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Quiz about Famous First Words American Literature
Quiz about Famous First Words American Literature

Famous First Words: American Literature Quiz


Another installment of my Famous First Words, here are the first lines from some of my favourite (North) American books, you just match them with the title/author. Clues and year of publication are given in all but one; the last one!

A multiple-choice quiz by thula2. Estimated time: 8 mins.
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Author
thula2
Time
8 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
352,505
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
7 / 10
Plays
780
Awards
Top 35% Quiz
Last 3 plays: Guest 99 (5/10), Guest 38 (7/10), mungojerry (3/10).
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Question 1 of 10
1. This novel (published in 1939) was the author's debut novel, although he was already in his fifties and had written short stories for pulp magazines. It was the first of a series for the lead character, a man with a roguish charm.

Which novel starts with the following lines?

"It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it."
Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. This novel (published in 1954) tells the tale of a war veteran who is bent on preaching atheism in the Southern town of Taukinham. The author only wrote two novels, but many short stories, before losing the battle with lupus in 1964 and dying aged just 39.

Which novel starts with the following lines?

"Hazel Motes sat at a forward angle on the green plush train seat, looking one minute at the window as if he might want to jump out of it, and the next down the aisle at the other end of the car."
Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. This novel (published in 1979) is the first in a series narrated by the fictional character Nathan Zuckerman, who is visiting his literary hero (E.I. Lonoff) in his home. Whilst there he meets Amy Bellette, who he thinks is Anne Frank.

Which novel starts with the following lines?

"It was the last daylight hour of a December afternoon more than twenty years ago - I was twenty-three, writing and publishing my first short stories, and like many a Bildungsroman hero before me, already contemplating my own massive Bildungsroman - when I arrived at his hideaway to meet the great man."
Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. This novel (published in 1900) tells the tale of a young country girl who moves to the city. Once there she sees the way to success is easier through illicit affairs with men rather than hard graft. It was condemned as immoral at the time of its publication.

Which novel starts with the following lines?

"When Caroline Meeber boarded the afternoon train for Chicago, her total outfit consisted of a small trunk, a cheap imitation alligator-skin satchel, a small lunch in a paper box, and a yellow leather snap purse, containing her ticket, a scrap of paper with her sister's address in Van Buren Street, and four dollars in money. It was August 1899. She was eighteen years of age, bright, timid, and full of the illusions of ignorance and youth."
Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. This semi-autobiographical novel (published in 1982), mostly set in Los Angeles, takes us through the pain of being a teenager who is hopeless at sports, gruesome (and ineffectual) treatment for acne, and the strained relations with an abusive father. The title is a pun on a very famous American novel of the same era, and the author's taste for alcohol.

Which novel starts with the following lines?

"The first thing I remember is being under something. It was a table, I saw a table leg, I saw the legs of the people, and a portion of the tablecloth hanging down. It was dark under there, I liked being under there. It must have been in Germany. I must have been between one and two years old. It was 1922. I felt good under the table. Nobody seemed to know I was there."
Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. This novel (published in 1960) is the first of a series following the exploits of Harry Angstrom, a disgruntled husband and father in his twenties who had dreamed of becoming a basketball star but has ended up selling kitchen gadgets.

Which novel starts with the following lines?

"Boys are playing basketball around a telegraph pole with a blackboard bolted to it. Legs, shouts. The scrape and snap of Keds on loose alley pebbles seems to catapult their voices high into the moist March air blue above the wires."
Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. This novel (published in 1956) was the Canadian-born author's fourth, and although it's highly-rated by many, it is overshadowed by its picaresque predecessor. It is a day in the life of an ex-door-to-door salesman whose poor finances have got the better of him. His father is unbending in his refusal to help, his estranged money-grabbing wife won't let up, and he is led astray on the stock market.

Which novel starts with the following lines?

"When it came to concealing his troubles, Tommy Wilhelm was not less capable than the next fellow. So at least he thought, and there was a certain amount of evidence to back him up. He had once been an actor - no not quite, an extra - and he knew what acting should be. Also, he was smoking a cigar, and when a man is smoking a cigar, wearing a hat, he has an advantage; it's harder to find out how he feels."
Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. This novel (published in 1939) is part of the series "The Bandini Quartet". It deals with an impoverished writer living in Los Angeles and his ill-fated love affair with a local waitress, Camilla Lopez. The title was borrowed from a line in a Knut Hamsun novel.

Which novel starts with the following lines?

