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Quiz about The Quest for the Holy Mail
Quiz about The Quest for the Holy Mail

The Quest for the Holy Mail Trivia Quiz


All authors have had writer's block at one time or another. This quiz is presented in the form of different authors' fictional letters to God asking for inspiration to finish some of their better-known works. See how many you can figure out!

A multiple-choice quiz by shuehorn. Estimated time: 7 mins.
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Author
shuehorn
Time
7 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
343,689
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Easy
Avg Score
8 / 10
Plays
925
Awards
Top 35% Quiz
Last 3 plays: Xanadont (5/10), Guest 165 (10/10), genoveva (7/10).
- -
Question 1 of 10
1. Dear God,
I'm having trouble figuring out what to do with my latest story. Hester is such a prim and proper heroine, and she just doesn't have any zest for life or fashion sense. I truly wonder if anyone will want to read about her. Maybe if I gave her something of a symbol or fashion statement to emblazon on all of her clothes... I think I'm on to something.
Eternally grateful,
Nate

Which of the following authors and works match this hypothetical letter?
Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. Dear Heavenly Father,
When I started to write about a boy's life on the Mississippi River, I never thought that it would start such controversy. My aim wasn't to criticize or ridicule anyone. In fact, I was trying to show that a white boy and a black man could be friends just like anyone else, while being true to the way that each would speak. Who'd have thought that so many years later people would want to sanitize my works and rob them of everything that makes them realistic. I never would have written about this at all, had I known.
Yours,
Samuel Clemens

This letter was written in frustration by Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens) about his book "Tom Sawyer."


Question 3 of 10
3. Dear Lord,
What rot! They want to withdraw the backing for my latest play because it has a scene with hags in it. These church-going folks will be the death of me yet. I know they are Your followers, but don't they see that by trying to make everything so clean and pure, all the life gets taken from it. Such toil and trouble, and all for naught! Oh, that sounds like a great bit to incorporate into the witches' opening lines... Yes, I AM going to finish and hope for the best.
'Til the morrow with its sweet sorrow,
Will

Which author and title go best with this never-really-written card?
Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. Dear Father in Heaven,
I feel at such a loss for words. It seems all I want to do of late is commune with nature and listen to the birds. Putting it all down on paper seems like such a weak and useless exercise. Humans and their concerns are so foreign to me now. Yes, I suppose the only way to get others to understand the value and role of nature is to share my new-found revelry with them, but how many will actually listen or care? I guess I will try. If even one understands and changes his attitude, it will have been worth it.
Your servant always,
H.D.

Which work of Thoreau's is alluded to in this fanciful letter to his Maker?

Answer: (Two Words (not an Ocean, but a smaller body of water))
Question 5 of 10
5. Dear God,
What a headache--the pounding, the pounding, I fear it will drive me mad. It's all I can do to hear myself think. And yet, there is a strange rhythm to it, not a monotonous drumming as if to call men to war, but more scattered and pausing, as if to echo the beating of my heart. You can imagine how hard it is to create anything worthwhile with this racket going on in my head. Perhaps I can write around it, ignoring it... Don't you think I've tried? Unless I find a way to include the incessant beating in my narrative, there'll be nothing on the page for me this night. Of course, that's it!
Heartfelt thanks,
Eddie

Which author and work match best with this never-sent epistle?
Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. Dearest Father,
Having grown up in a loving household, I find it hard to create the state of mind necessary to convey the loneliness and desperation of my heroine. Being just a young girl herself, all alone in the world, she's confronted by society's coldness and unfairness. First, from her rigid and unloving aunt, and then from her employer, a man who curiously enough, she has grown to love secretly. They say you must write of what you know... I'm unsure that my brief time as a governess has really given me all I need to understand the poor dear completely. I'll have to ask my sisters Anne and Emily for their thoughts tomorrow, perhaps among the three of us we'll come up with something.
Fondly,
C.
Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. Dear God,
If you exist, why didn't you step in and prevent the Clutters from being massacred so senselessly? Of course, if you had done that, then I wouldn't be in my present dilemma poring over thousands of pages of notes that Harper and I have taken, after hours and hours of interviews, trying to create a cohesive story... And no, my aim is not just to report the dry facts as if I were a reporter, instead I want to get into the heads of the two men capable of such inhumanity for no reason at all.
I guess I'll figure it out sooner or later.
Yours,
T.

Which of Truman Capote's works is the one described in this letter?

Answer: (Three Words)
Question 8 of 10
8. Dearest Heavenly Father,
I know I should be forgiving, but some of my colleagues are just plain envious of my talent. It is cruel of them to say that "women come and go" doesn't really rhyme with "Michelangelo". Yes, it might be a bit of a stretch, but that's what poetic license is for. Can't they see that it all goes to show the depths of despair that poor Al is going through? I guess I'll finish my poem tomorrow. Thanks for the help, sometimes it feels like such a Wasteland out there.
Sincerely,
Tommy

Whose work fits best with this fictional missive?
Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. Dear God,
Who can know what will put someone over the edge and send them careening toward madness? How can I write of such things, showing that true isolation is indeed worse than hell, making anyone capable of inhumanity, without sinking into baseness, blood and gore myself as I write? I want to immerse myself in the seductive and intellectual nature of insanity to convey how it makes men monsters. I need to show the horror, yes, the horror of it all. But I must be boring you with this flow of words, the lugubrious drollery is sickening.
Despairingly,
J.C.

These lines describe Joseph Conrad's apocalyptic tale, "The Heart of Darkness."


Question 10 of 10
10. Dear Father,
Well, Fiddle Dee Dee! Why is this book coming out to be so dreadfully long? I know that I have to tell the story from when my protagonist is just a slip of a girl until she is an independent woman, and cover all the historic events that unfold in the meantime, but I have hundreds and hundreds of pages now. If only there were a way to shorten it, but I wouldn't want to cut out any of her marriages or trials or tribulations because that is what makes her triumphs so noteworthy. I do declare that Scarlett is the most exasperating yet admirably pigheaded woman I know, and I want to do her justice. Oh, well, I guess I'll finish tomorrow, because after all, tomorrow is another day.
Sincerely,
M.M.

Which author and book are the ones referred to in this letter to heaven?
Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Dear God, I'm having trouble figuring out what to do with my latest story. Hester is such a prim and proper heroine, and she just doesn't have any zest for life or fashion sense. I truly wonder if anyone will want to read about her. Maybe if I gave her something of a symbol or fashion statement to emblazon on all of her clothes... I think I'm on to something. Eternally grateful, Nate Which of the following authors and works match this hypothetical letter?

Answer: Hawthorne - "The Scarlet Letter"

Yes, this is Nathaniel (Nate, to his pals) Hawthorne's letter to end his writer's block for "The Scarlet Letter", which tells the story of Hester Prynne's ostracization by the townspeople in her Puritan village for the affair she had and the pregnancy that ensued.

This amazing work is very well written, so please don't judge it based on the terrible movie adaptation starring Demi Moore. The Hollywood-ized story even changed the ending so that it wouldn't be so depressing! Believe me, the real thing is much better than the watered-down version.
2. Dear Heavenly Father, When I started to write about a boy's life on the Mississippi River, I never thought that it would start such controversy. My aim wasn't to criticize or ridicule anyone. In fact, I was trying to show that a white boy and a black man could be friends just like anyone else, while being true to the way that each would speak. Who'd have thought that so many years later people would want to sanitize my works and rob them of everything that makes them realistic. I never would have written about this at all, had I known. Yours, Samuel Clemens This letter was written in frustration by Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens) about his book "Tom Sawyer."

Answer: False

The book described here is actually "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", a young white southerner who befriended Jim, an escaped black slave. Huck helps Jim escape and the two muse on life as they float down the Mississippi. Twain used unconventional spelling and grammar to mimic the way that Huck and Jim would talk to each other, and many schools have removed the book from their reading lists because of this.
3. Dear Lord, What rot! They want to withdraw the backing for my latest play because it has a scene with hags in it. These church-going folks will be the death of me yet. I know they are Your followers, but don't they see that by trying to make everything so clean and pure, all the life gets taken from it. Such toil and trouble, and all for naught! Oh, that sounds like a great bit to incorporate into the witches' opening lines... Yes, I AM going to finish and hope for the best. 'Til the morrow with its sweet sorrow, Will Which author and title go best with this never-really-written card?

Answer: Shakespeare - "Macbeth"

The lines that our Will (aka William) Shakespeare is writing about are:

"Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble."

Which are chanted in unison by the witches at the beginning of "Macbeth."

The other veiled reference to Shakespeare's work is from "Romeo and Juliet":

"Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow."
4. Dear Father in Heaven, I feel at such a loss for words. It seems all I want to do of late is commune with nature and listen to the birds. Putting it all down on paper seems like such a weak and useless exercise. Humans and their concerns are so foreign to me now. Yes, I suppose the only way to get others to understand the value and role of nature is to share my new-found revelry with them, but how many will actually listen or care? I guess I will try. If even one understands and changes his attitude, it will have been worth it. Your servant always, H.D. Which work of Thoreau's is alluded to in this fanciful letter to his Maker?

Answer: WALDEN POND

Henry David Thoreau wrote "Walden Pond" in 1854, a time in his life when he was questioning everything that society held dear.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."
5. Dear God, What a headache--the pounding, the pounding, I fear it will drive me mad. It's all I can do to hear myself think. And yet, there is a strange rhythm to it, not a monotonous drumming as if to call men to war, but more scattered and pausing, as if to echo the beating of my heart. You can imagine how hard it is to create anything worthwhile with this racket going on in my head. Perhaps I can write around it, ignoring it... Don't you think I've tried? Unless I find a way to include the incessant beating in my narrative, there'll be nothing on the page for me this night. Of course, that's it! Heartfelt thanks, Eddie Which author and work match best with this never-sent epistle?

