The Finish Line Trivia Quiz

Answer: Scarlett O'Hara

If you never got around to reading the book, you surely cannot have missed the movie, which was one of the blockbusters of 1939, starring Vivien Leigh (who delivered this line) and Clarke Gable. Actually, by the time she said this, her proper name should have been written as Katie Scarlett (O'Hara) Hamilton Kennedy Butler - the lady had a few husbands, none of them the man with whom she originally fancied herself in love.

Her determination to achieve her goals may seem admirable or selfish, depending on your perspective, but it is certainly impressive in its intensity.

Answer: Congo

The story is about a trip up the Congo River, in what was then the Congo Free State, and the narrator is ostensibly aboard a boat on the Thames. Conrad delves into the nature of civilisation and savagery, and draws parallels between the darkness of the jungle and the darkness of imperialism.

The most famous film adaptation of the work is Francis Ford Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now', which moved the setting to Vietnam during the 1970s, and saw Marlon Brando utter the final words of Kurtz (transformed from an ivory trader to a rogue Special Forces officer), "The horror! The horror!"

Answer: Voltaire

'Candide ou l'Optimisme', first published in 1759, was a satire on the prevailing philosophy of the times. Candide is originally told, by his tutor Pangloss, that "all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds." He ends up, after a number of unfortunate incidents worthy of Lemony Snicket, with a much more pragmatic approach to life, as epitomized in the final sentence of the novella.

Answer: Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf wrote this novel about the visits made by the Ramsay family to the Isle of Skye over a period of ten years with almost no dialogue. Rather, the story is told using the technique of multiple focalization, in which events are recorded by presenting the thoughts of various characters as they consider what is going on.

It places much more emphasis on philosophical contemplation than on action, in a manner typical of the 1920s.

Answer: Kansas

'In Cold Blood' is called a non-fiction novel. It describes an actual quadruple murder, which Capote decided to investigate after a newspaper story caught his attention. He followed the police search for the killers, and wrote the book based on his observations then, as well as on subsequent interviews with the two men who were convicted of the crime.

Answer: 1984

The dystopian novel '1984' is the book in which Orwell introduced us to the concept of doublethink, in which one manages to believe two contradictory things at once, as well as the notion of Big Brother, the leader who maintains control over everything, but who may or may not actually exist.

Other phrases that have become a part of our language include Room 101 (where people are forced to confront their deepest fears), thought crime (having ideas that do not conform to the rules), and The Thought Police (who capture those who are suspected of being guilty of thought crime).

The book is also the reason the term Orwellian is used to describe the manipulation of what is recorded as fact in an authoritarian state.

Answer: Holden Caulfield

Although the book was originally intended for adults, it has come to be seen as a young adult novella, with its central teenaged character voicing his distrust of the adults around him, and his search for meaning. The title comes from a dream Holden has, based on mishearing the lyrics to the song 'Comin' Through the Rye', about himself protecting children playing in a field of rye near the top of a cliff from which he must keep them safe.

The other answers were Holden's siblings.

Answer: The Great Gatsby

Fitzgerald's story of the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby, and his infatuation with Daisy Buchanan, as recounted by Nick Carraway, is generally considered to be the work in which he best captured the excitement and superficiality of the frenetic way of life for the young and wealthy during the Roaring Twenties.

He was inspired by events at a number of Long Island parties he attended, but did not finish the book until after he had moved to the French Riviera.

Answer: Prospero

The magician Prospero, who is also the rightful Duke of Milan, has been stranded on an island for twelve years at the start of the play, and is not happy about it. After a shipwreck brings those who have conspired against him to his island, events start to unfold, ultimately ending in him forgiving those who have wronged him, sending his daughter off to be married to her true love, freeing the trapped spirit Ariel, and then asking the audience to in turn set him free from the enchantment of the island.

Answer: Ulysses

This is notoriously one of the most difficult books to read in 20th century literature, and is either worshiped for its complexity and playful approach to language, or reviled for its impenetrability. Or both. It follows a day in the life of Leopold Bloom (16 June 1904, commemorated annually as Bloomsday by Joyce fans) as he goes on his way around Dublin, and uses the then-innovative stream of consciousness technique to portray the events.

The title suggests the links between his story and that of Ulysses/Odysseus, as recounted in Homer's 'Odyssey'.