"One night I was sitting on the bed in my hotel room on Bunker Hill, down in the very middle of Los Angeles. It was an important night in my life, because I had to make a decision about the hotel. Either I paid up or I got out: that was what the note said, the note the landlady had put under the door. A great problem, deserving acute attention. I solved it by turning out the lights and going to bed."
Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. This novel (published in 1964) was described by a British judge as "a book which dealt with homosexuality, prostitution, drug-taking and sexual perversion" at an obscenity trial its publishers were put through. It was made into a film in 1989. Its author also wrote "Requiem for a Dream".

Which novel starts with the following lines?

"They sprawled along the counter and on the chairs. Another night. Another drag of a night in the Greeks, a beatup all night diner near the Brooklyn Armybase. Once in a while a doggie or seaman came in for a hamburger and played the jukebox. But they usually played some goddam hillbilly record. "
Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. No clues for this one.

Which novel (published in 1851) starts with the following lines?

"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation."
Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. This novel (published in 1939) was the author's debut novel, although he was already in his fifties and had written short stories for pulp magazines. It was the first of a series for the lead character, a man with a roguish charm. Which novel starts with the following lines? "It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it."

Answer: "The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler had done a wide range of things by the time he came to writing for a living (he'd been writing poetry since his youth), and had experienced luck both good and bad, which might be what makes his hard-boiled character Philip Marlowe's world-weariness seem so genuine.

Marlowe appeared in a number of stories, and along with Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade, epitomizes the private detective in American popular culture. Marlowe's iconic status was undeniably aided by his portrayal on the silver screen, most memorably by Humphrey Bogart, but what lies behind such performances is Chandler's razor-sharp writing.

Philip K Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" was turned into the film "Blade Runner". "Full Fathom Five" is a painting by Jackson Pollock.
2. This novel (published in 1954) tells the tale of a war veteran who is bent on preaching atheism in the Southern town of Taukinham. The author only wrote two novels, but many short stories, before losing the battle with lupus in 1964 and dying aged just 39. Which novel starts with the following lines? "Hazel Motes sat at a forward angle on the green plush train seat, looking one minute at the window as if he might want to jump out of it, and the next down the aisle at the other end of the car."

Answer: "Wise Blood" by Flannery O'Connor

Although Flannery O'Connor was primarily a short-story writer, her two novels are like nothing else I've ever read. The term "Southern Gothic" has been used to describe her (and a handful of other's) writing, but I find it somewhat misleading. The word "grotesque" is also often bandied about, but as she herself quite succinctly put it "anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic."

Her work can be harrowing, her characters bizarre and cruel, but there is also compassion, humanity and a good dose of humour in her work.

William Faulkner also wrote about the South, Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse 5" is an anti-war novel loosely based on the bombing of Dresden in World War II. "Achelous and Hercules" by Thomas Hart Benton is a painting.
3. This novel (published in 1979) is the first in a series narrated by the fictional character Nathan Zuckerman, who is visiting his literary hero (E.I. Lonoff) in his home. Whilst there he meets Amy Bellette, who he thinks is Anne Frank. Which novel starts with the following lines? "It was the last daylight hour of a December afternoon more than twenty years ago - I was twenty-three, writing and publishing my first short stories, and like many a Bildungsroman hero before me, already contemplating my own massive Bildungsroman - when I arrived at his hideaway to meet the great man."

Answer: "The Ghost Writer" by Philip Roth

Prolific and award-laden writer Philip Roth has always been at pains to emphasize that Nathan Zuckerman is not him or even his alter-ego, but his own career is often mirrored in that of Zuckerman's, and the themes of authorship, identity, and fact versus fiction are played with in much of his work.

The character Zuckerman appears to have been put to bed in "Exit Ghost" (2007) after having narrated nine novels. Philip Roth has also written a series of books revolving around a character called David Kepesh.

Although Roth rose to fame (and some might say infamy) with his hilarious novel "Portnoy's Complaint" (1969), he has always striven to respond to what the world throws at him/us through literature using comedy, tragedy and farce as he deems appropriate.

"Ghost Story" and "Harlot's Ghost" are both novels, whereas "Ghost Rider" is a comic.
4. This novel (published in 1900) tells the tale of a young country girl who moves to the city. Once there she sees the way to success is easier through illicit affairs with men rather than hard graft. It was condemned as immoral at the time of its publication. Which novel starts with the following lines? "When Caroline Meeber boarded the afternoon train for Chicago, her total outfit consisted of a small trunk, a cheap imitation alligator-skin satchel, a small lunch in a paper box, and a yellow leather snap purse, containing her ticket, a scrap of paper with her sister's address in Van Buren Street, and four dollars in money. It was August 1899. She was eighteen years of age, bright, timid, and full of the illusions of ignorance and youth."

