One hundred extracts to identify involving women (and a few men) who are fallen, falling, or teetering on the brink. Perhaps a trickier selection than usual, but the last two quizzes were completed, and no-one comes to /lit/ to be mollycoddled. Some non-fiction; translations marked [*]. Hints on request.


The authors:

Unknown

Douglas Adams, Pietro Aretino

Honoré de Balzac, John Barth, Samuel Beckett, Alan Bennett, John Berendt, William Blake, Giovanni Boccaccio, Flann O’Brien, John O’Brien, Charles Bukowski, Anthony Burgess

Louis-Ferdinand Céline, John Cheever, John Cleland, Colette, Flannery O’Connor, Stephen Crane, Harry Crews, Michael Crichton, e. e. cummings

Roald Dahl, Osamu Dazei, Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Isak Dinesen, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Alexandre Dumas (fils)

James Ellroy

William Faulkner, George MacDonald Fraser

Neil Gaiman, William Gibson, Rumer Godden, Arthur Golden, Robert Graves, Graham Greene, Thom Gunn

Oakley Hall, Dashiell Hammett, Bret Harte, Joseph Heller, Robert A. Heinlein, Ernest Hemingway, O. Henry, Hermann Hesse, Michel Houellebecq, A. E. Housman, Ted Hughes, Victor Hugo

John the Divine, James Jones, Ben Jonson, Joshua, James Joyce

Yasunari Kawabata, Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Rudyard Kipling

Laurie Lee, Elmore Leonard, Jack London, Lucian

Hilary Mantel, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Martial, Richard Mason, W. Somerset Maugham, Guy de Maupassant, Cormac McCarthy, Larry McMurtry, Feng Menglong, Henry Miller, Margaret Mitchell, Seth Morgan, Alice Munro, Haruki Murakami

Eugene O’Neill

George Orwell

Terry Pratchett, Marcel Proust

Nawal El Saadawi, J. D. Salinger, Hubert Selby Jr., William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, John Steinbeck, Laurence Sterne, Jonathan Swift

Dylan Thomas, Leo Tolstoy, William Trevor

John Updike

William Vollmann

John Williams, Daniel Woodrell, Gene Wolfe

Émile Zola

1)
“What’s your name?”

“Sugar.”

“I’ll give you five dollars to talk to you.”

“You’re just going to talk? Is that how you get off?”

“I write down people’s stories,” I said. “That’s what I do.”

“I’ll do it for ten dollars,” she said.


2)
Timidly and noiselessly a young girl made her way through the crowd, and strange was her appearance in that room, in the midst of want, rags, death and despair. She, too, was in rags, her attire was all of the cheapest, but decked out in gutter finery of a special stamp, unmistakably betraying its shameful purpose.

[*]


3)
Lalun’s real husband, for even ladies of Lalun’s profession in the East must have husbands, was a big jujube-tree. Her Mamma, who had married a fig-tree, spent ten thousand rupees on Lalun’s wedding, which was blessed by forty-seven clergymen of Mamma’s Church, and distributed five thousand rupees in charity to the poor. And that was the custom of the land. The advantages of having a jujube-tree for a husband are obvious. You cannot hurt his feelings, and he looks imposing.


4)
"kitty". sixteen,5'i",white,prostitute.
ducking always the touch of must and shall,
whose slippery body is Death's littlest pal,
skilled in quick softness. Unspontaneous. cute.


5)
“ . . . Let’s agree, then, that you’ll be ready to make your debut as soon as you’ve stopped a man in his tracks just by flicking your eyes at him.”

I was so eager to make my debut that even if Mameha had challenged me to make a tree fall by looking at it, I’m sure I would have tried. I asked her if she would be kind enough to walk with me while I experimented on a few men, and she was happy to do it. My first encounter was with a man so old that, really, he looked like a kimono full of bones. He was making his way slowly up the street with the help of a cane, and his glasses were smeared so badly with grime that it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had walked right into the corner of a building. He didn’t notice me at all; so we continued toward Shijo Avenue. Soon I saw two businessmen in Western suits, but I had no better luck with them. I think they recognized Mameha, or perhaps they simply thought she was prettier than I was, for in any case, they never took their eyes off her.

