A Literary Tour Trivia Quiz

Answer:

Daphne du Maurier was inspired to write 'Jamaica Inn' when she visited the establishment of that name, located on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall - the inn still exists in the twenty-first century. Published in 1936, the story about smugglers and murder was turned into a film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1939. Du Maurier provided much material for Hitchcock, with 'The Birds' and 'Rebecca' also based on her creations. 'Dubliners' has fifteen short stories which are based on life in the city in the early twentieth century. Of them, 'The Dead' is possibly the best known but all of the stories are rather more accessible than Joyce's book 'Ulysses'. 'Brighton Rock' was published in 1938 and has a plot involving gangsters and murder in Brighton, on England's southeast coast.

Moving over to Europe's mainland, we end up in 'Amsterdam', winner of the Booker Prize in 1998 for Ian McEwan. The story centres around a euthanasia agreement. McEwan was also shortlisted for this prize for 'Atonement' (2001) which was adapted for the big screen in 2007. Christopher Isherwood wrote 'Farewell to Berlin' in 1939 based on his own experiences of living in pre-war Berlin as Hitler and the Nazis were coming to power. The novel is the inspiration for the musical 'Cabaret'. 'Death in Venice' is a novella written by Thomas Mann and published in 1912. The plot is about a writer on holiday in Venice where he becomes obsessed with an adolescent boy. His need to stay near the object of his lust leads him to ignore warnings of a cholera outbreak with dire consequences.

The fifth novel written by Ian Fleming featuring the agent James Bond, 'From Russia with Love' was first published in 1957. It followed 'Diamonds are Forever' (1956) and preceded 'Dr No' (1958). The films followed a different order, of course. The plot of 'From Russia with Love' involves the USSR using Tatiana Romanova as a false defector to entrap Bond and discredit him. Bond narrowly avoids death twice (at least) in the novel. Fleming left the ending ambiguous as he thought this might be his final Bond book. Our next stop is on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean, in New York City where Betty Smith's novel, based on her own life, is set. 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' was published in 1943 and tells the story of Francie Noland at various stages of her life. Heading south takes us to Cuba, where Graham Green's novel 'Our Man in Havana' is set. Published in 1958, the events of the novel take place while Batista is still in power, before the revolution which saw Castro overthrow him. The British Intelligence Service recruit a local man to spy for them, without realising that he is making up his reports. His habit of using the names of real people complicates matters and his trickery is eventually uncovered.

Heading into South America takes us to Brazil, where the plot of 'The Boys From Brazil' deals with a plot hatched by Josef Mengele who has cloned Adolf Hitler's genes into a series of boys who are aged thirteen at the time of the story. Karen Blixen wrote 'Out of Africa', published in 1937, as a memoir of her seventeen years living on a coffee plantation in British East Africa, now known as Kenya. Ultimately, divorce from her unfaithful husband and crop failures meant she had to return to her homeland of Denmark. Our final destination comes courtesy of E M Forster who wrote 'A Passage to India', which was published in 1924. The story of a young English woman's mistaken identification of an Indian Muslim as the man she believes attacked her (it is unclear that any attack took place at all) highlights the bigotry of the colonial powers. The accusation is eventually withdrawn but not before damaging both parties, English and Indian.