Slapstick, or Lonesome No More! Quiz

Answer: Wilbur Rockefeller Swain and Eliza Mellon Swain

Wilbur and Eliza's parents are young, rich and not very bright. They are repelled by their freakish children; both Eliza and Wilbur have polydactyly, extra nipples, and the prominent foreheads and jaws of Neanderthal humans. Mr and Mrs Swain's advisors tell them not to raise their children in the family home, believing that the children are mentally disabled and a liability, so Eliza and Wilbur are locked away in a mansion in an orchard, staffed by servants to watch over them.

Answer: They are actually highly intelligent

Eliza and Wilbur discover that there is a mansion hidden within the mansion, with hidden passages and stairways, and they are able to access the mausoleum of Professor Elihu Swain, the ancestor who built the mansion. They also discover copious amounts of books and sneak off to read them.

However, in order to keep the servants in a job and make them feel like they are doing something worthwhile, the twins pretend to be mentally disabled and incapable of talking properly or behaving appropriately.

Answer: "I hate them, I hate them, I hate them."

Wilbur and Eliza spy on their parents through a hole in the wall of the library, and hear Mrs Swain saying she hates them, and calling then 'Count Dracula and his blushing bride' and 'a pair of drooling totem poles'. They decide to reveal their true personalities to their parents, but their parents are unable to cope with this revelation, so Eliza and Wilbur revert to pretending to be mentally disabled. Wilbur thinks their parents cannot handle the fact that two monstrous creatures are asking to be treated with respect.

Answer: An over-dressed little sparrow-fart

Dr Cordelia Swain Cordiner is a child psychologist paid to test the intelligence of the twins, and she despises them because of their upper-crust lifestyle. She is not related to them; her family changed their name from Stankiewicz to Swain when they moved from Poland to the US.

She tells them to 'paddle their own canoe' and refuses to allow them to be tested together, even though the twins are less intelligent when separated. The twins insist on being tested together, and eventually Dr Cordiner caves in and allows them to be tested together.

However, the twins behave in an incestuous manner, and their parents are so shocked that they have Wilbur shipped off to a school for disturbed children.

Answer: Norman Mushari Jr.

Wilbur and Eliza have been separated for some years by this point, and their father has died and made Wilbur the executor of his will. Norman Mushari Jr. is presumably the son of Norman Mushari, the lawyer from 'God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater'. Eliza hires him to sue her family and the institution where she was sent, and recover the inheritance that is rightfully hers. She appears on TV, giving interviews from a confession booth, and claims that she spent years singing 'Some Day My Prince Will Come', in the hope that Wilbur would come to see her.

Dwayne Hoover, Rudy Waltz and Newt Hoenikker are all characters from other Vonnegut books ('Breakfast of Champions', 'Deadeye Dick' and 'Cat's Cradle' respectively).

Answer: Machu Picchu

When Wilbur and Eliza reunite and become a 'single being', in Wilbur's words, they go momentarily insane and have an incestuous orgy that lasts for days. During the orgy, they write a book on childrearing, and keep Mushari, their mother and the servants tied up, only feeding them on peanut butter and jam sandwiches. Eliza moves out to Machu Picchu, a popular destination for rich people. Eliza flies over from Peru for Wilbur's graduation party, and recites half a Shakespearean sonnet through a megaphone from a helicopter.

This is the last time he sees her alive, though not the last time he speaks to her.

Answer: An avalanche on Mars

While the US is running out of oil - and later, collapses into chaos - China is making major scientific advances, with Chinese people being miniaturised and discovering how to materialise and dematerialise, treat cancer with gongs, and think as a hive mind.

Unfortunately, many of the Chinese become so small that people accidentally inhale them, causing a plague known as the Green Death, which leads to the collapse of civilisation. Wilbur meets with a tiny Chinese diplomat (though by Chinese standards, he is very large, as he is visible to humans) who sends him a message from Eliza.

The Chinese are planning to explore Machu Picchu and investigate Inca treasures, but Eliza informs them that there are far greater treasures in the Swain mausoleum.

In return for her help, she wishes to be rewarded by a trip to the Chinese colony on Mars. However, she dies in an avalanche there two weeks after leaving Earth.

Answer: Daffodil-11

To be more specific, as Wilbur explains, the new middle name consists. He runs under a campaign slogan of 'Lonesome No More!' People form clubs and societies based around these names, and are willing to help fellow extended family members out. The new families even have their own newsletters ('The Daffynition' is the Daffodils' newsletter). Some people, such as Wilbur's wife Sophie, disapprove of the idea and come up with a riposte, 'Lonesome - Thank God!' In fact, Sophie divorces Wilbur over it.

Wilbur is a Daffodil. Vera Chipmunk-5 Zappa is his neighbour and close friend, who owns slaves and runs a farm on the shore of the East River. Melody Oriole-2 von Peterswald is Wilbur's granddaughter. Peanut-3 is Sophie's new middle name.

Answer: Candlesticks

The idea that Wilbur is the 'king of candlesticks' comes from a time when a group of Raspberries kidnapped Wilbur and forcefed him an antidote to the Green Death to prevent him from dying, as they needed a doctor to cure the head of the family. Wilbur cured him of his fever and as a reward, the Raspberries brought him a pile of junk, and he selected a brass candlestick out of politeness. This led to the misconception that he loved candlesticks, and people regularly gave him candlesticks as presents. The narrator who takes up the story after Wilbur's death recalls that his granddaughter Melody brought him a Dresden candlestick, after escaping from Michigan, where she had been part of the King of Michigan's harem.

On Wilbur's final birthday, Vera Chipmunk-5 Zappa and her slaves bring Wilbur a thousand candles for his candlesticks, and light them all.

Answer: The Hooligan

Wilma Pachysandra-17 von Peterswald, a piano teacher from Urbana, Illinois, writes to Wilbur, saying that her late husband Felix invented a device called the Hooligan after a janitor, Francis Hooligan, who hears voices coming from it when it is placed in a certain position. It enables people to contact the dead in the afterlife, which Felix dubs the 'Turkey Farm'. The Chinese found out about it and explained to Wilma and her son - a relative of Wilbur's, who has Tourette's syndrome - how to use it, and Wilma spoke to Eliza several times. Wilma relays the message that Eliza wants Wilbur to come to Urbana and speak with her there. Wilbur manages to communicate with Eliza via the Hooligan, and she tells him that the afterlife is boring, and urges him to hurry up and die so he can join her there and make the Turkey Farm a better place.

While in Urbana, Wilbur sires a son with Wilma, who grows up to be the father of his granddaughter, Melody Oriole-2 von Peterswald.