I was about to give up when I saw a delivery boy of perhaps twenty, carrying a tray stacked with lunch boxes. In those days, a number of the restaurants around Gion made deliveries and sent a boy around during the afternoon to pick up the empty boxes. Usually they were stacked in a crate that was either carried by hand or strapped to a bicycle; I don’t know why this young man was using a tray. In any case, he was half a block away, walking toward me. I could see that Mameha was looking right at him, and then she said:

“Make him drop the tray.”

Before I could make up my mind whether she was joking, she turned up a side street and was gone.

6)
“The Chatelaine Barbea,” our host announced.

A tall woman entered. So poised was she, and so beautifully and daringly dressed, that it was several moments before I realized she could be no more than seventeen. Her face was oval and perfect, with limpid eyes, a small, straight nose, and a tiny mouth painted to appear smaller still. Her hair was so near to burnished gold that it might have been a wig of golden wires.

She posed herself a step or two before us and slowly began to revolve, striking a hundred graceful attitudes. At the time I had never seen a professional dancer; even now I do not believe I have seen one so beautiful as she. I cannot convey what I felt then, watching her in that strange room.


7)
To sleep with Galla’s two gold coins: we know that well enough.
And adding just a couple more gets all the fancy stuff.
You pay her ten, though, Aeschylus. Why such a costly nut?
You get a precious extra — when her mouth’s not full, it’s shut.

[*]


8)
It was a warm spring night and I sat at a table on the terrace of the Napolitain after Robert had gone, watching it get dark and the electric signs come on, and the red and green stop-and-go traffic-signal, and the crowd going by, and the horse-cabs clippety-clopping along at the edge of the solid taxi traffic, and the *poules* going by, singly and in pairs, looking for the evening meal.


9)
The streets were a different world from a “house,” and one despised the other. “But I started like that,” said Patrice, “sending out my girls,” but even then he had groomed them carefully. “Monsieur always had class,” Eugenia, the maid in charge of the rooms, said in pride. He showed Lise in fun. “Stand against the wall — pretend it’s a doorway or a porch. Lean . . . look at ease. Pull your stomach in, girl. Light a cigarette. Now show me your leg. Lift it . . . higher . . . now show the other one discreetly — you must always be careful of the flics — the police. Now! I’ll be the client. Puff your cigarette so that the glow shows your face. Now follow me. No, don’t move. Follow me with your eyes.”


10)
Jam and me split a cream soda on the porch stoop that first afternoon. Bev came strolling out from next door on the arm of a fella who was hard to remember. There was nothing to him at all except a green suit jacket and a Japanese car.

“I reckon your mom’s payin’ the utilities with that fella.”

“We don’t say mom, we say Bev.” There was a sharp bite to her sentence. “Bev’s a porcupine, Sammy. Know what that is?”

“I’ve heard this one, but I forgot.”

“If Bev had all the dicks that’ve been stuck in her stickin’ out of her, she’d look like a goddam porc-u-pine.”

The man held the car door for Bev. She’d put on a nice print dress and those tall heels. I thought she gave us a glance, a short fox glance over the shoulder.

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s it. I’d forgot the punch line.”

11)
BELLE (looks around the room irritably). Christ, what a dump! (RICHARD is startled and shocked by this curse and looks down at the table) If this isn’t the deadest burg I ever struck! Bet they take the sidewalks in after nine o’clock! (Then turning on him) Say, honestly, Kid, does your mother know you’re out?


12)
. . . and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

[*]


13)
“Eccentrica Gallumbits, did you ever meet her? The triple-breasted whore of Eroticon Six. Some people say her erogenous zones start some four miles from her actual body. Me, I disagree, I say five.”


14)
The harlot’s cry from street to street
Shall weave old England’s winding-sheet.


