Bookends—Answers

Here are the answers to my questions from earlier today.

A book shelf of questions on literature today, with a bit of history and an album squeezed in the middle to provide the background music.

See question two. Aragorn.
Image The Digital Flix

One

This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast…

This quote is the opening of Breakfast of Champions, a 1973 novel by a writer born in Indianapolis in 1922. Who is the writer?

Answer: Kurt Vonnegut.

Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions is a satirical novel critiquing American society through the story of Kilgore Trout and Dwayne Hoover, whose meeting leads to Hoover’s insanity. The novel addresses themes of free will, suicide and race relations.

Two

Following Sauron’s defeat in The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn is crowned king. What name does he adopt on his coronation?

Answer: Elessar (aka Elfstone).

After Sauron’s defeat, Aragorn is crowned King Elessar, meaning ‘Elfstone’. This Quenya name was given to him by his grandmother, Galadriel. He marries Arwen at midsummer and becomes the twenty-sixth King of Arnor, the thirty-fifth King of Gondor, and the first High King of the united Kingdom of Gondor and Arnor. His lineage is known as the House of Telcontar, meaning ’Strider’ in Quenya.

Three

Time it was
And what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence
A time of confidences

These are the opening lyrics to a 1968 song that served as the title track for an album. Please name the track/album and the artist?

Bookends by Simon and Garfunkel

The post title Bookends derives from this track and album. Bookends is a concept album exploring a life journey from childhood to old age. Side one marks life stages, while side two includes singles and unused material. Today’s quiz is bookended by questions one and five being about books.

Four

T.E. Lawrence is commonly known by what name?

Answer: Lawrence of Arabia.

T.E. Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia, was a British Army officer, archaeologist, and writer. He gained fame for his role in the Arab Revolt during World War I and his subsequent work with Emir Faisal. Lawrence published his autobiography, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and later served in the Army and RAF before his death in a motorcycle accident in 1935.

Five

What fish does the fisherman have an epic struggle to catch in Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea?

Answer: Marlin.

Ernest Hemingway’s short, heroic novel The Old Man and the Sea, published in 1952 and winning the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, marked his final major work of fiction. The story follows an ageing fisherman’s epic struggle to catch a giant marlin.

Bookends — Post title

See explanation in Three above.

Bookends

Simon and Garfunkel