issue 19: july - august 2000 

the
WILLIAM  FAULKNER
QUIZ

The Answers

Our sixth literary quiz was dedicated to William Faulkner. We had plenty of near misses but no outright winner.

1- What actor did Faulkner feel most comfortable with during his time as scriptwriter in Hollywood?
a- Cary Grant
b- Edward G. Robinson
c- Humphrey Bogart

2- Of which story did Malcolm Cowley write:  "[It is] the only other story of Mississippi that can be set beside Huckleberry Finn without shrivilling under the comparison."?
a- "Barn Burning"
b- "Old Man"
c- "An Odor of Verbana"

3- What was the name of the film based on the novel Sanctuary?
a- The Story of Temple Drake
b- Abused
c- No Sanctuary

4- Faulkner wrote a film script based on a crime noir novel by which one of the following authors?
a- Dashiell Hammett
b- Raymond Chandler
c- Jim Thompson

5- In Faulkner’s opinion, what place provided the ideal setting for a writer to work?
a- A university
b- A country house
c- A whore house

6-Why was Faulkner dismissed from his position as head of the post office at the University of Mississippi?
a- For opening other people’s mail.
b- For reading on the job.
c- For getting caught fondling a student.
d- For repeatedly not showing up to work.

7- What novel did Faulkner publish with the help of his friend, Sherwood Anderson?
a- Pylon
b- Mosquitoes
c- Soldier´s Pay

8- Which work would Faulkner read each year "like some people read the Bible"?
a- Moby Dick
b- Madame Bovary
c- Oliver Twist
d- Macbeth
e- Don Quijote

9- What is the name of the imaginary county in which the majority of Faulkner’s novels take place?
Yoknapatawpha

10- What work was the writer refering to when he stated: "Even before sitting down in front of the paper and writing the first words, I knew which had to be the last."
a- Absalom, Absalom!
b- Light in August
c- As I Lay Dying
d- The Unvanquished

11- In Absalom, Absalom! Quentin says: "I don’t. I don’t! I don’t hate it! I don’t hate it!" What doesn’t he hate?
a- The South
b- Sex
c- America
d- Fried chicken

12-What advice did Faulkner give to writers interested in narrative technique?
a- To study Joyce
b- To become a surgeon or a brick layer
c- To drink heavily

13- In what year did Faulkner win the National Book Award for his "Collected Short Stories"?
a- 1948
b- 1953
c- 1956
d- 1951

14- "Tell him that, at my age, one is too old to travel so far only to dine with a stranger." This was Faulkner’s response to an invitation from which president  to dine at the White House?
a- Gerald Ford
b- Richard Nixon
c- John F. Kennedy

15- Which of the following has a special meaning for Temple Drake?
a- a cucumber
b- a zucchini
c- a corncob

16- How long did it take Faulkner to write his novel As I Lay Dying?
a- Ten months
b- Five years
c- Six weeks

17- When asked if he had read this writer’s work, Faulkner answered, "I have never read him. Nor did Shakespeare read him. I doubt that Melville has read him, and I’m sure that Moby Dick didn’t." What writer is he refering to?
a- Sigmund Freud
b- Karl Marx
c- Charles Darwin
d- Thomas Mann

18- The short story "Dry September" concerns:
a- the lynching of a black man for an attack on a white woman.
b- the murderous rampage of a mentally-imbalanced judge.
c- the rape of a young mulatto girl by her half-brother.

19- The principal figure of The Hamlet and of the whole "Snopes" trilogy is:
a- Ab
b- Mink
c- Virgil
d- Flem
e- Montgomery Ward

20- What advice did Faulkner give to those people who read his novels two or three times and still weren’t able to understand them?
a- To stop trying because they were too stupid.
b- To read them four times.
c- To try reading them from back to front.

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