WELD / CO Lit 2012: Beauty is Tlooth, Tlooth beauty
Packet 02
1. The title character of this work distinguishes between literal and figurative ass-kissing when explaining
why he doesn’t want to kiss Adelaide Hus’s ass. It includes the story of the renegade of Avignon, who lived
with a Jew. One character in this work claims that Racine would have been richer as a grocer or a silk
merchant than as a playwright, to which his interlocutor replies that Racine’s plays will make people cry a
thousand years hence. The title character of this work explains how he taught accompaniment despite not
understanding it, and later he performs a spirited imitation of the musical works of Duni. The narrator of this work is
called “Mister Philosopher” by the title character, and he enjoys watching chess players in the Café de la Regence.
For 10 points, name this philosophical dialogue by Denis Diderot, named for a relative of the composer of Les Indes
Galantes.
ANSWER: Rameau’s Nephew, or the Second Satire [or Le Neveu de Rameau ou La Satire seconde]
2. One of this author’s poems opens with the sound of a starting pistol and the image of Jean Jaurès dying in
a puddle of wine. The speaker of one of this author’s poems responds to the statement that “one cannot lose
what one has not possessed” by saying “I can lose what I want.” That poem purports to be translated from a
work by a poet named Sebastian Arrurruz. This poet refers to “Platonic England” in a poem that says “And
after all, it is to [quaint mazes] that we return,” entitled “An Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture
in England.” His other poems include “Lachrimae” and “Funeral Music,” and he also wrote a collection of poems
recounting the life of Offa. His more recent collections include The Orchards of Syon and A Treatise of Civil Power.
For 10 points, name this acclaimed English poet of King Log, Tenebrae and Mercian Hymns.
ANSWER: Geoffrey Hill
3. In this novel, a white lion is raised by a wife of the protagonist to scare a rival wife’s son to death. The
protagonist of this novel has an affair with the wife of his brother and steals all of his valuables via the wall
connecting their houses. David Tod Roy has recently finished his four-part translation of this work. Lu Xun
said of the author of this book that “his writing holds such a variety of human interest that no novel of that
time could surpass it.” Its author was known as the Scoffing Scholar of Lanling. The serving girl Pang Chunmei
is featured in the final parts of this novel, which earlier sees the sordid marriages of Li Ping’er and Pan Jinlian. For
10 points, name this novel about Ximen Qing, loosely based off an incident in The Water Margin and known for its
explicit material.
ANSWER: The Plum in the Golden Vase [or Jin Ping Mei; or The Golden Lotus]
4. In one novel by this author, Mr. Hoppy tells Mrs. Silver how to make her tortoise Alfie grow by whispering
a magic spell in its ear. This author created a character who develops psychic powers so he can win a large
amount of money gambling, but decides to throw his winnings out of his window and use the remainder to
found a number of orphanages. He also wrote about a giant who lives on snozzcumbers and frobscottle. This
author of Esio Trot and “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” is better known for creating a thoroughly
unpleasant husband and wife who trap birds by covering trees with glue until the Roly-Poly Bird enables the birds to
get their revenge. This author of The BFG and The Twits wrote about Augustus Gloop and Veruca Salt in his most
famous work. For 10 points, name this author of children’s books like Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory.
ANSWER: Roald Dahl
5. The collection named for this poem contains a poem whose speaker sees the shadow of Vachel Lindsay
shooting himself in the head, although in real life Lindsay committed suicide by drinking lye. That collection
also contains a poem whose speaker finds a lion in his living room, which refuses to eat him but says “I will be
back again.” The collection named for this poem ends with three poems based on the poet’s experiences
drinking ayahuasca, and it contains a poem written “in Amsterdam in the Cosmos” entitled “Poem Rocket.” At one
point, the speaker of this poem addresses “Death which is the mother of the universe!” This poem’s subject talks
about the “3 big sticks” that were left in her back, and the speaker talks about her “eyes of abortion” and “eyes of
stroke.” For 10 points, name this poem about the death of the poet’s mother Naomi by Allen Ginsberg, named after a
Jewish prayer for the dead.
