response 108 of 207:

Nov 13 04:23 UTC 1998

<giggle!!!>

I need to get Bob on grex some time when he's feeling goofy!

response 110 of 207:

Nov 13 11:28 UTC 1998

Heh. As to how it really happened - I haven't read Cormac McCarthy but
have read something about him and his work. The last quote rang a bell,
I thought of his name, searched on the web, and came up with a short bio
which mentioned that he lives where you said the author does - El Paso,
Texas. That was the clincher, although I would have guessed him next
anyway.

By the way, there's a rather elaborate Cormac McCarthy website at

    http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/

It's run by "The Cormac McCarthy Society", which seems to be a bunch of
fans. McCarthy himself doesn't appear to be involved with it.

response 112 of 207:

Nov 13 19:09 UTC 1998

i have no idea what this is, but i like it.

response 114 of 207:

Nov 14 06:01 UTC 1998

hey, thanks for the cormac mccarthy site - that's really kind.

response 116 of 207:

Nov 14 13:21 UTC 1998

Ack! Got it in one. Yeats it is. Your turn.

Re resp:113 - No, because the Sphinx knew the answers to its riddles.

response 118 of 207:

Nov 15 02:12 UTC 1998

OK, again I'm choosing something I expect is pretty obscure, on the grounds
that it's a favorite of mine & deserves to be better known.  I'll be somewhat
surprised if anyone actually *recognizes* it - unpleasantly so if it's too
fast - but hope to give some clues that will enable the author to be guessed
by one who hasn't read the book.  Grexers being what they are, someone may
well recognize it, though.

This is the only book I've read by this author.  I'm aware of at least a
couple of others, by title, and they're only tangentially related.

Anyway, here goes

         I tiptoed back to the dance, away from the murmuring voices.
    Twenty minutes later Mrs. Calder entered the room, her hair and
    lace-collared green dress a trifle disheveled.  The expression on her
    face made me glad I was not a cat close enough for her to kick.  She
    plumped herself down at the other end of my bench, glaring at the
    revellers.  Once in a while she muttered under her breath.  Her hands
    clenched and unclenched as if she were milking a cow.  Soon, from just
    outside the window there came a song so soft that it must have been
    intended for only her ears and mine:

        We're a' dry wi' the drinkin' o't,
        We're a' dry wi' the drinkin' o't,
        The minister kissed the fiddler's wife,
        And he couldna preach for thinkin' o't.

         Mrs. Calder leaped as if she had sat on a pin and spun about, her
    hands in two tight fists.  "You!" she shouted.  "You dreadful--"  Then
    she realized that her voice was overriding Henry Lehman's
    reel-calling, and broke off.  A soft chant came again from the yard:

        Some men want youth, and others health,
          Some want a wife, and some a punk,
        Some men want wit, and others wealth,
          But they want nothing that are drunk.

    The briefest of pauses, and then:

        Would you be a man of fashion,
          Would you lead a life divine?
        Take a little dram of passion
          In a lusty dose of wine.

        If the nymph has no compassion,
          Vain it is to sigh and groan,
        Love was but put in for fashion,
          Wine will do the work alone.

         Mrs. Calder clapped her hands to her ears, her face crimson, and
    scurried to the other side of the room.
         Uncle Allie was apparently erring aimlessly and drunkenly about
    the school yard, singing whatever occurred to him; had he been a dog,
    I would have said he was baying the moon.  Once the words went:

        I have no pain, dear Mother, now,
        But oh, I am so dry;
        So connect me to a brewery,
        And leave me there to die.

response 120 of 207:

Nov 15 19:24 UTC 1998

Hmm.  Not a guess or comment so far?  Some clues are in order.

This is going to require occasional editing.  I'm going to give some clues,
including brief extracts.  In form, this work is autobiographical, and in fact
apparently (mostly) actually so, & the author bears his own name.  However,
another character dominates the book.  Though identified with the author's
long-lost great-uncle, this character is entirely fictitious; but giving his
name would identify the book (character's name is part of title).

