Daily puzzles/problems.

Incidentally, I'm very interested in the answer to number 4, as that's a pretty accurate summary of what my writing increasingly attempts to achieve.

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Originally Posted by prendrelemick

2. Milton.

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Correct.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

Dostoevsky?

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Incorrect. I've changed my mind--it's the last phrase of that quote that is key, not the beginning.

I'm really hoping someone will figure out #3. It helps if you realize the speaker is using the terms "bad review" and "advance" rather ironically.

4. Faulkner?

I'm now resorting to listing the usual suspects, and see if any quote fits.

Herman Melville, possible no. 5
Henry James,
Joseph Heller
james joyce
J D Salinger
John Stienbeck
Stephen King, possible no. 3

7. Ahh, is that Don Quixote? - Cervantes

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Originally Posted by hawthorns

4. Faulkner?

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Nope.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by prendrelemick

7. Ahh, is that Don Quixote? - Cervantes

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It is indeed Cervantes. Just like I said--the very beginning and the very end of that quote are key. :p

Unfortunately, none of the other names you produced are present on the list. Here's a hint: a few of the names that match up with some of these last unanswered clues have been said already, but they were offered for the wrong quote.

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Originally Posted by Basil

*1. "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." Ernest Hemingway

*2. "He was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it." Milton

*3. "About eight years or so ago, Valentine's Day, I seem to remember, you received an extremely bad review…and this review, unlike most bad reviews, came accompanied with a very large advance."

*4. "What unfolds in his works is not a multitude of characters and fates in a single objective world, illuminated by a single authorial consciousness; rather a plurality of consciousnesses, with equal rights and each with its own world, combine but are not merged in the unity of the event."

*5. "Explaining metaphysics to the nation –
I wish he would explain his Explanation."

6. "Count No 'Count" William Faulkner

7. "Before [him] there had only been good and bad characters, deliverers and traitors, saints and blasphemers, in literature; here the hero is saint and fool in one and the same person." Cervantes

8. "It is a better and a wiser thing to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet; so back to the shop [sir], back to plasters, pills, and ointment boxes." John Keats

*9. "Once upon a time a Georgian printed a couple of books that attracted notice, but immediately it turned out that he was little more than an amanuensis for the local blacks." Joel Chandler Harris

*10. "A beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain." Percy Shelley

*11. "[He] was perhaps the first great nonstop literary drinker of the American nineteenth century. He made the indulgences of Coleridge and De Quincey seem like a bit of mischief in the kitchen with the cooking sherry." Edgar Allan Poe

*12. "[He] did a great many notable things for his country…it is not the idea of this memoir to ignore that or cover it up. No; the simple idea of it is to snub those pretentious maxims of his, which he worked up with a great show of originality out of truisms that had become wearisome platitudes as early as the dispersion from Babel." Benjamin Franklin

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*****

Thanks for the clue, so a bit of reshuffling is in order.

4. Tolstoy.
12 Mark Twain.

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Originally Posted by prendrelemick

Thanks for the clue, so a bit of reshuffling is in order.

4. Tolstoy.
12 Mark Twain.

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No and no...although Mark Twain is the one who said #12--who's he talking about? A statesman once involved in a literary endeavor known for publishing maxims and witty proverbs.

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Originally Posted by Basil

No and no...although Mark Twain is the one who said #12--who's he talking about? A statesman once involved in a literary endeavor known for publishing maxims and witty proverbs.

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Franklin?

(It was 'witty' that threw me for a while there...)

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

Franklin?

(It was 'witty' that threw me for a while there...)

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Yeah, I'm not sure why I was feeling so charitable towards the long deceased. I'm glad you were finally able to see through the mischaracterization, as Benjamin Franklin is the correct answer.

My mother (who just knows these things) says Faulkner is number 6.

Seems like #3 could be about Mark Twain. Doubt that is correct though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by prendrelemick

My mother (who just knows these things) says Faulkner is number 6.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YoOFIPvj40

That's why in retrospect this was a lousy clue to use--it could only be solved by someone "who just knows these things"; it wasn't figure outable.

Number 3 is not Mark Twain.

I'll post hints for the remaining three quotes later tonight if they remain unsolved. I am mildly surprised that our British members are unfamiliar with #5.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Basil

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YoOFIPvj40

That's why in retrospect this was a lousy clue to use--it could only be solved by someone "who just knows these things"; it wasn't figure outable.

Number 3 is not Mark Twain.