ANSWER: “Kaddish”
6. One character in this play asks, “Have you felt the horrors of war? Do you know how to slide on the
sweetness of my speech?” Another character asks, “You over there, man with a scream like a fat pearl, what
are you eating?” Two characters in this play vehemently agree that the conversation is lagging, and another
character repeats the lines “Tangerine and white from Spain, I’m killing myself Madeleine Madeleine.” At
the end of this play, all the characters repeat the phrases “This will end with a lovely marriage” and “Go lie
down.” Clytemnestra’s name recurs frequently in the dialogue of this play, which also features a dance by a man
who has fallen from a funnel in the ceiling onto a table. It largely consists of nonsensical dialogue by characters
named Eye, Mouth, Nose, Ear, Neck, and Eyebrow, and is a parody of the three-act drama. For 10 points, name this
Dadaist play by Tristan Tzara.
ANSWER: The Gas Heart [or Le cœur à gaz]
7. A man in this novel shoots a monkey because it is watching his wife get dressed and masturbating. In this
novel, Nora Jacob has an affair with Mateo Asís, and Trinidad poisons cheese with arsenic in order to get rid
of the mice in the church. In this novel, César Montero kills the pastor when he finds out the latter has been
sleeping with his wife. Originally titled This Shitty Town, its characters include Mr. Carmichael, Judge Arcadio,
and Father Angel. The mayor of the town in which this novel takes place forces a dentist to remove one of his teeth
at gunpoint to cure his persistent toothache, and he becomes dictatorial when lampoons start appearing on people’s
doors during the night. For 10 points, name this first novel by Gabriel García Márquez.
ANSWER: In Evil Hour [or La Mala Hora; accept The Evil Hour]
8. One character in this novel keeps a German shell in his pocket as a reminder not to make any rash
allegiances. One chapter of this novel compares Hitler to Parzival killing the red knight for his armor, and
Hitler is referred to as “the sleepwalker” throughout the book. The opening section, “Steel in Motion,”
compares a telephone to an octopus, and the remaining sections are a series of “Pincer Movements” spanning
the period from 1914 to 1975, including detailed accounts of the Siege of Leningrad and the Battle of Stalingrad.
This novel embellishes the love triangle between Roman Karmen, Elena Konstantinovskaya, and Dmitri
Shostakovich, and other historical figures in this book include Anna Akhmatova and Kurt Gerstein. For 10 points,
name this novel by William T. Vollmann.
ANSWER: Europe Central
9. One author with this surname wrote about Dr. Conybeare in a historical novel which counts a number of
Metaphysical poets, as well as Robert Herrick, as major characters. In that author’s second-last novel,
Barbary Deniston is estranged from her mother Helen Michel, until she reveals that she was not responsible
for Maurice’s drowning during World War II. Another author with this surname included the poems “Ivry”
and “The Armada” with a series of four poems on classical themes, including “The Prophecy of Capys” and
“Horatius.” The first author famously opened one novel with the line “Take my camel, dear.” In Das Kapital, Marx
called the second author a “systematic falsifier of history,” in reference to a Whiggish history of England he wrote
spanning the period from the reign of James II to the death of William III. For 10 points, give this surname shared
by Thomas Babington, who wrote Lays of Ancient Rome, and Rose, who wrote The Towers of Trebizond.
ANSWER: Macaulay
10. In one short story, this author wrote about Argaven, who travels to the planet Ollul and returns after
sixty years having only aged twelve years. Another of her stories deals with Laia, a philosopher whose ideas
inspire a revolution which leads to the establishment of an anarchist society with no concept of property. That
story, “The Day Before the Revolution,” is a prelude to a novel about Shevek, who attempts to reconcile the
societies of Anarres and Urras. She critiqued utilitarianism in the story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,”
and wrote collections like The Compass Rose and The Wind’s Twelve Quarters. This daughter of Alfred Kroeber
included City of Illusions and The Left Hand of Darkness in her Hainish Cycle, along with The Dispossessed. For 10
points, name this science fiction author who also wrote a cycle including the novel A Wizard of Earthsea.
