Unutterably Silly Quiz

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by orlok

Can you work out the first names of each of the following fictional characters?:

A: Daughter of the incestuous marriage between a King and his mother, she was eventually walled up for her "crime".

B: Herione of a novel written in the '50s, which featured the search for a mysterious man.

C: She was notable for providing the hero of the story with a ball of thread, which saved his life.


And for a bonus 10 points, can you work out the link between them?

Well, C. is Ariadne.

I'll have to think about the others.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Well, C. is Ariadne.

I'll have to think about the others.

Correct.

[Shayne Parkinson]

A. is Antigone, which like Ariadne begins with A and ends with E. But I doubt if that's the connection you're after.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by Shayne Parkinson

A. is Antigone, which like Ariadne begins with A and ends with E. But I doubt if that's the connection you're after.

I thought Shayne might have an idea . A is Antigone, but that's not the link.

[issybird]

Obviously, it's the 50s novel which will reveal all. Thinking...

[orlok]

A cloo: it was concerned with earth shaking events...(not an earthquake, btw).

[Bookpossum]

"The Third Man"? The woman was Anna - but I can't see another connection, so that probably isn't it.

[Shayne Parkinson]

Is the novel "On the Beach" by Nevil Shute?

[orlok]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

"The Third Man"? The woman was Anna - but I can't see another connection, so that probably isn't it.

Originally Posted by Shayne Parkinson

Is the novel "On the Beach" by Nevil Shute?

No and no.

Another clue before I go to bed:

The iconic line from the novel was "Who is John Galt?"

I will reveal the answer/link in the morning. I'm happy for the rightful winner, SneakySnake (or anyone else) to ask another question in the meantime.

[Bookpossum]

That certainly had earth-shattering events, but was there a mysterious man? I can't remember.

However, while having breakfast (I seem to do my thinking while eating!) I did think of a link if the novel is "The Third Man". All three women are prepared to break what is a bad law (or has bad consequences):

Ariadne helped Theseus slay the Minotaur to whom young men and women were being sacrificed.

Anna was trying to avoid being sent back to the Russian sector of Vienna.

Antigone defied the order that her brother's body should be left exposed to animals and gave it a burial.

Edit: Sorry - this crossed with Orlok's message.

Don't know the quote so over to someone who does.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

That certainly had earth-shattering events, but was there a mysterious man? I can't remember.

However, while having breakfast (I seem to do my thinking while eating!) I did think of a link if the novel is "The Third Man". All three women are prepared to break what is a bad law (or has bad consequences):

Ariadne helped Theseus slay the Minotaur to whom young men and women were being sacrificed.

Anna was trying to avoid being sent back to the Russian sector of Vienna.

Antigone defied the order that her brother's body should be left exposed to animals and gave it a burial.

Correct in all respects except that the novel isn't The Third Man. Also, the link is so ridiculously obscure, no-one will get it (which is the annoying bit of the quiz as alluded to before).

[Shayne Parkinson]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

That certainly had earth-shattering events, but was there a mysterious man? I can't remember.

Re the mysterious man: well, sort of. They're trying to contact the sender of a mysterious signal. In quiz-language, I thought that was near enough to searching for a mysterious man.

I recognise the name John Galt as being from an Ayn Rand novel, but I've never read it, so am stuck at this point. I think the heroine's name is Dagny.

The names Antigone, Dagny and Ariadne do look related somehow. They all rhyme. Are anagrams involved?

[orlok]

Originally Posted by Shayne Parkinson

Re the mysterious man: well, sort of. They're trying to contact the sender of a mysterious signal. In quiz-language, I thought that was near enough to searching for a mysterious man.

I recognise the name John Galt as being from an Ayn Rand novel, but I've never read it, so am stuck at this point. I think the heroine's name is Dagny.

The names Antigone, Dagny and Ariadne do look related somehow. They all rhyme. Are anagrams involved?

Well done, it is Dagny, the herione from Atlas Shrugged. Over to you Shayne, unless Sneaky is hovering with her question.

The names are indeed Antigone, Dagny and Ariadne.

[Shayne Parkinson]

I think it's safe to say I'd never have guessed the link. Lovely names all.

While we wait for Sneaky to rise from her slumber, some quotations, among them several of my favourites. A point each for author and work.

1. "Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?"

2. "For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?"

3. "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."

4. "When women are the advisers, the lords of creation don't take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole."

5. "We are never told what would have happened."

6. "No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato.... "

7. "I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours."

8. "She was trusted and valued by her father, loved and courted by all dogs, cats, children, and poor people, and slighted and neglected by everybody else."

9. "A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry whom she likes."

10. "How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burned an hour after."

[issybird]

I'm gonna grab 2. Pride & Prejudice, Austen. Now I'll go back for a closer read.