Opening Lines Quiz: The Non-Fiction Version

Discussion in 'Books' started by DoctorJones24, Nov 7, 2003.

  1. Michael K.

    Michael K. Member

    Mar 3, 1999
    There or Thereabouts
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Oh God, I'm gonna be on an oh-fer for a long time in this one. If nothing else, it'll help me refresh my reading list.

    When does the fiction version start? ;)
     
  2. bungadiri

    bungadiri Super Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jan 25, 2002
    Acnestia
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Friedan, The FEminine Mystique.

    Edit:
    22) The following is one of the many myths told by the Bororo Indians of central Brazil, whose territory used to extend from the upper reaches of the Paraguay River to beyond the valley of the Araguaya.

    The Raw and the Cooked, C. Levi-Strauss
     
  3. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    D'oh. I actually could've looked that one up in my office. Rushdie. IMAGINARY HOMELANDS (I think I have that title right).

    33 is Frazer's THE GOLDEN BOUGH, I'm fairly certain. Just read Wittgenstein's essay on him a week or so back.

    37 is Shelley's "Defense of Poetry." Or maybe Wordsworth's "Preface to the Lyrical Ballads..." Hmmm. I'm going to stick with my first impulse and say it's Shelley.
     
  4. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    32 is Kant's CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON.

    in a frightful coincidence, that book was in the overnight bookdrop at the library where I work just now, and I could look it up.
     
  5. bungadiri

    bungadiri Super Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jan 25, 2002
    Acnestia
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    29--Machiavelli, The Prince.

    Off to Detroit, where no doubt I'll be inspired.
     
  6. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    I probably should've read through all of these before I started to answer.

    22 sounds like Levi-Strauss. I'm going to guess THE RAW AND THE COOKED.

    Time to check in the rest of the overnight drop-offs. See if I can get any more that way.
     
  7. bungadiri

    bungadiri Super Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jan 25, 2002
    Acnestia
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This is Samuel Huntington's framing of identity politics. I had to look it up to get the title (Clash of Civilizations) but I knew it was him.

    Edit:
    Sorry Wankler, I beat you to the Raw and the Cooked--I stuck in my earlier post. Nanny-nanny boo-boo, stick your head in doo-doo.
     
  8. LeperKhan

    LeperKhan New Member

    Aug 10, 2000
    St. Paul, MN
    This sounds like Darwin to me - Origins of Species or something like that?

    Really, I just wanted to answer something, and that's about the only one I have even a vague notion of.
     
  9. minorthreat

    minorthreat Member

    Jan 1, 2001
    NYC
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    I thought that was Huntington, but I couldn't find the quote in my copy of Clash of Civilizations.
     
  10. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Thought I was in the politics forum for a bit. But there, you would've called me a "reactionary pinko doodoo-fascist."

    Speaking of the politics forum, #30 sounds like Adam Smith. If so, I'm guessing that would be THE WEALTH OF NATIONS. A book that I wish at least one person over there who invokes him would actually read.
     
  11. DoctorJones24

    DoctorJones24 Member

    Aug 26, 1999
    OH
    This is quite possible. I know he's published it in a couple of versions, and it's been excerpted as well.
     
  12. riverplate

    riverplate Member+

    Jan 1, 2003
    Corona, Queens
    Club:
    CA River Plate
    Number 25. Louis Menand. The Metaphysical Club.

    Number 34. John Reed. Ten Days That Shook the World.
     
  13. DoctorJones24

    DoctorJones24 Member

    Aug 26, 1999
    OH
    Lots of correct answers there...

    Scoreboard
    bungadiri 10.5
    Dr. Wankler 10.5
    Ferris 4
    riverplate 3.5
    irvine 2
    LeperKhan 1
    CTowner 0.5

    That leaves the following unanswered...now with hints.

    24) Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess.
    HINT 1: Ergo

    26) These words, it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the essence of human language.
    HINT 1: The final line to this book is more famous. IIR, this author appears as a character in Terry Eagleton's novel, "Saints and Scholars."

    27) If at this moment, someone were to ask, “What are you doing?” you might reply “I am reading,” and thereby acknowledge the fact that reading is an activity, something you do.
    HINT 1: Hm. I thought this was a GIFT to Dr. Wankler. This one has a great exposition of the following poem:
    Jacobs--Rosenbaum
    Levin
    Thorne
    Hayes
    Ohman (?)

    28) At the end of World War of 1914, there was a deep conviction and almost universal hope that peace would reign in the world.
    HINT 1: Statesman/historian

    35) The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal.
    HINT 1: Key book by one of the subjects of #25.

    36) It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement—that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.
    HINT 1: Helped out Sherlock Holmes in "The 7% Solution."

    38) The study of the novel as a genre is distinguished by peculiar difficulties.
    HINT 1: Thought this would be an easy one. Think polyglossia.

    40) We have to begin with the Oriental World, but not before the period in which we discover States in it.
    HINT 1: I sense a dialectic coming...
     
  14. bungadiri

    bungadiri Super Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jan 25, 2002
    Acnestia
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    36 is Freud, of course, but what work?

    guess: Civilization and its Discontents
     
  15. riverplate

    riverplate Member+

    Jan 1, 2003
    Corona, Queens
    Club:
    CA River Plate
    You're right. Beat me to it. The hint was a dead giveaway.
     
  16. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    24: Descartes. DISCOURSE ON METHOD

    26: Could that be Wittgenstien, PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS? That doesn't sound right.

    27: D'oh. Stanley Fish. Dean at UIC and point guard for The Text Pistols IM basketball team. "Is There a Text in this Class."

    38: Mikhail Bahktin: DIALOGICAL IMAGINATION. "The Epic and the Novel," if I recall my Ph.D. orals correctly. Which I probably don't. But I was initially going to go with Lukacs, which would've been wrong.
     
  17. LeperKhan

    LeperKhan New Member

    Aug 10, 2000
    St. Paul, MN
    A couple of guesses based mainly on the hints given:

    28- Winston Churchill, The Second World War
    40- Hegel, no titles are coming to mind at the moment
     
  18. riverplate

    riverplate Member+

    Jan 1, 2003
    Corona, Queens
    Club:
    CA River Plate
    Number 38. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
     
  19. riverplate

    riverplate Member+

    Jan 1, 2003
    Corona, Queens
    Club:
    CA River Plate
    I'm quoting myself.

    I meant to say that's the answer for number 35. Sorry.
     

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