ANSWER: Ursula K. Le Guin
11. One character in this play claims to have seen a soldier bury his own right hand after it is destroyed by a
bullet. One character in this play says “Take this love-token!” before slapping someone, and that character
sings a song dramatizing the parting of Hector and Andromache. Several characters in this play agree that it
is lucky that only women, children and old men died when a village was set on fire as part of a scheme to save
Roller from execution. Herman makes up a story about how one of the main characters died in battle, in order to
pave the way for the other main character to marry Amelia. However, Amelia remains true to her first love, who
becomes the leader of the title group after being disinherited by his father as a result of his brother’s machinations.
For 10 points, name this play by Friedrich Schiller about the conflict between Karl and Franz Moor.
ANSWER: The Robbers [or Die Räuber]
12. In the first story of this collection, the landlord Kookoo cannot resist the temptation to look inside a
mysterious trunk in the room rented by the title character. In another story in this collection, Kristian
Koppig falls in love with the title character, a beautiful mixed-race girl who is falsely believed to be the
daughter of Madame John. Those stories are “’Sieur George” and “’Tite Poulette.” It also contains a story in
which Injin Charlie refuses to sell the title estate to the Colonel and one in which Little White convinces the
townspeople not to shivaree the title character, whose mansion is suspected of being haunted by the ghost of his
half-brother Jacques. Those stories are “Belles Demoiselles Plantation” and “Jean-ah Poquelin.” For 10 points, name
this collection of short stories set in Louisiana by George Washington Cable.
ANSWER: Old Creole Days
13. One stanza of this work compares gambling to gunpowder because it “blow[s] up houses.” Another stanza
of this work advises the reader to “do all things like a man, not sneakingly.” Another stanza advises the
reader to “drink not the third glass” as part of a series of stanzas dealing with temperance. It claims that if
you disagree with a preacher, it is because you don’t understand him, and it describes prayer as “the end of
preaching.” It opens with an address to the reader called a perirrhanterium and ends with two “stanzas of
superliminare,” the first of which commands the reader to “approach, and taste the church’s mystical repast.” It
includes eighty stanzas, spanning a period of forty days, since one stanza is meant to be read each morning and
evening. For 10 points each, name this opening section of George Herbert’s The Temple.
ANSWER: “The Church Porch” [prompt on The Temple]
14. A letter written to the protagonist of this novel declares “Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I
have been, but never inconstant.” A resident of Uppercross Hall is refused by the protagonist of this novel
when he asks her for marriage. In this novel, the nurse Rooke is a confidant to a widow named Mrs. Smith,
whose impoverishment is not relieved by a widower who, according to false rumors, is engaged to the
protagonist. The protagonist’s relationship with one character is renewed when the latter overhears a conversation
between her and Captain Harville about the differences between men and women. The protagonist’s vain father gets
himself into financial trouble, forcing him to relocate to Bath and lease Kellynch Hall to Admiral Croft. This novel
ends with the protagonist being reconciled with Lady Russell and marrying Frederick Wentworth. For 10 points,
name this Jane Austen novel about Anne Elliot.
ANSWER: Persuasion
15. The section headings in this short story form a sentence ending with the phrase “a unique ontology of
violence and disaster” and mentioning Tallis’s assassination fantasies. This story was originally published as
a pamphlet, and was later collected in a book, where it was followed by a story about the Kennedy
assassination inspired by Alfred Jarry’s “The Crucifixion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race.” This story
notes that people see faces as either circumcised or uncircumcised, and that its subject has a face which is
perceived as a “penile erection.” Other sections of this story deal with a “conceptual auto-disaster,” describing
studies in which people were asked to imagine this story’s subject dying in a car crash. For 10 points, name this
short story from The Atrocity Exhibition by J. G. Ballard, written as a scientific paper about the sexual appeal of a
former Republican president.
ANSWER: “Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan”
16. The narrator of this novel meets his cousin and learns about his establishment of schools and churches.
The narrator’s homesickness is described in the chapter “Invisible Magnetic Missive Sent to Me from Home,”
and when he decides to return home a “bad-bye function” is held for him. The narrator’s second marriage is
to a “super lady” and is less traumatic than his first, when he is baptized with fire and hot water by Reverend
Devil. The narrator of this novel lives among cows for a time because he is unable to speak to tell people that he is a
human, not a cow. It opens by describing the three wives of the narrator’s father, and his inability to understand the
meaning of “bad” and “good.” It also contains many references to the author’s previous novel, including mentions of
the Deads’ Town. For 10 points, name this novel about a boy who enters the world of spirits after being separated
from his family by war, written by Amos Tutuola.