From the Author's Note at the beginning:

         The statements about my height and appearance on pages 68 and 103
    of this book are lies.  So are any and all references to Mr. ---
    and Author Unknown.  The rest of the book is completely factual,
    including the disappearance of my great-uncle Alfred Richardson in
    the Klondike in 1879.

Author Unknown is Uncle Allie's dog.  Here also are the referenced descriptions
of the author:

from p. 68:
         In view of his reputation as a phrasemaker, it may seem a
    letdown that his first words when he descended from Mr. Lehman's
    stage (now a Reo truck) were: "My! How you've grown!"  Still,
    it was a natural thing to say.  I had shot up until at the age of
    fifteen I was almost as tall as Uncle Allie himself; my height so
    embarrassed me that I walked with a self-conscious stoop.

from p. 103:
         The campus newspaper was so hungry for copy that it would
    print virtually anything.  In my drive for sexual conquest, I
    inundated the columns with poetry.  I had to, for I lacked such
    other sexual bait as athletic prowess, symmetry of feature and form,
    or campus leadership.  At least my effusions rhymed and scanned;
    free verse was the order of the day, but I managed to avoid that
    ultimate heresy.  That the verses lack intellectual content was
    inevitable, since I had nothing to say.

I should add that what I've said, combined with my first quote in certain
respects, provide a significant clue to Uncle Allie's other identity and thus
to the title of the book.  (In fact, I just found it inside 1 minute using a
Title Words search at www.amazon.com, using no information beyond what I've
already given - except the information of how to put the clues together.)

response 122 of 207:

Nov 16 15:35 UTC 1998

er yes, and I thought I'd sent you mail about it...if you didn't get 
it, tell me and I'll send it again..

response 124 of 207:

Nov 17 17:40 UTC 1998

oh dear.  well, mostly just me being stupid, no change there.  the 
reel-calling was part of it, and the mention of cows - and the names... 
<embarrassed admission:> i just didn't really think about it 
analytically, just took it for granted... oops!

so now i've gone away and thought analytically about it, and i've worked 
out <drum roll> that i've never ever ever read this book.  i know i 
wouldn't have forgotten descriptions like those...

so... we're looking at round about the 1930s/40s in america?... and it's 
not someone well known?  that's going to be me sunk...) er...<name out 
of hat> updike?  bloody wish i'd been a bit faster off the mark with 
that yeats now!

oh, thankyou maeve - sorry, nope, i haven't got any mail from you - and 
now i'm going to go away and see if i can figure out how to send mail to 
a grexer...) (hey, i did say not clever...)

response 126 of 207:

Nov 18 02:07 UTC 1998

The part most recently quoted is America, specifically Washington (state),
sometime around 1915 or a bit after.  The earlier quote (at the dance) would
be a bit before 1925.  The book was published in 1977.  The author's other
books I'm aware of (by title only) are (if I recall) all on words, word games,
word puzzles, etc., and published within a few years of 1980.  As for the
author's birth date, I'm taking for granted that he's being truthful in
his account of his early life ... from which I'll quote:

         I entered this sad world at 6.05 A.M. on the eleventh day of
    December in the year of our Lord 1910.  My birthplace was my parents'
    bedroom in a small frame cottage (since destroyed) in downtown
    Olympia, capital of the state of Washington.  The family had arrived
    there while I was still humuncular; my father, a native of the
    sparsely settled southwestern corner of the state, was the choice of
    the citizens of Pacific and Wahkiakum counties to represent them as
    state senator, at a stipend, I believe, of five dollars a day.
         The --- family never amounted to much, but always to something;
    at least we knew who we were.  Mr. --- had our sort in mind when he
    wrote

        I belong to that highly respectable tribe
        Which is known as the Shabby Genteel
        Too proud to beg, too honest to steal.

