AuntShecky
09-18-2008, 02:57 PM
Happy (and not so) Landings
In his how-to book, Making Shapely Fiction, Jerome Stern says that the only thing a writer needs to remember about ending a piece is "to land safely." This week's snooze-cruise asks you to identify the following landings from various literary flights. Not necessarily in order, the answers include the endings from 5 novels, 3 poems, 3 short stories, 3 plays, and 2 movies. Ready? Pull your landing gear down:
1. "My belief is that your boy's born lucky, and in the long run that's better than to be born clever or rich."
2. ". . .in the silence, you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on."
3. "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
4. ". . .I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."
5. "Till then I'll swat and seek about for eases
And at that time bequeath you my diseases."
6."It was Beauty [who] killed the beast."
7. "Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago."
8. "They also serve who only stand and wait."
9. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
10. " 'It isn't fair, it isn't right,' Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her."
11. "Peyton Farquar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the[. . .]bridge."
12. "Take up the bodies. Such a site as this
Becomes the field but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot."
13. "I just threw your palm trees overboard. Now what is all this crap about no movie tonight?"
14. "Where the voice is great within us rises up,
As we stand gazing at the rounded moon."
15. "It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. [character's name] was both."
16. "Nobody's perfect."
(Answers follow in the "reply" below.)
In his how-to book, Making Shapely Fiction, Jerome Stern says that the only thing a writer needs to remember about ending a piece is "to land safely." This week's snooze-cruise asks you to identify the following landings from various literary flights. Not necessarily in order, the answers include the endings from 5 novels, 3 poems, 3 short stories, 3 plays, and 2 movies. Ready? Pull your landing gear down:
1. "My belief is that your boy's born lucky, and in the long run that's better than to be born clever or rich."
2. ". . .in the silence, you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on."
3. "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
4. ". . .I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."
5. "Till then I'll swat and seek about for eases
And at that time bequeath you my diseases."
6."It was Beauty [who] killed the beast."
7. "Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago."
8. "They also serve who only stand and wait."
9. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
10. " 'It isn't fair, it isn't right,' Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her."
11. "Peyton Farquar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the[. . .]bridge."
12. "Take up the bodies. Such a site as this
Becomes the field but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot."
13. "I just threw your palm trees overboard. Now what is all this crap about no movie tonight?"
14. "Where the voice is great within us rises up,
As we stand gazing at the rounded moon."
15. "It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. [character's name] was both."
16. "Nobody's perfect."
(Answers follow in the "reply" below.)