ANSWER: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
17. In this novel, a character tells a story about a doctor’s housekeeper who accidentally cooks a human brain
specimen for dinner, believing it to be a cow’s brain. At the beginning of this novel, the protagonist meets his
friend Julio Aracil and they attend a lecture together. Despite quickly becoming disenchanted with medical
school, the protagonist becomes a doctor in the remote town of Alcolea and laters returns to his native Madrid to
work as a doctor of hygiene. The narrative of this novel is interrupted by a lengthy philosophical dialogue in which
the protagonist defends idealism against the pragmatism of his uncle, Dr. Iturrioz. The protagonist, who ends up
marrying Lulú, is named Andrés Hurtado. For 10 points, name this novel by Pío Baroja whose English title
references the Book of Genesis.
ANSWER: The Tree of Knowledge [or El árbol de la ciencia; or The Tree of Science]
18. This word is the most common English title of a Latin poem which includes a pun on the words for sinner
and drinker, peccatori and potatori, two lines after the speaker expresses his wish to die in a tavern so that
wine is close to his dying mouth. That poem is the most famous of the ten surviving poems by the 12 th-century
Goliard known only as the Archpoet. It isn’t “memoir,” but this word’s plural appears in the title of a novel
in which George Colwan is stabbed in the back and Robert falls under the influence of Gil-Martin. In addition
to appearing in the title of James Hogg’s most famous novel, the plural of this word appears in the title of a novel in
which Kochan is disappointed that a picture of a knight turns out to actually be a picture of Joan of Arc, as well as
the title of an autobiographical account of laudanum addiction by Thomas de Quincey. For 10 points, name this
word whose plural also titles autobiographies by Rousseau and St. Augustine.
ANSWER: confession(s)
19. In a novel written in this language, one character’s goal of undoing the musical system of well
temperament provides the title of the film adaptation, which was directed by a frequent collaborator with the
author of the novel. In that novel, a figure known as the Prince stirs up violent unrest in a town which is being
visited by a circus which only exhibits a giant whale. Other novels written in this language include the
massive Parallel Stories and the 1942 novel Embers. This language, which was used to write The Melancholy of
Resistance, is also the language of a curiously unsentimental novel about Gyuri’s experiences at Auschwitz and
Buchenwald, written by the author of Liquidation and Kaddish for an Unborn Child. For 10 points, name this
language used to write the novels of Péter Nádas, László Krasznahorkai, and Imre Kértesz.
ANSWER: Hungarian [or Magyar]
20. This critic has contrasted “Marlovian cartoons” with the characters of Shakespeare, claiming that
Faulconbridge the Bastard is Shakespeare’s first great character, and that his originality lies in his talent for
foregrounding and his characters’ penchant for self-overhearing. He argued that the Pentateuch is partially
based on a document which was written by a woman as a literary, rather than a religious, work in The Book
of J. The influence of Jewish mysticism on the criticism of this self-identified gnostic is apparent in his Kabbalah
and Criticism. More famously, he championed purely aesthetic criticism over the so-called “school of resentment”
in one work, and he adopted Lucretius’ idea of the clinamen in his examination of how writers swerve from their
predecessors in The Anxiety of Influence. For 10 points, name this American literary critic who wrote The Western
Canon.
ANSWER: Harold Bloom
TB. This novel extensively quotes from Chekhov’s description of the Gilyaks from Sakhalin Island. Violent
events in this novel include a policewoman being strangled while handcuffed to a hotel bed, and a dog
exploding without making a sound. One of the main characters reads a story about a town of cats to his
estranged father. One character in this novel rewrites a novella in which a girl is punished for letting a blind
goat die and learns about the dohta and the maza, which correspond to the two moons in the sky. The author of that
novella, Fuka-Eri, is the daughter of the leader of a cult named Sakigake, and she encounters the Little People, who
transport Aomame and Tengo into an alternate version of the year 1984. For 10 points, name this most recent novel
by Haruki Murakami.
ANSWER: 1Q84 [pronounced “one kew eighty-four” or “ichi-kew-hachi-yon,” but be lenient]