15)
She didn’t rush things, Germaine. She sat on the bidet soaping herself and talked to me pleasantly about this and that; she liked the knickerbockers I was wearing. Trés chic! she thought. They were once, but I had worn the seat out of them; fortunately the jacket covered my ass. As she stood up to dry herself, still talking to me pleasantly, suddenly she dropped the towel and, advancing toward me leisurely, she commenced rubbing her pussy affectionately, stroking it with her two hands, caressing it, patting it, patting it. There was something about her eloquence at that moment and the way she thrust that rosebush under my nose which remains unforgettable; she spoke of it as if it were some extraneous object which she had acquired at great cost, an object whose value had increased with time and which now she prized above everything in the world. Her words imbued it with a peculiar fragrance; it was no longer just her private organ, but a treasure, a magic, potent treasure, a God-given thing — and none the less so because she traded it day in and day out for a few pieces of silver. As she flung herself on the bed, with legs spread wide apart, she cupped it with her hands and stroked it some more, murmuring all the while in that hoarse, cracked voice of hers that it was good, beautiful, a treasure, a little treasure. And it was good, that little pussy of hers! That Sunday afternoon, with its poisonous breath of spring in the air, everything clicked again. As we stepped out of the hotel I looked her over again in the harsh light of day and I saw clearly what a whore she was — the gold teeth, the geranium in her hat, the run-down heels, etc., etc. Even the fact that she had wormed a dinner out of me and cigarettes and taxi hadn’t the least disturbing effect upon me. I encouraged it, in fact. I liked her so well that after dinner we went back to the hotel again and took another shot at it. “For love,” this time. And again that big, bushy thing of hers worked its bloom and magic. It began to have an independent existence — for me too. There was Germaine and there was that rosebush of hers. I liked them separately and I liked them together.

16)
“The Princess is purty, aint she?” Maureen said.

“Oh,” he said. “So-so.”

“You mean you think she’ll do,” Maureen said. “You mean she’d be all right. In a pinch. A good hard pinch.”

“Thats it,” Prew said.

Maureen stood up suddenly and smoothed her dress.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me, Dear,” she minced. “I can plainly see I will be of no use to you much. I seem to lack that virginal quality so profitable in a good whore.”

“Nobody seems to like her around here,” Prew said. “Why is that?”

“Call it professional jealousy,” Maureen said. “For lack of a better name.”


17)
The warm air gusts through an invisible maze. Sera watches little dust tornadoes rise and fall, pieces of litter riding on the currents. She finds in her purse a foil-wrapped towelette, salvaged from some now forgotten fast-food meal. Opening it, she discreetly reaches under her camisole and wipes her breasts, then the back of her neck. Looming in the distance is a hill, or mountain, or some such overrated nonsense.


18)
“Religion — orthodox?”

“Orthodox.”

“Occupation. What was your occupation?”

Maslova remained silent.

“What was your employment?”

“You know yourself,” she said, and smiled.

[*]


19)
Imagine me in a cathedral town! Why, the very rooks in the trees would find me out even if I could stand the dulness of it. I must have work and excitement, or I should go melancholy mad. And what else is there for me to do? The life suits me: I’m fit for it and not for anything else. If I didn’t do it somebody else would; so I don’t do any real harm by it. And then it brings in money; and I like making money. No: it’s no use: I can’t give it up — not for anybody.


20)
Most of the year she walks the two or three blocks on Sunset, enjoying the cool LA nights. Once a month she pays off a man named Sabbah, an officer in the LAPD, who replaced another officer in the LAPD she used to pay off, who had vanished. That man’s name was Jerry LeBec, and his disappearance had been a mystery to the LAPD. He had become obsessed with Bilquis, had taken to following her on foot, and one afternoon she woke, startled by a noise, and opened the door to her apartment, and found Jerry LeBec in civilian clothes kneeling and swaying on the worn carpet, his head bowed, waiting for her to come out. The noise she had heard was the noise of his head, thumping against her door as he rocked back and forth on his knees.

She stroked his hair and told him to come inside, and later she put his clothes into a black plastic garbage bag and tossed them into a dumpster behind a hotel several blocks away. His gun and his wallet she put into a grocery store bag. She poured used coffee grounds and food waste on top of them, folded the top of the bag and dropped it into a trash can at a bus-stop.

She kept no souvenirs.

21)
I was born a long time ago. My father was a strong farmer and my mother owned a public house. We all lived in the public house but it was not a strong house at all and was closed most of the day because my father was out at work on the farm and my mother was always in the kitchen and for some reason the customers never came until it was nearly bed-time; and well after it at Christmas-time and on other unusual days like that. I never saw my mother outside the kitchen in my life and never saw a customer during the day and even at night I never saw more than two or three together. But then I was in bed part of the time and it is possible that things happened differently with my mother and with the customers late at night.


22)
The candles burn their sockets,
The blinds let through the day,
The young man feels his pockets
And wonders what’s to pay.


23)
“See, you’re ready to go again,” the girl remarked, slowly segueing into her next set of motions. “Any special requests? Something you’d like me to do? Mr. Sanders asked me to make sure you got everything you want.”

