum
Not Baum. He died in 1919, long before penicillin and orbiting satellites.
Robert Heinlein
Not Heinlein.
Fred Allen?
Walt Kelly?
Not Walt Kelly, but that's the best guess so far. Work by Kelly
and our author originally appeared in some of the same publications.
Note the preoccupation with wealth, power, and far-flung locales in
several of the quotes so far. Those are characteristic of this
author.
Two more quotes:
Quote #1:
Night! Mysterious figures rise from the center of the
water hole. The Raiders of No Issa! Watertight covers
are removed from guns. Breechlocks click. The raid is
on!
Quote #2:
"Turn southward, [name omitted]! I've decided that I shall
be the owner of North America! ... I CAN OWN North America!
This map and the helmet are my deed to the continent! ...
I'll run the country for the benefit of the MUSEUMS!
Everybody will have to go to a museum TWICE a day!"
Hmmm, I had been thinking that this might be a cartoonist.
What, like Carl Barks?
*Exactly* like Carl Barks. Excellent! We have a winner. Carl Barks wrote and drew most of the "duck stories" (Donald Duck and associated characters) that appeared in Walt Disney comic books from the early 1940s until his retirement in 1965. He created Scrooge McDuck, Gladstone Gander, the Junior Woodchucks, and the Beagle Boys. The quotes above are from Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck stories originally published from the late 1940s through the late 1950s in ten-cent Walt Disney comic books. They range in length from ten-page Donald Duck stories in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories magazine to longer adventure pieces with titles like "Crown of the Mayas" and "The Golden Helmet" in the Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge magazines. In my opinion, althought his name is not as well known, Barks' artistic and narrative abilites were comparable to those of Walt Kelly, who also worked for Disney as an animator (Kelly's name is in the "Dumbo" credits) and comic book illustrator during the 1940s. Kelly broke free of Disney with his "Pogo" character, first in comic book form, then as the classic newspaper strip. At that point, he got to sign his work, and his name became known to the public at large. Barks, by contrast, remained in the Disney stable and thus had to work anonymously - artists and writers for Disney comic books didn't get to claim any credit for their work in those days. As a result, he developed a large collection of fans who loved his stuff and recognized it as distinctly superior to that of other cartoonists writing and drawing duck stories, but who had no idea who he was and who referred to him simply as "the good artist". Soon before or after Barks' retirement from Disney, some persistent fans managed to uncover his identity. After that he became a frequent guest at comic book conventions, his duck stories were reprinted and anthologized, and the original comic books containing his work became valuable collectors items (a mint-condition copy of a 1940s comic book containing a Barks story would probably sell for thousands of dollars today). In his later years he turned out a series of oil "duck paintings" based on the original stories that themselves are now collectors items commanding high prices. A few years ago, when he was in his 90s, he was guest of honor at an elaborate celebration of his work at one of the Disney theme parks. Belated, but much deserved, recognition. Barks died in 2000 at the age of 99. Barks' stories do tend to exhibit adherence to a formula - typically some sort of adventure in an exotic land and involving a long lost treasure. In his later years, Barks remarked that if he'd known that there would be any kind of long term interest in his work, he'd have put more effort into varying his plots. Okay. Bhoward guessed it, so he's up for the next quote.
But who, I wonder, was the creative force behind "Donald in Mathemagic-Land"? (hmm. Google to the rescue again..)
Dunno, but probably not Barks. Doesn't seem like his style.
Donald in Mathemagic Land was one of my favoriets.
No fair, Lawrence tricked me into blurting that out :-) Excuse me while I rummage for an interesting quote. Unfortunately, I'm at work so you'll just have to wait until (your) tomorrow morning.
It's been a week of tomorrows, and no quote yet, so into the breach
again....
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Death before forty's no bar. Lo!
These had accomplished their feats:
Chatterton, Burns, and Kit Marlowe,
Byron and Shelley and Keats.
Death, the eventual censor,
Lays for the forties, and so
Took off Jane Austen and Spenser,
Stevenson, Hood, and poor Poe.
You'll leave a better-lined wallet
By reaching the end of your rope
After fifty, like Shakespeare and Smollett,
Thackeray, Dickens, and Pope.
