Know Your Picture Characters Entry #64
A. 大いなる遺産 B. 虚栄の市 C. 荒涼館 D. ジェーン･エア
E. 宝島 F. 不思議の国のアリス
One reader described this week’s answers as “the best response ever.” It’s certainly the longest response ever, and as we all know after taking the previous week’s quiz on Harry Potter books, the longest one is always the best . . . right?
Theoman tried his hand at guessing every single one of them, but unfortunately he got them all correct, so there’s not much funny to say about that. I’m sure his grandmother will be proud that he apparently knows more about Victorian novels than he does about the works of Rowling.
This week’s responses included a fair amount of pro-Trollope outrage, which I have to say was not entirely unexpected. I did finally figure out how his name is pronounced in Japanese–Tororoppu–but I still don’t even know if any of his works have been translated into Japanese, so I don’t know what any of their titles would be. A Fan’s suggestion of Kanshu for The Warden seems as good as any to me, provided he means the kind of warden that runs a prison.
A Fan clearly believes that turnabout is fair play; he likes to give answers where I have to try to figure out what he means in response to the challenge, where he is supposed to figure out what I mean. I’ll take a crack at it. I was made to read two of these in high school, but based on a later response I’m going to guess that he means Great Expectations, which is correct for A. The one that’s fun to read as a kid could only be Treasure Island, which is not B. As far as I know, Bleak House has never been made into a Disney movie, so his next guess probably refers to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (or, in Japanese, “Alice in/of the Mysterious Land”), which is also incorrect. I had to look up Vilette to learn that it was written by one of those Brontes, as was Jane Eyre, which he correctly identified as D (so far he’s 2-for-2 on books I had to read in high school). The most overrated one on the list must be Vanity Fair, which makes A Fan so mad that he can’t even spot it properly. This leaves us with Bleak House, which was not correctly identified, but we would still like to thank A Fan for copy-pasting roughly two-thirds of the book along with his answers.
A quiz on Victorian literature was Shirley’s suggestion in the first place, so I suppose she has a right to make comments about who should have been included, but isn’t Jane Austen really more Georgian than Victorian? This isn’t exactly my field of expertise. Perhaps blinded by rage at the exclusion of authors like Eliot and Trollope, she did not do as well as A Fan, but she did manage to find Treasure Island, and if you’re going to hunt for something, wouldn’t you much rather find an island full of treasure than, say, a dismal house? Discuss.
So, you like Victorian novels? I like . . . baseball. This week we are having the KYPC Baseball Team Identification Challenge: Central Division. Since there is no designated hitter in KYPC, teams could come from either the American League (Indians, Royals, Tigers, Twins, White Sox) or the National League (Astros, Brewers, Cardinals, Cubs, Pirates, Reds).
A. 王族 B. 白足袋 C. 醸造者 D. 虎 E. 双子 F. 幼獣
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7 Comments »
August 1st, 2011 at 1:38 pm
A. is Pirates because I do know the Japanese word for “pirates”, and I haven’t seen it written but that looks about right for how it sounds.
B. is White Sox because I think I recognize the character for “white”.
E. is Cubs because I believe the second character there indicates a diminutive and the only one of those here is “young bears”.
August 1st, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Unfortunately, A Fan is away from his normal computer this week, and the one he is using instead seems to have some issues with Java. For that reason (or some other unknown technical reason), I can’t read the actual characters. But before anyone says the obvious (“What difference would THAT make?”), I’ll say it myself. See next comment.
August 1st, 2011 at 7:34 pm
First of all, Trollope’s Warden (Septimus Harding, if I remember after many years) did not oversee a prison, but rather a sort of old age home, so my attempt at translating would interest the folks at Babelfish, if they had a Trollope category, which they probably don’t.
Second, the Twins don’t have much of a designated hitter this year either, so they would fit right into the NL Central.
But since you have six answers, and there are already six teams in the NL Central, I’m going to assume that you kept the real NL Central teams intact as answers.
Clearly, AStros, Brwers and cards go with the letter they begin with anyway. I’ll go Reds, Cubs, Pirates for D, E and F,
August 1st, 2011 at 9:02 pm
First I want to remark on my last week’s answer. As soon as I posted it I knew someone would jump on my designation of the immortal Jane as a Victorian novelist. I thought it might be Fan, though. If you’re going to be picky about it, technically she was a pre-Victorian, but she is a better fit with the Victorians than the period of Romantic Novelists directly preceding her. The discerning reader will appreciate the progression through the novels of social satire, melding into overt criticism and rejection of the upper classes in Persuasion. And the unfinished fragment left at her death appears to be moving into a different subject matter that would not be likely to interest the Romantics, but would the Victorians. Therefore, I prefer to think of her as a kinder, gentler Victorian. A transitional novelist as it were. I won’t go on since I am probably the only one of us interested in all this.
I just had to say my say, but I don’t have time now to think out my answer to the baseball stuff, so, like Fan, I,ll finish later.
August 2nd, 2011 at 8:25 pm
I’m still not ready to decide on my answers, but I just remembered something else I wanted to say after W,W.’s comments. OF COURSE I’d rather find the treasure on the island than a dismal house. For one thing I could use some of the money to buy all the Victorian novels I don’t have now, books analyzing them and biographies of my favorites.
August 6th, 2011 at 3:51 pm
This is Saturday, nearing the moment of truth, and I can’t procrastinate any longer even though I have zero inspiration. After all, that fine Victorian novelist, Trollope, wrote a certain number of words every day of life, inspiration or not. He counted them! And look at the masterpieces he managed to create. So:
A. The White Sox, easily reached from the Q.C., home, so a short trip, not unlike……
E. the Cardinals.
B. This is what you look like after drinking too much beer. Note the bomb about to go off in your head, and the little fellow in the middle doesn’t know what he is doing, as shown by the last kanji. Not that I would know. Must be the Brewers.
C. looks to be divided in two. (Twins, get it?) It is the most aesthetically pleasing, suggesting the beautiful new stadium, promising HOPE. As we x-Cub fans used to say, “We believe”.
D. This pathetic little Kanji brings out the protective earth mother in me and could be the lovable losers, the Cubs.
F. Indians. Why? How would I know? I haven’t the slightest.
August 7th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
This comment is silly I know, but I can’t resist. I don’t know why I said the Cub fans used to say “We believe”. It was “Wait till next year”. I was stunned when I saw what I had actually written. Most of us probably never really did believe. Over half a century of believing is too much to ask.