Sort of Truth Trivia Quiz

Answer: Scout, Atticus' daughter

In "American Decades" (1988) Harper Lee denied that "To Kill a Mockingbird" was autobiographical. However consider this:

Harper Lee was born in 1926 and raised in a small Alabama town called Monroeville. She had a father who was a lawyer who unsuccessfully tried an interracial case in 1931(after which he never tried another case). She had a brother Edwin who was four years older and her mother suffered a nervous condition whereby her role in raising Harper and Edwin was diminished.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" was set in Maycomb, a fictional small Alabama town in 1933-35. The narrator is an adult Scout looking back at this particular period, and was six to eight years old in the book. Her brother Jem was four years older, her mother had died and her father was an unsuccessful defence attorney on an inter-racial case.

Harper Lee, having denied that the novel was autobiographical, stated in the same interview that a writer "should write about what he knows and write truthfully". To be considered an autobiographical novel, there must be a central protagonist that is based on the author and the plot must mirror at least a part of an author's life (and of course the work must be declared to be fiction). In short an autobiographical novel is a "sort of truth".

As Harper Lee has denied that "To Kill a Mockingbird" is an autobiographical novel, it therefore cannot be considered one. Nevertheless, such novels, that otherwise meet the other criteria are considered semi-autobiographical. This is where "To Kill a Mockingbird" appears to sit.

Answer: David Copperfield

"David Copperfield" (1848) is Charles Dickens. On a surface level, the character even has the same (reversed) initials as the author.

There are many autobiographical features in the book. Some of them include: Copperfield's employment at Murdstone and Grinby's (based on Dickens' own harsh employment at Warren's Blacking Factory); Dora, Copperfield's love, is based on Dickens' own attraction to Maria Beadnell; the Mr. Micawber character is Dickens' father - both character and person were pompous, weak with finances and both ended up in Debtor's Prison, John Dickens in Marshalsea and Micawber in the King's Bench Prison; Mr Dick, a good-hearted but ineffective man is also believed to be another version of John Dickens; the idealized memories of Mary Hogarth and Frances, his sister, merge to form the character of Agnes. There are many more autobiographical elements.

Dickens, after the book's publication wrote: "I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield," and "my interest in it was so recent and strong ... I was in danger of wearying the (reader] with personal confidence and private emotions." Perhaps one of his critics said it best, after all, "David Copperfield" is still a novel, "It happens to be in large part his autobiography; and even the reader who is [unaware] of this, feels the warmth and movement and buoyancy.... for it is his life as he would ... have reconstructed it, not exactly the life of fact."

Answer: Jo

The character Jo is the author. This may not be apparent as the book is written in the third person. However, if you examine the six main characters, you can determine how autobiographical this novel is:

The character Meg is based on Alcott's older sister Anna. Both Anna and Meg were attracted to a luxurious life, yet, in reality and in fiction, both marry a man who is poor.

Jo is based on the author. Jo has quite masculine characteristics. This may be due to Alcott's intellectual prowess, which may have caused Alcott see herself as a peer to boys. Like Alcott, Jo was deeply upset when her older sister married and left the family home.

Beth is based on Alcott's sister, Elizabeth. Both character and sister loved music passionately and both died young.
The youngest sister in the book is Amy based on Alcott's youngest sister May. Both character and sister were very artistic and both married wealthy men.

The mother's character, Marmee, is very similar to Abba (Abigail), Alcott's own mother. Both were strong willed, supported their husbands and kept the family together when the father could not adequately support them.

Mr March, Jo's father is an absent father, often away form the family and when he was within the household, he was distant from his family. Bronson Alcott was not a nurturing man, more interested in his idealistic pursuits. This impoverished the Alcott family and the March family undergoes a similar misfortune in the novel.

The publication of Alcott's "Little Women" facilitated her family's rise from poverty. This was Alcott's most popular novel and while she rued the fact her "adult" novels were not as popular, millions of readers have found joy in a novel where Alcott used her own life for inspiration.

Answer: Sons and Lovers

"Sons and Lovers"(1913) has been voted one of the best novels of the 20th Century. It tells the story of Paul Morel, whose relationship with his mother was very complex; as a result, he was unable to have normal relationships with other women.

Consider the following: Both author and character lived in a coal-mining village in the Midlands of England. Character Paul and author Lawrence both had: a drunken violent father who was a coal-miner; a mother who married "beneath her station" who did not share an emotional relationship with her husband; an older brother who provided an emotional relationship for their mother and who died from illness whilst young,after which the mother's need for an emotional relationship was transferred to the younger brother, which in turn was so oppressive, neither Paul nor Lawrence had functional relationships with women.
The auto-biographical element ends when Mrs Lawrence died (and Gertrude, Paul's mother died) when Lawrence was in his early 20s.