“I can’t think of anything special, but could you quote some more of that philosophy stuff? I don’t know why, but it might keep me from coming so quick. Otherwise I’ll lose it pretty fast.”

“Let’s see. . . . This is pretty old, but how about some Hegel?”

[*]


24)
Well then, dressed I was, and little did it then enter into my head that all this gay attire was no more than decking the victim out for sacrifice, whilst I innocently attributed all to mere friendship and kindness in the sweet good Mrs. Brown; who, I was forgetting to mention, had, under pretence of keeping my money safe, got from me, without the least hesitation, the driblet (so I now call it) which remained to me after the expenses of my journey.


25)
“From now on,” Nately said to his girl, “I forbid you to go out hustling.”

“*Perchè?*” she enquired curiously.

“Because it isn’t nice.”

“*Perchè no?*”

“Because it just isn’t!” Nately insisted. “It just isn’t right for a nice girl like you to go looking for other men to sleep with. I'll give you all the money you need, so you won’t have to do it any more.”

“And what will I do all day instead?”

“Do?” said Nately. “You’ll do what all your friends do.”

“My friends go looking for men to sleep with.”

“Then get new friends! I don’t even want you to associate with girls like that, anyway. Prostitution is bad! Everybody knows that, even him.” He turned with confidence to the experienced old man. “Am I right?”

“You’re wrong,” answered the old man. “Prostitution gives her an opportunity to meet people. It provides fresh air and wholesome exercise, and it keeps her out of trouble.”

“From now on,” Nately declared sternly to his girl friend, “I forbid you to have anything to do with that wicked old man.”

26)
Sir,

Our mutual acquaintance, Mr. P., has requested that I inform you when next I knew of any lady — fresh. I am pleased to recommend to you a very pretty fair young girl, just come from the country, and I think you will like her very much. If it is convenient for you, you may meet her in four days’ time at Lichfield Street, at the bottom of St. Martin’s Lane, at eight o’clock. She shall be there waiting for you, and suitable arrangements for private quarterings have been made nearby.

I remain, Sir, your most obedient humble servant, —


27)
What does she seek, what does she wish from this life? She does not know. Surely love, I say; surely we all wish love, the pleasure of love and the strong fort of love’s protection. She does not know. I ask what name I may call her by now, for I cannot madam her so in perpetuity. Her true name, she says, is Fatimah. Kissing both her hands in leaving I let my lips linger. She does not draw her hands away.


28)
Then Shamhat saw him — a primitive,
a savage fellow from the depths of the wilderness!
“That is he, Shamhat! Release your clenched arms,
expose your sex so he can take in your voluptuousness.
Do not be restrained — take his energy!
When he sees you he will draw near to you.
Spread out your robe so he can lie upon you,
and perform for this primitive the task of womankind!
His animals, who grew up in his wilderness, will become alien to him,
and his lust will groan over you.”

[*]


29)
They wore a good deal of hair, not very neatly turned up behind, and were rather untidy about the shoes and stockings. They were not exactly pretty, perhaps; but they had a great deal of colour in their faces, and looked quite stout and hearty.


30)
‘ . . . No: not whores. Not even courtesans — creatures taken at childhood, culled and chosen and raised more carefully than any white girl, any nun, than any blooded mare even, by a person who gives them the unsleeping care and attention which no mother ever gives. For a price, of course, but a price offered and accepted or declined through a system more formal than any that white girls are sold under since they are more valuable as commodities than white girls, raised and trained to fulfill a woman’s sole end and purpose: to love, to be beautiful, to divert; never to see a man’s face hardly until brought to the ball and offered to and chosen by some man who in return, not can and not will but must, supply her with the surroundings proper in which to love and be beautiful and divert, and who must usually risk his life or at least his blood for that privilege. No, not whores. Sometimes I believe that they are the only true chaste women, not to say virgins, in America, and they remain true and faithful to that man not merely until he dies or frees them, but until they die. And where will you find whore or lady either whom you can count on to do that?’

31)
Hickum said, “We ought not just dump Bickle like this. I’ve known him over twenty years.”

“I’ve already shot him in both feet,” said Gaye Nell. “After that, kicking him out of a moving vehicle at the hospital is a kindness.”


