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kady
Member
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# Posted: 21 Oct 2006 20:14
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Another Forum Game....
Here's how to play.
I'm going to write the first selection of a famous novel. Read it, then tell me the name of the novel and who wrote it.
Once you guess, you get to write a selection from your favorite novel and continue the game. Does this sound hard? Trust me, it is not.
Now, on for the game!
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Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to the Facts, sir!
The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and the speaker's square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster's sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's square wall of a forehead, which had its eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellaragein two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphais was helped by the speaker's hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs , like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcelywarehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker's obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders-- nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccomodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was-- all, helped he emphasis.
"In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothings but Facts!"
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aeon
Member
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# Posted: 21 Oct 2006 20:59
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"Hard Times", by Charles Dickens. 
Here's my selection:
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What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen; looking at the flowers, at the trees with the smoke winding off them and the rooks rising, falling; standing and looking until Peter Walsh said, “Musing among the vegetables?”—was that it?—“I prefer men to cauliflowers”—was that it? He must have said it at breakfast one morning when she had gone out on to the terrace—Peter Walsh. He would be back from India one of these days, June or July, she forgot which, for his letters were awfully dull; it was his sayings one remembered; his eyes, his pocket-knife, his smile, his grumpiness and, when millions of things had utterly vanished—how strange it was!—a few sayings like this about cabbages.
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kady
Member
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# Posted: 22 Oct 2006 07:43
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"Mrs. Dalloway", of course! By Virginia Woolf! 
Next Selection:
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It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
"My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?"
Mr. Bennet had replied that he had not.
"But it is," returned she; "for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it."
Mr. Bennet made no answer.
"Do not you want to know who has taken it?" cried his wife impatiently.
"You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it."
This was invitation enough.
"Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week."
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teekay
Member
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# Posted: 22 Oct 2006 13:58
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Ah, what a terriffic idea!
That's "Pride and Prejudice", by Jane Austen; great book.
Right, here's my selection (btw, by "any selection", do you mean taken from anywhere in the book, or are we doing beginnings?):
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3 May. Bistritz. Left Munich at 8.35 p.m. on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6.46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible. The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East; the most Western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule.
We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh. Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale. I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (Mem., get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called "paprika hendl", and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians.
(edited for typos)
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demonvamp
Member
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# Posted: 22 Oct 2006 15:16
Reply
I want to say Dracula... is it Dracula?
QD, who won't post till I'm right or wrong
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teekay
Member
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# Posted: 23 Oct 2006 11:53
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You're right. So post!
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kady
Member
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# Posted: 23 Oct 2006 18:57
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And any selection will do! It does not have to be from the beginning.....as long as there are enough contextual clues to help the next person guess which novel it is from.
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demonvamp
Member
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# Posted: 23 Oct 2006 22:15
Reply
Okay, try this one
`They call me Holly, oh Queen,' I answered.
`Holly,' she answered, speaking the word with difficulty, and yet with a most charming accent; `and what is "Holly"?'
`"Holly" is a prickly tree,' I said.
`So. Well, thou hast a prickly and yet a tree-like look. Strong art thou, and ugly, but, if my wisdom be not at fault, honest at the core, and a staff to lean on. Also one who thinks. But stay, oh Holly, stand not there, enter with me and be seated by me. I would not see thee crawl before me like those slaves. I am aweary of their worship and their terror; sometimes when they vex me I could blast them for very sport, and to see the rest turn white, even to the heart.' And she held the curtain aside with her ivory hand to let me pass in.
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aeon
Member
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# Posted: 24 Oct 2006 15:26
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Oooh, what a good one. "She" by H. Rider Haggard!
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In the cold grey dawn the sisters lit their lamp, and read their chapter with an earnestness never felt before; for now the shadow of a real trouble had come, the little books were full of help and comfort; and, as they dressed, they agreed to say good-bye cheerfully and hopefully, and send their mother on her anxious journey unsaddened by tears or complaints from them. Everything seemed very strange when they went down - so dim and still outside, so full of light and bustle within. Breakfast at that early hour seemed odd, and even Hannah's familiar face looked unnatural as she flew about her kitchen with her night-cap on. The big trunk stood ready in the hall, Mother's cloak and bonnet lay on the sofa, and Mother herself sat trying to eat, but looking so pale and worn, with sleeplessness and anxiety, that the girls found it very hard to keep their resolution. Meg's eyes kept filling in spite of herself; Jo was obliged to hide her face in the kitchen roller more than once; and the little girls wore a grave, troubled expression, as if sorrow was a new experience to them.
Nobody talked much, but as the time drew very near, and they sat waiting for the carriage, Mrs. March said to the girls, who were all busied about her, one folding her shawl, another smoothing out the strings of her bonnet, a third putting on her overshoes, and a fourth fastening up her travelling bag:
"Children, I leave you to Hannah's care and Mr. Laurence's protection. Hannah is faithfulness itself, and our good neighbour will guard you as if you were his own. I have no fears for you, yet I am anxious that you should take this trouble rightly. Don't grieve and fret when I am gone, or think that you can comfort yourselves by being idle and trying to forget. Go on with your work as usual, for work is a blessed solace. Hope and keep busy; and whatever happens, remember that you never can be fatherless."
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kady
Member
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# Posted: 24 Oct 2006 17:46
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OMG! Little Women by Lousia May Alcott! I grew up on this story. I watched the movie over and over until it drove everyone crazy. I made my mum read the book to me at nights! And then, in college, I bought complete biographies dedicated to her life and wrote essays comparing Alcott's life to the lives of the March sisters. 
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"Well, gentlemen," said the captain, "the best that I can say is not much. We must lay to, if you please, and keep a bright lookout. It's trying on a man, I know. It would be pleasanter to come to blows. But there's no help for it till we know our men. Lay to and whistle for a wind; that's my view."
"Jim here," said the doctor, "can help us more than anyone. the men are not shy with him and Jim is a noticing lad."
"Hawkins, I put prodigious faith in you," added the squire.
I began to feel pretty desperate at this, for I felt altogether helpless; and yet, by an odd train of circumstances, it was indeed through me that safety came. In the meantime, talk as we pleased, there were only seven out of the twenty-six on whom we knew we could rely, and out of these seven one was a boy, so that the grown men on our side were six to their nineteen.
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teekay
Member
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# Posted: 25 Oct 2006 02:37
Reply
Arr! That be Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson!
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She was appealed to by all three to settle the question, and they repeated their arguments to her, though, as they all spoke at once, she found it very hard to make out exactly what they said.
The executioner's argument was, that you couldn't cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn't going to begin at his time of life.
The King's argument was that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren't to talk nonsense.
The Queen's argument was that, if something wasn't done about it in less than no time, she'd have everybody executed, all round. (It was this last remark that had made the whole party look so grave and anxious.)
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