Try for the sixties--but say, boy.
That's when the tombstones were built on
Butler and Sheridan, the play boy
Arnold and Coleridge and Milton.
Three score and ten--the tides rippling
Over the bar; slip the hawser.
Godspeed to Clemens and Kipling,
Swinburne and Browning and Chaucer.
Some staved the debt off but paid it
At eighty--that's after the law.
Wordsworth and Tennyson made it,
And Meredith, Hardy, and Shaw.
But Death, while you make up your quota
Please note this confession of candor--
That I wouldn't give an iota
To linger till ninety, like Landor.
(thanks polygon...I've been a bit distracted this week preparing for a trip back to the states)
Hm.... Shaw died in 1950, so the quote has to postdate that. So we're talking about a latter-20th-century author who wrote at least some humorous verse. Odgen Nash comes to mind, but it doesn't sound much like Nash. It scans too well. Wild (and probably wrong) guess: Richard Wilbur.
(By the way, I assume that the "Landor" referenced in the quote is Walter Savage Landor. His dates were 1775-1864, so it looks like he didn't quite make it to ninety, contrary to what the quote says.)
Not Ogden Nash. Not Richard Wilbur. But yes, an American.
And unlike Landor, the author of the quoted lines did not live to ripe age.
And oh -- an understandable error. Apparently George Bernard Shaw was living when this was written. The poem predates 1950.
Hm, the poem's misleading then, as it implies that Shaw had already "paid the debt", which I took to mean had "passed on". Shaw was born in 1856, so if he was in his 80s when the poem was written, that would put the date no earlier than the mid-1930s. If it's also pre-1950, that narrows it down to a span of no more than 14 or 15 years. Okay, an American author active in the 1930s and/or 1940s. I'll ponder some more...
Reminds me of Samuel Hoffenstein.
I'm not clear whether it's clear that George Bernard Shaw was Irish, not American...
It's clear to me. But polygon said that the author (who is not Shaw) is American.
Ah. Point.
Re 153. Yes, the poem was first published when Shaw was in his 80s. Re 154. Not Samuel Hoffenstein. Re 155-57. Not George Bernard Shaw. The author's most famous work (and it is very famous) is in prose, not poetry. I did not realize the author was also a published poet until I found this poem. A Google search found references to other poetry.
Fitzgerald?
Re 159. Bingo! F. Scott Fitzgerald is the author. The poem was first
published in The New Yorker in 1937. Fitzgerald himself died in his 40s.
Though refereces to the title ("Obit on Parnassus") can be found in
Google, the text of the poem does not appear to be online.
Interesting. I didn't know that Fitzgerald was a poet either.
There are only sixty or so Fitzgerald poems - how could you know? http://libweb.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/aids/fitzgerald/
Heh. That was a total lucky guess. I didnt realize that Fitzgerald was a poet either. Go figure. I have a really cool quote but I am not at home (where the book is) so I'll have to enter it later.
heck, just paraphrase it!
That'd make it harder to google..
see?!
Ok, here is my quote...
"We all four of us been workin together, day in and day out for , oh
lord, I don t know how long. We done raised crops and chilren together,
done kept that brick house so clean you could eat off the floors. But
like Letta always says, who wanna eat off a floor?
You think somebody gonna throw us a party for getting through
all this? No sir. You don t get no trophies for liven the life you born
into. It just be your job, and you lucky if you can do the work set out
in front of you and not fret if it seem puny. Maybe the Good Lord ain t
give us nothing but puny things. Little bitta things sparklin through
our days and nights. In the fields and in the mornin air, little bitta
things that if you blink your eye, they be gone and ain t never comin
back."
Toni Morrison
Not Toni Morrison
Langston Hughes.
Zora Neale Hurston?
al jolson?
Mark Twain?
John Steinbeck?
fred mertz?
Sounds like it could be from _The Color Purple_, so I'll guess Alice Walker.
Nope. None of the above. First Hint: This book was published within the last 10 years.
fred mertz posthumous?
"The Wind Done Gone" - Alice Randall?
(Mynxcat might just have it...)
