Color Me Purple Part 6: A Tinge of Purple Quiz

Answer: epistolary

An epistolary novel is written in the form of documents, usually letters, but also journal entries, telegrams, newspaper clippings, case notes, transcripts, etc. Other epistolary novels include Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (1897), Jean Webster's "Daddy-Long-Legs" (1912), C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" (1942), Meg Cabot's "The Princess Diaries" (2000), and Stephen King's "Carrie" (1974).

"The Color Purple" chronicles protagonist Celie's struggle for self-empowerment, sexual freedom, and spiritual growth in rural Georgia during the Great Depression. Resisting the politics of respectability and "racial uplift", it minces no words on the domestic abuse suffered by dirt-poor black women and on the necessity for women's self-love and self-acceptance. A former "Ms. Magazine" editor and the daughter of sharecroppers, Alice Walker wrote "The Color Purple" in 1982. For this she became the first African-American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. In 1985 Steven Spielberg adapted it into a movie, and in 2005 Oprah Winfrey adapted it into a musical, which was rebooted in 2015.

This question was contributed by gracious1.

Answer: Nyota Uhura

The story was a crossover between the Green Lantern characters from DC Comics and "Star Trek" characters from the rebooted movie series, told in graphic novel form.

Due to a fight in the DC Universe, a character and six different colored power rings were transported to an alternate dimension. Once in the new dimension, three members of the Enterprise crew were chosen by the rings to wield them.

Within the story, the violet power ring wielded the power of love. Only a person with deep compassion and ability to love could be chosen to wield the ring.

This question was contributed by Shadowmyst2004.

Answer: Burma, during World War II

The protagonist of "The Purple Plain" is a Royal Air Force officer (as was Bates) who has suffered a grievous personal loss due to the war. He is serving in Burma as the war nears its end, and has little interest in surviving, so takes all sorts of risks during flying operations. This changes when he falls in love with a Burmese woman, and the story proceeds from there.

This question was contributed by spanishliz.

Answer: North Pole

British writer Matthew Phipps Shiell (1865-1947), known by his pen name of M.P. Shiel, is mostly remembered for his works of horror and science fiction - the most famous of which is the novel "The Purple Cloud", which has been translated into several language. The novel also inspired the 1959 film "The World, The Flesh and The Devil", starring Harry Belafonte. The novel was first published as a serial in 1901, and reprinted in a shorter version in 1929. The story's narrator, Adam Jeffson, first encounters a moving purple cloud while on an expedition to the North Pole. The cloud turns out to be a bringer of death and madness, seemingly leaving Jeffson as the only person alive on Earth. The novel was praised by celebrated horror writer H.P. Lovecraft in his essay on "Supernatural Horror in Literature" (1925-1927), though Lovecraft criticizes the story's rather conventional romance ending.

This question was contributed by LadyNym.

Answer: A Purple Place for Dying

Travis McGee is a salvage consultant who helps folk find missing items, and is the subject of 21 novels incorporating a color in each title. McGee lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and parts of his past unfold in the various novels. In this novel McGee searches for the murderer of Mona Yeoman.

John MacDonald (1916-1986) sold his first short story while still in the Army during World War II. Or rather, he mailed it to his wife and she eventually sold it to "Story" magazine. He was a prolific writer, and many readers enjoy his novels and short stories of detective and science fiction.

This question was contributed by mlcmlc.

Answer: Jenny Joseph

The complete version of the line is:
"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me."

The poem also ends with the lines:
"But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When I am old and start to wear purple."

Jenny Joseph was born in Birmingham and worked as a journalist. She won a Gregory Award for her first book of poetry, "The Unlooked-for Season". In a 1996 poll, "Warning" was voted Britain's favourite post-war poem, and is available as an illustrated gift. An American society which promotes friendship among women, the Red Hat Society, was inspired by the poem. Sue Ellen Cooper, its founder, got the idea when she bought a red fedora for a friend, to encourage her to 'grow old playfully'.

This question was contributed by Kankurette.

Answer: China

Published in 2005 and written by the award-winning Australian writer Carole Wilkinson, "Garden of the Purple Dragon" is the second of six books in the "Dragonkeeper" series. The central character of the book, set in ancient China, is a young slave girl named Ping, who has escaped her cruel master after rescuing Kai, an aged dragon.

Carole Wilkinson was born in England in 1950, but when 12 years old in 1963, her family emigrated to Australia. After leaving University she worked for several years as a scientific assistant until reaching the age of 40, when she decided a change of career was calling, and turned her hand to writing.

The "Dragonkeeper" series of books has won several awards including:

The 2003 Aurealis Award (Young Adults)
The 2004 Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award (Young Readers)
The 2004 Queensland Premier's Literary Award (Best Children's Book)
The 2006 Kalbacher Klapperschlange (German Children's Choice Award).

This question was contributed by moonraker2.

Answer: O. Henry

William Sydney Porter (1862-1910) used the pen name O. Henry. "The Purple Dress" appeared in "The Trimmed Lamp, and other stories of the Four Million" (1907), a collection of 25 short stories. The story focuses on a young woman named Maida who has been paying money in installments to buy a new purple dress to wear to an employee party where she hopes to catch the eye of a male employee. She is about to make the last payment for the dress when she meets a friend and co-worker who is in desperate straits and is short of cash. What will Maida do?

This question was contributed by bernie73.

Answer: Lilacs

"Under the Lilacs" by Louisa May Alcott, who also gave the world the lovely "Little Women", is a children's book that tells the tale of two girls, Bab and Betty who are having a tea-party when a dog creeps in and steals their cake. Chasing the dog, they come across its owner, Ben Brown, a boy who has run away from the circus with his dog, Sancho. The family find him work on a neighbouring farm where his skill with horses is displayed to its finest. Over the course of this story, Ben is taken in by another kindly neighbour, and a series of ups and downs and ongoing story lines follow. It takes Ben a long while to adapt to his new life, partly because he is in grief when he learns of the death of his father, and partly because he starts to remember his time in the circus with nostalgia, but eventually he settles down into his new life. "Under the Lilacs" is a little like a dose of "Huckleberry Finn" combined with "Anne of Green Gables".

This question was contributed by Creedy.

Answer: Harold

"Harold and the Purple Crayon" was the first of a series of picture books featuring this inventive four-year-old. He starts by drawing a moon to provide some light so he can take a moonlight walk. Along the way, he adds such useful items as a path to walk on, and finally a bed in which he can get a good sleep after his adventure.

Harold became the central character in a television series inspired by the books, and also featured in the opening sequence of an episode of "The Simpsons" ("The Bob Next Door", Season 21 Episode 22) - he draws the family on their couch, and finishes off by providing a beer for Homer.

This question was contributed by looney_tunes.