I'll post hints for the remaining three quotes later tonight if they remain unsolved. I am mildly surprised that our British members are unfamiliar with #5.

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Milton.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

Milton.

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Um, no.

The quote comes from a poem written by a Romantic with a fondness for sprinkling references to other poets of his day throughout his poetry. The poet being referenced had largely stopped writing poems at that time and had instead turned to expounding on literary criticism and metaphysical principles, including one particularly dense and lengthy volume that many readers of the time found impenetrable.

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3. "About eight years or so ago, Valentine's Day, I seem to remember, you received an extremely bad review…and this review, unlike most bad reviews, came accompanied with a very large advance."

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Most 'reviews' don't come with advances, do they? So what you have to ask yourself is...who gets the 'advance'? And what is it for (especially in the context of the 'bad review')?

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Originally Posted by Basil

Most 'reviews' don't come with advances, do they? So what you have to ask yourself is...who gets the 'advance'? And what is it for (especially in the context of the 'bad review')?

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Well, yeah. Restating the question isn't much of a clue though. I was hoping for something more along the lines of 'Find the Tyrant King' or "Consider Cambridge but bugger Birmingham'...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

Well, yeah. Restating the question isn't much of a clue though.

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I thought raising the possibility that someone other than the author would be receiving the 'advance' expanded on the original clue rather significantly.

There is a series of children's books featuring a kid detective named Encyclopedia Brown and his antagonist, the villainous Bugs Meany. The stories are solvable, with the solution usually hinging on the reader's knowledge of facts such as dolphins are mammals, not fish; or that hard-boiled eggs spin faster than uncooked eggs. I wish I could provide you with a key that would unlock this clue in a similar fashion, but sadly I can't think of one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Basil

I thought raising the possibility that someone other than the author would be receiving the 'advance' expanded on the original clue rather significantly.

There is a series of children's books featuring kid detective Encyclopedia Brown and his antagonist, the villainous Bugs Meany. The stories are solvable, with the solution usually relying on the reader's knowledge of facts such as dolphins are mammals, not fish; or that hard-boiled eggs spin faster than uncooked eggs. I wish I could provide you with a key that would unlock this clue in a similar fashion, but sadly I can't think of one.

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'Find the Tyrant King' is the central clue in a book I read as a kid, in which the young sleuths had to go to all sorts of London landmarks to solve the mystery. The Tyrant King turned out to be the fossil Tyrannosaurus Rex in the Natural History Museum.

I loved that book, and I seem to remember buying a Red Rover one-day pass to go by bus to a lot of the places they'd gone to. I don't know what prompted me to do that. I remember that London Transport had some sponsorship thing going on with the book, and it was suggested in the story that the young sleuths managed to visit all these places around London because they had a Red Rover one-day pass to go by...

...HANG ON A MINUTE!

4. Dostoevsky??

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Originally Posted by Basil

Um, no.

The quote comes from a poem written by a Romantic with a fondness for sprinkling references to other poets of his day throughout his poetry. The poet being referenced had largely stopped writing poems at that time and had instead turned to expounding on literary criticism and metaphysical principles, including one particularly dense and lengthy volume that many readers of the time found impenetrable.

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Now, Lets say you're giving out hidden clues.:smilewinkgrin:

3. Ezra Pound

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Originally Posted by hawthorns

4. Dostoevsky??

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Correct! Only two left now...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by prendrelemick

Now, Lets say you're giving out hidden clues.:smilewinkgrin:

3. Ezra Pound

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You're giving me waaay too much credit, Mick.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Basil

*1. "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." Ernest Hemingway

*2. "He was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it." Milton

*3. "About eight years or so ago, Valentine's Day, I seem to remember, you received an extremely bad review…and this review, unlike most bad reviews, came accompanied with a very large advance."

*4. "What unfolds in his works is not a multitude of characters and fates in a single objective world, illuminated by a single authorial consciousness; rather a plurality of consciousnesses, with equal rights and each with its own world, combine but are not merged in the unity of the event." Dostoevsky

*5. "Explaining metaphysics to the nation – Coleridge
I wish he would explain his Explanation."