Nope. Second Hint: A different book by the same author recently was made into a movie.
whore.
Ok, here is a different quote from the same author: "She stared at the phone. Her relationship with her mother had never been smooth, but this latest episode was disastrous. For the umpteenth time that week, [name deleted] punched the number of her parents home at Pecan Grove. For the first time, she actually let it ring through."
My guess is that it's an American author, probably female. Nonetheless I'll make a wild guess at a British author: Helen Fielding.
It is a female American author. Thus, it isnt Helen Fielding.
Okay, guess I get partial credit on that one. <remmers ponders further>
I'll answer on condition that I don't have to guess the next quote (final exam is in a week and a half and no time to research a fun quote until after I pass (or otherwise!)) Given the movie hint, my money is on Rebecca Wells.
Ann Tyler.
Hm... There have been some movies based on Ann Tyler novels, but I can't think of a recent one.
It's Rebecca Wells! The first quote I gave was from _Little Alters Everywhere_ and the second was from _Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood_ Bruce wins. But since he doesnt want to give the next quote, I guess it is open to anyone :)
THE LAWYERS, Bob, know too much.
They are chums of the books of old John Marshall.
They know it all, what a dead hand Wrote,
A stiff dead hand and its knuckles crumbling,
The bones of the fingers a thin white ash.
The lawyers know
a dead man's thoughts too well.
In the heels of the higgling lawyers, Bob,
Too many slippery ifs and buts and howevers,
Too much hereinbefore provided whereas,
Too many doors to go in and out of.
When the lawyers are through
What is there left, Bob?
Can a mouse nibble at it
And find enough to fasten a tooth in?
Why is there always a secret singing
When a lawyer cashes in?
Why does a hearse horse snicker
Hauling a lawyer away?
Darn - that style rings a bell...
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.?
Kipling?
Re 194. Not Kipling. Re 193. Not Holmes. Re 192. Not Bell.
(polygon comes to my rescue once again...thanks!)
The cynicism level in the quote suggests Ambrose Bierce.
Re 196. No problem. RE 197. Not Bierce. But, yes indeedy, a dead white American male.
Racist.
Wild guess, probably wrong: Don Marquis.
Re 200. Not Don Marquis. Another brief excerpt coming.
Hmm, this isn't the kind of excerpt I meant, but I can't resist: "Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work."
That's a very familiar quote. Is it Mencken?
IT's Pink Floyd.
Ben Franklin?
Re 203-205. Not Mencken, Pink Floyd, or Ben Franklin.
The quote in #202 was published in 1959. The author was living at the time.
Er, um, I'm not actually looking at the source, but it was some time in the 1950s anyway.
I'll hedge my bets and say Pink Floyd.
If Larry hadn't said that the author was male, I'd guess Dorthy Parker.
Something about these quotes reminds me of Ezra Pound. So I'll guess him.
I think I need another hint.
Jack Kerouac?
Actually, I've decided that this isn't Ezra Pound after all. Can I withdraw my guess? (Just can't picture Pound calling anyone "Bob". Nor complaining about paying attention to what dead people had to say.)
I say it's Pink Floyd.
Not Dorothy Parker, Ezra Pound, or Jack Kerouac. I'll post some of his prose soon.
Okay, while I look for the book I have in mind, here's another poem by the
same author (after the dashed line below).
I am VERY surprised that nobody has guessed this one yet. I left out the
final lines of the first poem because I thought it would be TOO obvious.
The following is a complete poem.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Bricklayer Love
I thought of killing myself because I am only a bricklayer
and you a woman who loves the man who runs a drug store.
I don't care like I used to; I lay bricks straighter than I
used to and I sing slower handling the trowel afternoons.
When the sun is in my eyes and the ladders are shaky and the
mortar boards go wrong, I think of you.
Burroughs
Re 218. Not Burroughs.
shit...uh...frank o'hara?
Re 220. Not Frank O'Hara.
Another quote then? Or hint? Please?
(Quotes so far from the current guest writer are in #191, #202 and #217.)
Yes, yes, I'm trying to find a sample from the author's voluminous prose works, none of which seem to be online. I'll try to get one posted today.
You have several choices: