November 12 2011
War & Peach
With those Cryptic Commandments still needing time to collate, here’s a piece of whimsy I’m shaping into a puzzle. Every month I make a book-flavoured challenge for The Victorian Writer, and this time round the gimmick is called Surprise Endings.
Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece about an orchard skirmish is called War & Peach, while Annie Proulx’s quirky yarn dealing with a maritime amphibian is The Shipping Newt. Can you figure out these narrative twists – and spring a few new shocks in the Comments?
Patrick White gives a wader’s POV
One gesture, says Margaret Mitchell, and rapture ensued
Smells like fodder, reckons Orwell
Fodder’s outcome by Frank Herbert
Viagra confessional from Ernest
Yoko’s influence as chronicled by Bryce
Snotty linen quest led by Mem Fox
McEwan’s gets amazingly lazy
Blab away. New twist endings welcome.
Comments
RobT — 12 November at 12:56PM
9. Conrad's tale of a maritime shrew
10. Stanley Kubrick's documentary of modern transport in Greece.
OkRobT — 12 November at 01:18PM
11. Hunting season for DH Lawrence
Sam — 12 November at 01:39PM
1 ...k?
2 ...k?
3 ...t
4 ...g (nice one)
5 ...x
6 ...o
7 ?
8 ...x?
Sam — 12 November at 02:11PM
12: Aldous Huxley’s Oaks Day expose
13: Capote’s tips on growing winter flowers
14: Norton Juster’s amusing take on the Resource Super Profits Tax
DA — 12 November at 02:56PM
9 - ?
10 [let's keep to books this time round]
11 - ?
12 - ?
13 - In Cold Bloom
14 The Phantom Tollbooty
JPR — 12 November at 04:24PM
15: Father's Ashes by Ishiguro
Anthony Douglas — 12 November at 04:27PM
Although you didn't specify it, I assume all we're allowed is a single letter substitution? No homophones, for instance? I would have loved to see The Merchant of Venus.
JPR — 12 November at 04:27PM
16. Dostoyevsky's style.
Anthony Douglas — 12 November at 04:28PM
16. T. H. White's classic analysis of Rudd's leadership aspirations, from Gillard's POV
Anthony Douglas — 12 November at 04:29PM
Ok, make mine 17
JPR — 12 November at 04:34PM
17. He couldn't open the jar, wrote Conan Doyle
JPR — 12 November at 04:35PM
too slow
RK — 12 November at 04:39PM
19. Sue Monk Kidd's exposé on the live cattle export industry
20. Geraldine Brooks' guide to pool games
DA — 12 November at 04:44PM
Re the rules, Anthony - let's keep it too last letter (a surprise ending), and just books.
Love JPR's 15: Remains of the Dad
JPR's 16 The Idiom
Anthony's 16 The Once & Future Kind?
17 - ?
18 Seuss's diseased dance
DA — 12 November at 04:46PM
RK's 19 - The Secret Lives of Beef [kapow]
Sam — 12 November at 05:18PM
16 - The Idiom?
21: Christie’s Belt-Tightening Tips of the Upper Classes (a perfect stocking stuffer in these financially troubled times)
SNA — 12 November at 05:31PM
2. k
7. t
RK — 12 November at 07:43PM
18. Hop on Pox?
RK — 12 November at 07:58PM
22. Dickens reminisces about the good ol' days with skivvy wearing Deane and Rob and their wacky experiments
Sam — 12 November at 08:21PM
22 The Old Curiosity Show - nice one
PRS — 12 November at 11:15PM
23. Jon Cleary loses his way
24. Mario Puzo finishes writing
25. Simon Garfield discovers an error
26. J Gregory Smith succumbs
27. Harlan Coben's poker instructions
28. Lee Child caught in a storm
29. Lee Child's performance
David Baldacci breaks down
PRS — 12 November at 11:19PM
Make that last one
30. David Baldacci breaks down
Sam — 13 November at 09:07AM
31: Sendak on-board for the Mad Max reboot
Criseyde — 13 November at 09:21AM
23 Not sure but with a different final letter, could it also be Jon Cleary's Brazilian?
24 The Last Don/Dot - nice.
JPR — 13 November at 11:58AM
32: Joyce re-draws 31 for youthful Mel pic
and a Shakespeare/Oxfordian one:
33: Green ogre domesticated?
was 17 too obscure? it starts "The Man.."
Sam — 13 November at 12:48PM
ah - The man with the twisted lid
JPR — 13 November at 01:45PM
well done sam
from the same stable:
34: after which he ran out of roberts
35: the noise made by maimed mechanic as he hit the ground?
Sam — 13 November at 04:02PM
34: The Adventure of the Speckled Bane? (Julia?)
35: The Adventure of the Engineer's Thump
JPR — 13 November at 04:42PM
no, yes..
34 title is a mere 3 words none of which is Adventure
another version would be:
when Muhammad Ali was last in the ring
36 What about Mark Twain meets Barton
Sam — 13 November at 04:55PM
34 - ah, I thought they were coming from The Adventures of... in that case His Last Bob/Box which makes more sense.
36 Huckleberry Fink
JPR — 13 November at 05:44PM
37 -- really same as a previous one.. Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse as played by the Schwarzenegger of Jingle All The Way ("I've been a terrible fudder")
Sam — 14 November at 01:16PM
My others were:
12: Antic Hat
21: Lord Edgware Diet
31: Where the Wild Things Arm
RK — 14 November at 05:39PM
20 was Marco
PRS — 14 November at 06:39PM
Some answers;
23. A Different Turf/n
25. Just my Type/o
26. The Final Price/k
27. Killing Floor/d
29. One Shot/w
30. True Blue/b
DA — 14 November at 06:55PM
Think that seals the deal. A good caper. Thanks for playing along.
One Wheel — 14 November at 07:28PM
My only contribution was Roald Dahl's BFF (BFG).
There were some great posts...