Answer: Poe - "The Telltale Heart"

In Edgar Allen Poe's short story, "The Telltale Heart", the first-person narrator tries to justify and explain his murder of an old man, all the while arguing that he is completely sane. The narrator undermines his own purpose, however, when his imaginings of the dead man's heart still beating loudly from under the floorboards where he is buried cause the narrator-murderer to confess the crime to the unsuspecting police.
6. Dearest Father, Having grown up in a loving household, I find it hard to create the state of mind necessary to convey the loneliness and desperation of my heroine. Being just a young girl herself, all alone in the world, she's confronted by society's coldness and unfairness. First, from her rigid and unloving aunt, and then from her employer, a man who curiously enough, she has grown to love secretly. They say you must write of what you know... I'm unsure that my brief time as a governess has really given me all I need to understand the poor dear completely. I'll have to ask my sisters Anne and Emily for their thoughts tomorrow, perhaps among the three of us we'll come up with something. Fondly, C.

Answer: Bronte - "Jane Eyre"

Charlotte Bronte was one of the three Bronte sisters who influenced English writing in the mid-1800s. Charlotte wrote "Jane Eyre," about a young orphaned girl who was forced to work as a governess to make her way in the world in 1847. The book has been made into a movie a couple of times, and the adaptations have not been bad, but it's always best to read the book first!
7. Dear God, If you exist, why didn't you step in and prevent the Clutters from being massacred so senselessly? Of course, if you had done that, then I wouldn't be in my present dilemma poring over thousands of pages of notes that Harper and I have taken, after hours and hours of interviews, trying to create a cohesive story... And no, my aim is not just to report the dry facts as if I were a reporter, instead I want to get into the heads of the two men capable of such inhumanity for no reason at all. I guess I'll figure it out sooner or later. Yours, T. Which of Truman Capote's works is the one described in this letter?

Answer: IN COLD BLOOD

Truman Capote is said to be the first to have written a true-crime novel when he penned "In Cold Blood" about the killing of the Clutter family in their beds in 1959 by drifters Richard Hickock and Perry Smith. Harper Lee, Capote's childhood friend and the author of "To Kill a Mockingbird" helped him gather the information needed to write the novel.

It was published in 1965 and then filmed in 1967. The movie starred Robert Blake, who would later in life be put on trial for the murder of his girlfriend and the mother of his daughter.
8. Dearest Heavenly Father, I know I should be forgiving, but some of my colleagues are just plain envious of my talent. It is cruel of them to say that "women come and go" doesn't really rhyme with "Michelangelo". Yes, it might be a bit of a stretch, but that's what poetic license is for. Can't they see that it all goes to show the depths of despair that poor Al is going through? I guess I'll finish my poem tomorrow. Thanks for the help, sometimes it feels like such a Wasteland out there. Sincerely, Tommy Whose work fits best with this fictional missive?

Answer: Eliot - "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Many know the beginning of T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot's forlorn ode:

"LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question....
Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'
Let us go and make our visit."

The line in question mentioned in the letter is:

"In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo."

The other reference in the hypothetical epistle is to another of Eliot's famous works, "The Wasteland."
9. Dear God, Who can know what will put someone over the edge and send them careening toward madness? How can I write of such things, showing that true isolation is indeed worse than hell, making anyone capable of inhumanity, without sinking into baseness, blood and gore myself as I write? I want to immerse myself in the seductive and intellectual nature of insanity to convey how it makes men monsters. I need to show the horror, yes, the horror of it all. But I must be boring you with this flow of words, the lugubrious drollery is sickening. Despairingly, J.C. These lines describe Joseph Conrad's apocalyptic tale, "The Heart of Darkness."

Answer: True

"Heart of Darkness" is said to be the inspiration for Coppola's "Apocalypse Now." It explores the nature of a commander deep in the jungle, who some see as a god and others as a madman.

"Whether he knew of this deficiency himself I can't say. I think the knowledge came to him at last--only at the very last. But the wilderness found him out early, and had taken vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude--and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core."
10. Dear Father, Well, Fiddle Dee Dee! Why is this book coming out to be so dreadfully long? I know that I have to tell the story from when my protagonist is just a slip of a girl until she is an independent woman, and cover all the historic events that unfold in the meantime, but I have hundreds and hundreds of pages now. If only there were a way to shorten it, but I wouldn't want to cut out any of her marriages or trials or tribulations because that is what makes her triumphs so noteworthy. I do declare that Scarlett is the most exasperating yet admirably pigheaded woman I know, and I want to do her justice. Oh, well, I guess I'll finish tomorrow, because after all, tomorrow is another day. Sincerely, M.M. Which author and book are the ones referred to in this letter to heaven?

Answer: Mitchell - "Gone with the Wind"

Margaret Mitchell's only published novel was "Gone with the Wind". She wrote many drafts of the epic tale of Scarlett O'Hara and the old South, and she almost gave up a few times because the task was so daunting. Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for the novel, and it was made into a groundbreaking film in 1939 starring Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Olivia De Havilland, Leslie Howard and Hattie McDaniel. Mitchell was killed in 1949 in a traffic accident in the city of Atlanta. Years after her death, a short novel that she wrote in two notebooks in the mid-1920s called "Lost Laysen" was found, edited and published. "Gone with the Wind" is undoubtedly her masterpiece.
Source: Author shuehorn

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