August Quiz - Augustus!
| There’s nothing quite like a good quiz, and here at Open Letters readers are expected to rely on their memories alone, without the aid of Google. And no quiz would be complete without incentive! The first reader to respond with the highest number of correct answers will receive a book in the mail, courtesy of the editors at Open Letters. Email your answers by the 25th of the month to quiz@openlettersmonthly.com. |  |
August, the most bedeviling, awful, and choking month used to be an ordinary month named after an ordinary process: numerical, season-governed—until those George W. Bush-like oligarchs got hold of it. And then all of a sudden it was named after one person—and not even that person, but an undeserved cognomen that he voted himself: Augustus, which roughly translates to “Oh, great grandfather, we’re not worthy of you” (which is quite a feat for someone who was basically Don Corleone in his lifetime). In honor of this illicit and entirely, uncooperatively hot month, the bravest among you are enjoined to answer the following:
1. Name three works of fiction in which a character named Augustus plays a major part.
2. Name, if you dare, three Augustan works (for the pikers among you, it’s not what you think)
3. Roman literature, for what it’s worth, is full of frickin suicides. Name three immortal works written by someone who then offed him or herself
4. Sic transit gloria mundi: perhaps it isn’t a question of people hating getting old; it might be a question of young people hating old people. Name three Roman classics written by people younger than 30
5. We can invariably hear the Senators rejoin, Shut up, you punks! And we’re sympathetic. Name three Roman classics written by someone older than 60
6. And in any case, our modern era might say, they’re all effing old. Name three modern classics of English literature featuring a character with a Roman surname
7. While you’re at it, hot shot—that’s novus spurnus to you—name three Roman historical works of 20th century literature that managed to become bestsellers
8. And while we’re on the subject, name three 20th century movies based on Roman history that became bestsellers
9. And while we’re on that subject, name at least one gigantic inaccuracy in each of those movies
July’s porcine quiz was more popular than the bacon tray at a breakfast buffet, but of the many who emailed us at quiz@openlettersmonthly.com Natalie Montaro of Las Cruces, New Mexico, with eight answers correct, hogs the glory of the first prize, this month’s being a complete set of the Doc Savage adventures (featuring the pet pig Habeas Corpus). Put your cleft hooves together for Natalie! The answers follow:
1. To start things off, an easy one: name three works of literature with some variation of “pig” in their title.
-A Day No Pigs Would Die (Robert Newton Peck); Pigs in Heaven (Barbara Kingsolver); Pig-Tale (Lewis Carroll)
2. It turns out pigs have played a prominent role in many works of literature throughout the ages. Name three.
-Napoleon in Animal Farm; Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web; Hen-Wen in Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles
3. Pigs are certainly not neglected in the works of William Shakespeare. Supply three quotes at your leisure.
-“Some men there are love not a gaping pig” (“Merchant of Venice”); “Pig-like he whines” (“Two Noble Kinsmen”); “Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig” (“Henry IV Part 2”)
4. There are more pigs than people in the great American state of Iowa. Name three works of literature set in the Hawkeye State.
-Now Playing in Canterbury (Vance Bourjaily); Jesus’ Son (Denis Johnson); Gilead (Marilynne Robinson)
5. Somewhat surprisingly, a notably high number of post-Renaissance writers have been, in main or in part, pig farmers. Name three.
-Dylan Thomas, George Orwell, the remarkable George Cascoigne
6. Western nature being what it is, several fictional characters in its literature have been named or nicknamed some variation of “pig.” Name three.
-Piggy from Lord of the Flies; Pig Bodine from Gravity’s Rainbow; Piglet from Winnie the Pooh
7. Three works of literature in which a dead pig serves as the central plot-device? Oink them out, if you’re able.
-Lord of the Flies; South Pacific; The Metamorphoses
8. Needless to say, pigs run rampant throughout the Bible. Supply three meaty mentions, and keep in mind: only the shamefully lazy among you will even THINK of turning to Leviticus.
-The Gaderene swine; pearls before swine; “As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion”
9. Writers being what they are (and porcine nature—in reality neat and considerate—being misunderstood the way it is), several in modern times have been publicly referred to as “pigs.” Repeat the slander of three.
-Ernest Hemingway (so-called by Martha Gellhorn); Thomas Wolfe (in the words of Maxwell Perkins); Alexander Dumas (by the whole Parisian press)
10. To end things on as dignified a note as possible, for pigs are a dignified people, let’s turn to classical mythology: name at least one pig from a prominent place in myth.
-The Caledonian Boar
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