1baswood
Guess the book from selected pieces of information from the blurb on the book covers. Here are three examples:
Guess the books: (3)
Now recognised as a modern classic, its American Dream is nearer that of Whitman than Scott Fitzgerald, and it goes racing towards the sunset with unforgettable exhuberance, poignancy and autobiographical passion.... full of mad sexual comedy, beautiful widescreen travel writing, and long lyrical evocations of American childhood and adolescent memories.
The quintessential novel from Englands beloved novelist. Its the story of a young man's adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocational a successful author.
If Ariosto rivalled it in invention (in fact he does not) he would still lack its heroic seriousness. No imaginary world has been projected which is at once multifarious and so true to its own inner laws....And what fine shading there is in the variations of style to meet the endless diversity of scenes and characters - comics, homely, epic, monstrous. or diabolic (C S Lewis)
Guess the books: (3)
Now recognised as a modern classic, its American Dream is nearer that of Whitman than Scott Fitzgerald, and it goes racing towards the sunset with unforgettable exhuberance, poignancy and autobiographical passion.... full of mad sexual comedy, beautiful widescreen travel writing, and long lyrical evocations of American childhood and adolescent memories.
The quintessential novel from Englands beloved novelist. Its the story of a young man's adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocational a successful author.
If Ariosto rivalled it in invention (in fact he does not) he would still lack its heroic seriousness. No imaginary world has been projected which is at once multifarious and so true to its own inner laws....And what fine shading there is in the variations of style to meet the endless diversity of scenes and characters - comics, homely, epic, monstrous. or diabolic (C S Lewis)
2thorold
>1 baswood: Hmm.
(1) Guessing wildly, it might be something like On the road, but it could be all sorts of things.
(2) “England’s beloved novelist” sounds like the sort of thing copywriters would have given up saying sometime around 1960, so probably before then. But almost every beloved novelist has written at least one autobiographical novel that could fit that description. Maybe the most obvious of the lot would be David Copperfield?
(3) This one looks like red herring territory. Lewis could be talking about any creator of a fantasy world from Dante, Thomas More and Milton to his drinking-companion Professor Tolkien. On the one hand the reference to Ariosto isn’t very likely to make people go out and buy a book like Lord of the rings, but on the other hand Lewis is a bit too Christian to think of Milton or Dante as authors of imaginary worlds... I’m going to guess Tolkien.
(1) Guessing wildly, it might be something like On the road, but it could be all sorts of things.
(2) “England’s beloved novelist” sounds like the sort of thing copywriters would have given up saying sometime around 1960, so probably before then. But almost every beloved novelist has written at least one autobiographical novel that could fit that description. Maybe the most obvious of the lot would be David Copperfield?
(3) This one looks like red herring territory. Lewis could be talking about any creator of a fantasy world from Dante, Thomas More and Milton to his drinking-companion Professor Tolkien. On the one hand the reference to Ariosto isn’t very likely to make people go out and buy a book like Lord of the rings, but on the other hand Lewis is a bit too Christian to think of Milton or Dante as authors of imaginary worlds... I’m going to guess Tolkien.
3baswood
>2 thorold: Yes Mark - I am glad that you were never a member of our book club - nobody else would have stood a chance.
4thorold
>3 baswood: I think you did very well to choose three that actually said enough about the book to be guessable. Not many blurbs are even that specific. I’ll see if I can come up with something…
5labfs39
How fun! I came late to the party, but would have only guessed the first, although "heroic seriousness" and fantasy does lead one to LotR. I'll look forward to more of these!
6kjuliff
>1 baswood: I asked ChatGPT for fun. I’ll only post the answer it gave for q1.
Now recognised as a modern classic, its American Dream is nearer that of Whitman than Scott Fitzgerald, and it goes racing towards the sunset with unforgettable exhuberance, poignancy and autobiographical passion.... full of mad sexual comedy, beautiful widescreen travel writing, and long lyrical evocations of American childhood and adolescent memories
Now recognised as a modern classic, its American Dream is nearer that of Whitman than Scott Fitzgerald, and it goes racing towards the sunset with unforgettable exhuberance, poignancy and autobiographical passion.... full of mad sexual comedy, beautiful widescreen travel writing, and long lyrical evocations of American childhood and adolescent memories