6. "Count No 'Count" William Faulkner

7. "Before [him] there had only been good and bad characters, deliverers and traitors, saints and blasphemers, in literature; here the hero is saint and fool in one and the same person." Cervantes

8. "It is a better and a wiser thing to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet; so back to the shop [sir], back to plasters, pills, and ointment boxes." John Keats

*9. "Once upon a time a Georgian printed a couple of books that attracted notice, but immediately it turned out that he was little more than an amanuensis for the local blacks." Joel Chandler Harris

*10. "A beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain." Percy Shelley

*11. "[He] was perhaps the first great nonstop literary drinker of the American nineteenth century. He made the indulgences of Coleridge and De Quincey seem like a bit of mischief in the kitchen with the cooking sherry." Edgar Allan Poe

*12. "[He] did a great many notable things for his country…it is not the idea of this memoir to ignore that or cover it up. No; the simple idea of it is to snub those pretentious maxims of his, which he worked up with a great show of originality out of truisms that had become wearisome platitudes as early as the dispersion from Babel." Benjamin Franklin

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*****

Wild guess on #5 John Donne.

By clutching-at-straws-process-of-elimination methodology (ie. we've got Shelly and Keats,) and Byron was a sardonic sod, so Byron for number 5

I mean the Quote was Byronic, about Wordsworth?

#3 has a whiff of Dorothy Parker talking to some dude, maybe.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Basil

The quote comes from a poem written by a Romantic with a fondness for sprinkling references to other poets of his day throughout his poetry. The poet being referenced had largely stopped writing poems at that time and had instead turned to expounding on literary criticism and metaphysical principles, including one particularly dense and lengthy volume that many readers of the time found impenetrable.

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Biographia Literaria? Coleridge?

Just when I was about to hammer the final nail in this coffin, the corpse has suddenly shifted to the right. What else to do but continue beating him until we know for sure that he's dead?

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Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf

Biographia Literaria? Coleridge?

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That is correct; Mick also correctly judged the quote to be Byronic.

So that just leaves us this quote, from a 1997 interview, between two Brits:

Quote:

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"About eight years or so ago, Valentine's Day, I seem to remember, you received an extremely bad review…and this review, unlike most bad reviews, came accompanied with a very large advance."

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As the renowned carpet bomber of this thead, (as opposed to jajdude the sniper) I shall have yet another wild guess

JK Rowling.

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Originally Posted by prendrelemick

JK Rowling.

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Incorrect.

I just read somewhere that this author is known as a "night bachelor". I have no idea what that means, but it sounds pretty wild.

Martin Amis? (Sometime around The Information?)

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Originally Posted by billl

Martin Amis? (Sometime around The Information?)

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Nope. Sorry.

These days, this author can be found haunting the neck of the woods of another writer from the list...although I bet nobody accuses him of being an amanuensis for the local blacks.

Philip Roth? -his ex wife Claire Bloom gave him the bad review.

^ sorry not British.

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Originally Posted by prendrelemick

jajdude the sniper

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I approve of this.

Sir Alan Ackbourne? He became a Knight Batchelor on 11 feb 1997




Oh 'eck, wrong date we're looking for a literary figure who was knighted on 14th Feb 1989, are we?



Ahh unless the bad review was a fatwah against Salman Rushdie.


I'm carpet bombing again

Quote:

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Originally Posted by prendrelemick

Ahh unless the bad review was a fatwah against Salman Rushdie.

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You got it. Good job, Mick. I'll post a wrap-up a little later.

By dint of lots of guessing I got the most right - I also got the most wrong but never mind .



Here's something we haven't tried before.

Imagine a room with ten people in it. Most are sat in, or on the arms of, comfy chairs and sofas that have been arranged in a half circle around the fire place. The focus of their attention is a young woman stood in front of the fireplace. She is gesticulating wildly, and all the others are shouting at her.

First, she holds her hands out in front of her, thumbs uppermost and palms together, she turns them outwards.

2. She holds up 5 fingers.
3. She holds up 1 finger.
4. She holds up one hand vertically and the other horizontally across the top of it.
5. She holds up 2 fingers
6. She cups one hand to her ear and gesticulates with the other, making the shape of little waves heading towards her ear.
7. She holds up 3 fingers.
8. She tugs the lobe of her ear
9. She points to her hand
10. She holds up 4 fingers.
11. She holds up one hand vertically and the other horizontally across the top of it again.
12. She holds up 5 fingers
13. She stamps about on the carpet, she shakes her fists aggressively, she draws back her lips to show her teeth are clenched, her brow is furrowed.

She repeats actions number 6 and 13 over and over, finally she points to one of the others and nods.
Then everyone applauds and she sits down. The person she pointed at takes her place.


So, what's going on and what's the answer?

One hand vertically and the other horizontally across the top of it... like this?:

http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/ge...le-making-.jpg