So great was the autobiographical component of the book that, when it was published, Jesse Chambers, who Paul met when he was sixteen and who was one of two relationships with women Lawrence had when his mother was alive, complained that she was not treated fairly in the book. She failed to realize that while indeed the character Miriam was based on her, the book was still a novel.

Perhaps John Middleton Murray, author, critic and Lawrence's friend encapsulated Lawrence as an author by saying, "...[Lawrence] is one of those great artists who write because of internal compulsion, and in this way seek relief for their inner problems by externalizing them in fiction."

Answer: Ernest Hemingway

"A Farewell to Arms" (1929) is such a powerfully autobiographical novel that instead of discussing a novel and taking the author into context, the author becomes inseparable from the work itself. By reading the novel, the reader believes he/she is reading about Hemingway: in the novel the nurse with whom the protagonist falls in love is Catherine Barkly, Hemingway fell in love with nurse Agnes Von Kurowsky; both Hemingway and Frederick want to marry their nurse; both Frederic and Hemingway are badly injured by a mortar shell. There are many other examples.

The novel, Hemingway's third, was his first best-seller, and allowed him to be financially independent. It also brought him acclaim as one of America's finest authors.

Answer: No

"Dandelion Wine" (1957) was a novel based on a 1953 short story of the same name by Bradbury. The plot is based around a twelve year old boy's interactions within a small Illinois town in 1928 and the joy of nostalgic reminiscing. The title is a metaphor for collecting all the summer joys into a single bottle.

Georges Toss, a science fiction critic wrote in "SF Site" in 1999, "...certainly I would tell anyone wanting to know what makes Ray Bradbury the human being ... to read ''Dandelion Wine, and anyone wanting to know what makes Ray Bradbury the renowned writer he is, to read 'The October Country' or 'The Martian Chronicles'.

Answer: The Bell Jar

When "The Bell Jar" was published in England in 1963, Plath's mother wanted to block its publication. It was not published in the US until 1971. It is a semi-autobiographical novel, as the names and places have changed. In a letter to her mother she wrote, "What I've done is to throw together events from my own life, fictionalizing to add colour". What she wanted to convey in this novel was a person who was having some sort of nervous breakdown, how alone and isolated that person felt, which mirrored Plath's own state of mind at the time. An insight into the significance of the title can be seen in the same letter to her mother, "I've tried to picture MY [quiz author's emphasis] world and the people in it as seen through the distorting lens of a bell jar". In a biographical note, Plath herself describes her only novel as an autobiographical apprentice work where she needed to release herself from the past.

The novel had cautious reviews when it was published, as Plath's suicide came so soon after the novel's publication that it was acknowledged there were mawkish elements to some of the people that purchased the novel. In time, though, the work has been more favourably reviewed. Perhaps the ultimate compliment was that it was made into a movie in 1979, although there are substantial deviations from the novel.

Answer: In Cold Blood

As a genre, the non-fiction novel uses a story-telling device but includes actual events and actual people. It improvises with details such as conversations. Faction is a similar genre where fictional characters are developed around actual events. Both are differentiated from the autobiographical novel by not including the author as protagonist.

Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" (1965) established itself as the prototype of the contemporary non-fiction novel genre, though there were elements of this genre published before 1965. (Argentine Rodolfo Walsh's 1957 book "Operacion Masacre" has claims as the first such novel).

Truman was criticised for this book, as there were elements that were not factually correct despite Truman claiming "every word" was true. This was difficult to substantiate as the book contains actual conversations whose veracity could never be substantiated. The book, despite its flaws, brought Capote international acclaim and was the biggest selling non-fiction novel until 1974's "Helter Skelter" was published. Capote never wrote a subsequent novel.

Answer: Bill Clinton's 1992 Presidential Campaign

Roman à clef (French for novel with a key) is a literary device where fictional characters and plot are superimposed on actual events. The key can be implied within the novel or published elsewhere.

In the New York Daily News in 1996, Michael Aronson claimed, "Anonymity makes truthfulness much easier". This was in response to the anonymous publication of "Primary Colors" (1996), a novel about Bill Clinton's 1992 Presidential Campaign. Making the novel's author Anonymous is sometimes a marketing ploy to increase sales, and the author cannot be criticised for using inside knowledge nor need they prove the veracity of that knowledge. When columnist Joe Klein was outed as the author, his proximity to the 1992 Clinton Campaign put into question what was actually (satirical) fiction and what was the sort of truth.

Answer: The novel is not a science fiction novel

Arthur C. Clarke spent his World War II years as a RAF technician working on Ground Control Approach (GCA) radar which was invented by American physicist Luis Alverez. In 1963, he wrote a novel about GCA (called Ground Control Descent in the novel). It is set in World War II and features a protagonist based on Luis Alverez.

The novel therefore fits the definition of being semi-autobiographical. Of Clarke's 19 novels, this is the only one that is not a science fiction novel.