32)
I went for a walk. There are many people here. I found a place, it is called The Shades. Then I saw some men trying to rob a young Lady. I set about them. They did not know how to fight properly and one of them tried to kick me in the Vitals, but I was wearing the Protective as instructed and he hurt himself. Then the Lady came up to me and said, Was I Interested in Bed. I said yes. She took me to where she lived, a boarding house, I think it is called. It is run by a Mrs Palm. The Lady whose purse it was, she is called Reet, said, You should of seen him, there were 3 of them, it was amazing. Mrs Palm said, It is on the house. She said, what a big Protective. So I went upstairs and fell asleep, although it is a very noisy place. Reet woke me up once or twice to say, Do you want anything, but they had no apples. So I have fallen on my Feet, as they say here but, I don’t see how that is possible because, if you fall you fall off your Feet, it is Common Sense.


33)
Rosie Probert, thirty three Duck Lane. Come on up, boys, I’m dead.


34)
(Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the mountains. Near are lakes. Round their shores file shadows black of cedargroves. Aroma rises, a strong hairgrowth of resin. It burns, the orient, a sky of sapphire, cleft by the bronze flight of eagles. Under it lies the womancity, nude, white, still, cool, in luxury. A fountain murmurs among damask roses. Mammoth roses murmur of scarlet winegrapes. A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, strangely murmuring.)

ZOE: (Murmuring singsong with the music, her odalisk lips lusciously smeared with salve of swinefat and rosewater.) Schorach ani wenowach, benoith Hierushaloim.


35)
Teddy folded the addressed envelope once, twice, and slipped it into the front of her panties. He pulled her up, got underneath to let her body fall across his shoulder and carried her out to the balcony this way, into the overcast night. A wind came up as he sat her on the rail in front of him and held her tight under her arms, standing between her bare legs.

Iris moaned, cold, but didn’t open her eyes.

Teddy brought his hands away slowly. Her head lowered. As her body came toward him he placed his hands against her shoulders to push her upright, to let her tilt back just a speck, there. Then took his hands away and watched her go off the balcony without a sound, her body turning over as it dropped into the night.

An eight-point-five, Teddy thought. Nice execution, but ’ey, she didn’t keep her feet together.

36)
A prostitute always says yes, and then names her price. If she says no she ceases to be a prostitute. I was not a prostitute in the full sense of the word, so from time to time I said no. As a result my price kept going up.

[*]


37)
She was sixteen and SINless, Mona, and this older trick had told her once that that was a song, “Sixteen and SINless”. Meant she hadn’t been assigned a SIN when she was born, a Single Identification Number, so she’d grown up on the outside of most official systems. She knew that it was supposed to be possible to get a SIN, if you didn’t have one, but it stood to reason you’d have to go into a building somewhere and talk to a suit, and that was a long way from Mona’s idea of a good time or even normal behavior.


38)
. . . . This dear hour,
A doughty don is taken with my Dol;
And thou mayst make his ransom what thou wilt,
My Dousabel; he shall be brought here fetter’d
With thy fair looks, before he sees thee; and thrown
In a down-bed, as dark as any dungeon;
Where thou shalt keep him waking with thy drum;
Thy drum, my Dol, thy drum; till he be tame
As the poor black-birds were in the great frost,
Or bees are with a bason; and so hive him
In the swan-skin coverlid, and cambric sheets,
Till he work honey and wax, my little God’s-gift.


39)
— . . . But after all, the whole of these sorceries thou speakest of, such as herbs dried in the moon-light, ropes of the hanged, dead men’s nails, diabolical incantations, are not worth a straw beside the great sorcery I should name, were I allowed.

— Thy conscience is as that of Fra Cappelletto.

— Well, not to appear a hypocrite, I shall tell thee that a good set of buttocks is possessed of greater charm than all that has ever proceeded from Philosophers, Astrologers, Alchemists and Necromancers. I experimented on as many herbs as two meadows could hold, on as many words as traders exchange in ten market-days, and withal I could never move the heart of one whose name I must not mention. Well, with a slight twisting of my buttocks, I made him so very crazy after me that people were amazed thereat in the brothels: yet they are accustomed to see strange things therein every day, nor do they marvel at a trifle.

[*]


40)
“Listen,” he said, keeping his voice tightly under control, “I come for the usual business.”

Mrs. Watts’s mouth became more round, as if she were perplexed at this waste of words. “Make yourself at home,” she said simply.

They stared at each other for almost a minute and neither moved. Then he said in a voice that was higher than his usual voice, “What I mean to have you know is: I’m no goddam preacher.”