         The exact instant of my birth is on record because my brother
    Edwin, then not quite two, the previous evening had stuffed into
    himself his first wedge of angel-food cake.  He then had begged his
    way into my parents' bed on a plea of bellyache.  At 5.03 A.M. he was
    removed, objecting loudly, to make room for me.  One hour and two
    minutes later, objecting just as loudly, I arrived to replace him.
         I was an ethereal-appearing infant, with violet-colored eyes of
    the giant economy size, set off by long dark lashes; I looked through
    rather than at my surroundings.  "That one," said the hired girl, "is
    not long for this world."  Mama marked the words, and on the erroneous
    assumption that I had been delivered in a crate marked "fragile--right
    side up with care," gave me special handling.
         In 1913, legislative service being a luxury my father could no
    longer afford, we returned home to the isolated settlement of
    Oysterville, where Papa owned a thousand acres of empty oysterbeds and
    another thousand or so of tide meadows and marshland.  On these latter
    he ran stock and raised hay and vegetables.  Oysterville was and is
    located on Shoalwater Bay (now called Willapa Harbor), near the point
    of a narrow, tree-covered sandspit thirty miles long, springing from
    the mouth of the Columbia River.  The village, founded in 1854,
    prospered for half a century on the tasty oysters that crowded the
    banks of the bay channel.  But the oysters died out, and by the time
    my memory begins there could not have been more than a dozen families
    still in the neighborhood, cultivating truck gardens and milking
    cows.

(Again, in this case it should not be necessary to recognize the author,
much less the work.  Try identifying the author of the *included* quotes,
Uncle Allie under his _nom_de_plume_ of Mr. ---.  (Another sample is
present in this extract.)  That plus a search engine should quickly lead you
to the title of the present work.  (About a third of the book is devoted
to a selection from the works of this most prolific author, BTW, as
an appendix.))

response 128 of 207:

Nov 30 18:19 UTC 1998

Oh!!!  Willard Espy.

response 130 of 207:

Dec 1 12:45 UTC 1998

Here's something a little different.  Proper names have been changed to
initials.

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I have intended for some time to write and explain to you the arrangement
I have made for my future residence, and respecting my private affairs
with a view to my comfort, so far as I may expect it, but it has been
painful to me to execute it. 

My ill state of health continuing, consisting of a cough, which annoys me
by night and day with considerable expectoration, considering my advanced
years, although my lungs are not affected, renders the restoration of my
health very uncertain, or indeed any favorable change in it.  In such a
state I could not reside on my farm.  The solitude would be very
distressing, and its cares very burdensome.  It is the wish of both of my
daughters, and of the whole connection, that I should remain here and
receive their good offices, which I have decided to do.  I do not wish to
burden them.  It is my intention to rent a house near Mr. G., and to live
within my own resources so far as I may be able.  I could make no
establishment of any kind without the sale of my property in L., which I
have advertised for the 8th of June, and given the necessary power to Mr.
G. and my nephew J.  If my health will permit, I will visit it in the
interim and arrange affairs there for that event and my removal here. The
accounting officers have made no decision on my claims, and have given me
much trouble.  I have written them that I would make out no account
adapted to the act, which fell far short of making me a just reparation,
and that I would rather lose the whole sum than give to it my sanction, be
the consequences what they may.  I never recovered from the losses of the
first mission, to which those of the second added considerably. 

It is very distressing to me to sell my property in L., for, besides
parting with all I have in the State, I indulged a hope, if I could retain
it, that I might be able occasionally to visit it, and meet my friends, or
many of them, there.  But ill health and advanced years prescribe a course
which we must pursue.  I deeply regret that there is no prospect of our
ever meeting again, since so long have we been connected, and in the most
friendly intercourse, in public and private life, that a final separation
is among the most distressing incidents which could occur.  I shall resign
my seat as a visitor at the Board in due time to enable the Executive to
fill the vacancy, that my successor may attend the next meeting.  I beg
you to assure Mrs. M. that I never can forget the friendly relation which
has existed between her and my family.  It often reminds me of incidents
of the most interesting character.  My daughter, Mrs. H., will live with
me, who with the whole family here, unite in affectionate regards to both
of you.

                              Very sincerely, your friend,