Answer: "Sister Carrie" by Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Dreiser caused quite a stir with "Sister Carrie" since it was deemed immoral simply because it didn't teach a moral. Although Carrie is unhappy at the end of the book, it's more due to ennui than moral regret, and she has managed to rise to high society through her seemingly ruthless attitude towards men. However, it was praised in certain quarters and has remained a classic of American literature.

Dreiser's writing style has also come under criticism over the years, and although it can be a bit labored at times, he evokes the misery and anguish suffered by some of the men who Carrie leaves behind on her headstrong path to what she believes will bring happiness.

"The Portrait of a Lady" by Henry James was published in 1881, and is one of his most popular novels. "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair, published in 1906, is about the dreadful conditions of the American working class at the turn of the century. The film "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" by John McNaughton was in there as it is also set in Chicago, although the tale is vastly different.
5. This semi-autobiographical novel (published in 1982), mostly set in Los Angeles, takes us through the pain of being a teenager who is hopeless at sports, gruesome (and ineffectual) treatment for acne, and the strained relations with an abusive father. The title is a pun on a very famous American novel of the same era, and the author's taste for alcohol. Which novel starts with the following lines? "The first thing I remember is being under something. It was a table, I saw a table leg, I saw the legs of the people, and a portion of the tablecloth hanging down. It was dark under there, I liked being under there. It must have been in Germany. I must have been between one and two years old. It was 1922. I felt good under the table. Nobody seemed to know I was there."

Answer: "Ham On Rye" by Charles Bukowski

Although often pigeonholed as the bard of boisterous drunken brawls, there is an emotional depth and fragility to Bukowski that is often overlooked by both his detractors and his supporters. The most autobiographical of his books, "Ham On Rye" is where he displays his vulnerability in the most touching way. Nevertheless, there are also the tales of amorous escapades, rough and tumble scraps, and a fair amount of over-imbibing.

Bukowski is often painted as a bit of a lovable failure, and read as light entertainment. Whilst it's true that he is a very funny writer, he was serious about his art (especially the elusive poem) and a true culture enthusiast. Indeed, his books are riddled with references to great writers and composers, as well as biting criticism of some of his contemporaries who he deems posturing poseurs.

The title "Ham On Rye" appears to be: (1) a pun on "Catcher In The Rye", (2) self-deprecation as a ham writer (ŕ la ham actor) on rye (whisky), (3) a reference to the line "liverworst on rye" in a novel by John Fante, a writer Bukowski greatly admired.

"To Kill A Dead Man" is a film by trip hop band Portishead, of whom Adrian Utley is a founding member. Hemmingway was a writer Bukowski seems to have had little time for, whereas Sherwood Anderson is someone he looked up to enormously, and quite rightly so.
6. This novel (published in 1960) is the first of a series following the exploits of Harry Angstrom, a disgruntled husband and father in his twenties who had dreamed of becoming a basketball star but has ended up selling kitchen gadgets. Which novel starts with the following lines? "Boys are playing basketball around a telegraph pole with a blackboard bolted to it. Legs, shouts. The scrape and snap of Keds on loose alley pebbles seems to catapult their voices high into the moist March air blue above the wires."

Answer: "Rabbit, Run" by John Updike

John Updike's crowning glory as a writer is the Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom series which began with "Rabbit, Run" and continued with "Rabbit Redux", "Rabbit Is Rich", "Rabbit At Rest", and "Rabbit Remembered". The books have us catching up with the scarily-recognizable Harry at ten year intervals. What is extraordinary about the books is the unpleasant nature of the protagonist (Rabbit) and the innate aversion the average reader feels towards him. Updike brilliantly captures the zeitgeist of each era, yet the author's puppet is a low-brow, middle-class philistine.

Updike was also a prolific critic, of both literature and art. He often contributed to journals, newspapers and magazines, and his reviews carried some weight on the literary scene.

In 2008, a year before his death, he delivered an insightful lecture on criticism where he made the following useful points:

"1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give enough direct quotation - at least one extended passage - of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy précis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?"
7. This novel (published in 1956) was the Canadian-born author's fourth, and although it's highly-rated by many, it is overshadowed by its picaresque predecessor. It is a day in the life of an ex-door-to-door salesman whose poor finances have got the better of him. His father is unbending in his refusal to help, his estranged money-grabbing wife won't let up, and he is led astray on the stock market. Which novel starts with the following lines? "When it came to concealing his troubles, Tommy Wilhelm was not less capable than the next fellow. So at least he thought, and there was a certain amount of evidence to back him up. He had once been an actor - no not quite, an extra - and he knew what acting should be. Also, he was smoking a cigar, and when a man is smoking a cigar, wearing a hat, he has an advantage; it's harder to find out how he feels."