Mrs. Watts eyed him steadily with only a slight smirk. Then she put her other hand under his face and tickled it in a motherly way. “That’s okay, son,” she said. “Momma don’t mind if you ain’t a preacher.”

41)
Only those races that are native to deserts have in the eye the power of fascinating everybody, for any woman can fascinate some one person. Their eyes preserve, no doubt, something of the infinitude they have gazed on. Has nature, in her foresight, armed their retina with some reflecting background to enable them to endure the mirage of the sand, the torrents of sunshine, and the burning cobalt of the sky? or, do human beings, like other creatures, derive something from the surroundings among which they grow up, and preserve for ages the qualities they have imbibed from them?

[*]


42)
He put on a pair of swimming trunks and slipped some condoms into his bag — snorting with laughter as he did so. He had been carrying condoms around for years and had never used one of them — after all, whores always had their own.

[*]


43)
She was an inch or two taller than I, which made her about five feet eight. She had a broad-shouldered, full-breasted, round-hipped body and big muscular legs. The hand she gave me was soft, warm, strong. Her face was the face of a girl of twenty-five already showing signs of wear. Little lines crossed the corners of her big ripe mouth. Fainter lines were beginning to make nets around her thick-lashed eyes. They were large eyes, blue and a bit bloodshot.

Her coarse hair – brown – needed trimming and was parted crookedly. One side of her upper lip had been rouged higher than the other. Her dress was of a particularly unbecoming wine color, and it gaped here and there down one side, where she had neglected to snap the fasteners or they had popped open. There was a run down the front of her left stocking.


44)
Her eye-brows from a mouse’s hide,
Stuck on with art on either side,
Pulls off with care, and first displays ’em,
Then in a play-book smoothly lays ’em.
Now dexterously her plumpers draws,
That serve to fill her hollow jaws.
Untwists a wire; and from her gums
A set of teeth completely comes.


45)
“I was born in a good family,” said Miss Lovely, “and it is only by mischance that I have landed in this house of prostitution. Nothing would make me happier than your helping me find a husband and becoming a decent woman. I would die rather than have to stand at the doorway to welcome and send off patrons with a simpering smile on my lips.” Fourth Mother Liu replied, “Becoming a decent woman, or ‘going straight’ as we call it, is indeed the right thing to do. That, I do not gainsay. However, going straight comes in different ways and takes different forms.” Miss Lovely asked, “What do you mean by that?” Fourth Mother explained: “Well, there is true going straight and false going straight. There is bitter going straight and felicitous going straight. Going straight may take place when times are still good, or may be done in desperation. Going straight may be final, but it may also be unfulfilled. Bear with me, my child, as I explain these choices to you.”

[*]

46)
Age. Unimportant.
Head. Small and round.
Eyes. Green.
Complexion. White.
Hair. Yellow.
Features. Mobile.
Neck. 13¾".
Upper arm. 11".
Forearm. 9½".
Wrist. 6".
Bust. 34".
Waist. 27".
Hips, etc. 35".
Thigh. 21¾".
Knee. 13¾".
Calf. 13".
Ankle. 8¼".
Instep. Unimportant.
Height. 5'4".
Weight. 123 lbs.


47)
The girls played their part of invitation and show, and were rather more assured than we were. They sensed they had come into their own at last. For suddenly they were not creatures to order about any more, not the makeshift boys they had been; they possessed, and they knew it, the clues to secrets more momentous than we could guess. They became slippery and difficult – but far from impossible. Shy, silent Jo scarcely counted now against the challenge of Rosie and Bet. Bet was brazen, Rosie provocative, and together they forced our paces. Bet was big for eleven and shabbily blonde, and her eyes were drowsy with insolence. ‘Gis a wine-gum,’ she’d say, ‘an I’ll show ya, if ya want.’ (For a wine-gum she would have stripped in church.)


48)
CLONARION: I have heard a queer thing said about you, Leaina. People say Megilla, the wealthy lady from Lesbos, is in love with you, as if she were a man, and that she — I can’t explain how — but — . . . I have heard it said that the two of you couple up just like —

LEAINA: (Abashed silence)

CLONARION: What’s the matter? You are blushing. Is it true then?

LEAINA: It is true, Clonarion. I am ashamed. It is so strange —

CLONARION: By the great Adrasteia, you must tell me about it! What does that woman require of you? Exactly what do you do when you get into bed together?