Answer: "Seize The Day" by Saul Bellow

1953's "The Adventures of Augie March" is of course the novel that Bellow is most widely-known for, but I find "Seize The Day" wittier, sharper and more endearing. The humour is somewhat dark, and the novel is bleak in its portrayal of mediocrity. You can't help feeling for Tommy, although, as everybody keeps pointing out, it is all his own fault. As V. S. Pritchett said, it's a "small gray masterpiece."

"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" is about as funny as any American novel has ever been. "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" was much-underrated author Carson McCullers' first novel, and arguably her best.

"Portrait of the Artist as a Young Derelict" by Jean-Michel Basquiat is a painting.
8. This novel (published in 1939) is part of the series "The Bandini Quartet". It deals with an impoverished writer living in Los Angeles and his ill-fated love affair with a local waitress, Camilla Lopez. The title was borrowed from a line in a Knut Hamsun novel. Which novel starts with the following lines? "One night I was sitting on the bed in my hotel room on Bunker Hill, down in the very middle of Los Angeles. It was an important night in my life, because I had to make a decision about the hotel. Either I paid up or I got out: that was what the note said, the note the landlady had put under the door. A great problem, deserving acute attention. I solved it by turning out the lights and going to bed."

Answer: "Ask The Dust" by John Fante

Although by no means a literary giant, John Fante carved out a niche for himself and has an immediately recognizable tone. However, that voice has spent most of its life being ignored and his stuff spent a long time out of print. There was a resurgence in interest in the 1970s, partly thanks to Fante's number one fan Charles Bukowski, and then once again in the 2000s. "Ask The Dust" has even been made into a reasonably successful (artistically speaking) film.

His writing manages to blend fairly prosaic themes of the drudgery of daily life, family relationships, and identity with highly-charged emotional despair and a yearning for love.

Fante managed to earn his crust by writing for film and television, the most widely known film he worked on is "Walk On The Wild Side" (1962).

"Four Lane Road" by Hopper is a painting. "Furious Seasons" by Carver is a collection of short stories. "Green Eggs and Ham" is a childhood favourite of mine.
9. This novel (published in 1964) was described by a British judge as "a book which dealt with homosexuality, prostitution, drug-taking and sexual perversion" at an obscenity trial its publishers were put through. It was made into a film in 1989. Its author also wrote "Requiem for a Dream". Which novel starts with the following lines? "They sprawled along the counter and on the chairs. Another night. Another drag of a night in the Greeks, a beatup all night diner near the Brooklyn Armybase. Once in a while a doggie or seaman came in for a hamburger and played the jukebox. But they usually played some goddam hillbilly record. "

Answer: "Last Exit To Brooklyn" by Hubert Selby Jr

"Last Exit to Brooklyn" is split into six parts, each introduced with a passage from the bible, and although the six parts taken together make the novel, they also work as individual pieces.

The book, like most of Selby's writing, is uncompromising in its depressing portrayal of the underside of life (in this case in Brooklyn in the 1950s), but what the book's detractors miss is Selby's compassion. If he has a message it is: be kinder to each other.

Hubert Selby, Jr. was a native Brooklynite, and he lived there most of his life. He contracted tuberculosis while in the Merchant Navy and had poor health for the rest of his life because of it. He took to writing as he was physically incapable of doing much else. His lack of formal education led to one of the idiosyncrasies of his writing; a very liberal approach to punctuation. His work is also recognizable for his use of vernacular and his phonetic transcription of it.

Music trivia: "Last Exit To Brooklyn"'s third part is called "The Queen Is Dead", which is where The Smiths got the title for their third album.

"New York Stories" is a film, whereas the other two red herrings are novels set in New York.
10. No clues for this one. Which novel (published in 1851) starts with the following lines? "Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation."

Answer: "Moby Dick" by Herman Melville

To my mind, "Moby Dick" is the great American novel and I would urge anybody who has never read it to stop playing quizzes and to read it immediately!

Melville's novel lacks nothing, from great prose to plot to themes to imagery to timeless characters, he delivers on every front. What is unfortunate is that the novel is such a titan of world heritage that Melville's other work is almost universally overlooked. Having said that, at the time of its publication the novel met with some scathing reviews and risked bombing, never to be seen again.

Modernism gave the book a new lease of life, and the avant-garde masterpiece was finally recognized. It has since been retold, reinterpreted and adapted so many times across popular culture, and sensibly put in the canon, that however much it is dissected and discussed, its safety is secured.
Source: Author thula2

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