LEAINA: (Abashed silence)

[*]


49)
As for my money, I gave it all to my mistress-nurse, as I called her, and told her she should have all I got for myself when I was a gentlewoman, as well as now. By this and some other of my talk, my old tutoress began to understand me about what I meant by being a gentlewoman, and that I understood by it no more than to be able to get my bread by my own work; and at last she asked me whether it was not so.

I told her, yes, and insisted on it, that to do so was to be a gentlewoman; “for,” says I, “there is such a one,” naming a woman that mended lace and washed the ladies’ laced-heads; “she,” says I, “is a gentlewoman, and they call her madam.”

“Poor child,” says my good old nurse, “you may soon be such a gentlewoman as that, for she is a person of ill fame, and has had two or three bastards.”

I did not understand anything of that; but I answered, “I am sure they call her madam, and she does not go to service nor do housework”; and therefore I insisted that she was a gentlewoman, and I would be such a gentlewoman as that.

50)
. . . I’ve squared away, and ridden herd upon, most kind of convoys in my time, but shipping a brothel was a new one on me. Visiting em *in situ*, you don’t realize how elaborately furnished they are; when I saw the pile of gear that had come ashore off the steamboat, I didn’t credit it; a stevedore would have taken to drink.

For one thing, the sluts all had their dressing-tables and mirrors and wardrobes, stuffed with silks and satins and gowns and underclothes and hats and stockings and shoes and garters and ribbons and jewellery and cosmetics and wigs and masks and gloves and God knows what beside — there were several enormous chests which Susie called “equipment”, and which, if they’d burst open in public, would have led to the intervention of the police. Gauzy trousers and silk whips were the least of it; there was even a red plush swing and an “electrical mattress”, so help me.

“Susie,” says I, “I ain’t old enough to take responses for this cargo. Dear God, Caligula wouldn’t know what to do with it! You’ve had some damned odd customers in Orleans, haven’t you?”

“We won’t be able to buy it in Sacramento,” says she.

“You couldn’t buy it in Babylon!” says I. “See here; two of the wagons must be given over to food — we need enough flour, tea, dried fruit, beans, corn, sugar, and all the rest of it to feed forty folk for three months — at this rate we’ll finish up eating lace drawers and frilly corsets!” She told me not to be indelicate, and it would all have to go aboard; she wasn’t running an establishment that wasn’t altogether tip-top. So in went the fancy bed-linen and tasselled curtains and carpets and chairs and chaise-longues and hip-baths, and the piano with candlesticks and a case of music — oh, yes, and four chandeliers and crystal lampshades and incense and bath salts and perfumes and snuff and cigars and forty cases of burgundy (I told the demented bitch it wouldn’t travel) and oil paintings of an indecent nature in gilt frames and sealed boxes of cheese and rahat lakoum and soap and pomade, and to crown all, a box of opium — with Cleonie’s parrot in its cage to top everything off. In the end we had to hire two extra wagons.

“It’s worth it,” says Susie to my protests. “It’s all investment, darlin’, an’ we’ll reap the benefit, you’ll see.”

“Provided the goldfields are manned entirely by decadent Frog poets, we’ll make a bloody fortune,” says I. “Thank God we shan’t have to go through Customs.”

51)
Every seat was taken. There were women in there, a few housewives, fat and a bit stupid, and two or three ladies who had fallen on hard times. As I sat there one girl got up and left with a man. She was back in five minutes.

“Helen! Helen! How do you do it?”

She laughed.

Another jumped up to try her. “That must be good. I gotta have some!” They left together. Helen was back in five minutes. “She must have a suction pump for a pussy!” “I gotta try me some of that,” said an old guy down at the end of the bar. “I haven’t had a hard-on since Teddy Roosevelt took his last hill.” It took Helen ten minutes with that one.


52)
And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.

But Joshua had said unto the two men that had spied out the country, Go into the harlot’s house, and bring out thence the woman, and all that she hath, as ye sware unto her.

[*]


53)
“ . . . Did any Samana or Brahman ever fear, someone might come and grab him and steal his learning, and his religious devotion, and his depth of thought? No, for they are his very own, and he would only give away from those whatever he is willing to give and to whomever he is willing to give. Like this it is, precisely like this it is also with Kamala and with the pleasures of love. Beautiful and red is Kamala’s mouth, but just try to kiss it against Kamala’s will, and you will not obtain a single drop of sweetness from it, which knows how to give so many sweet things! . . . ”

[*]


54)
Gorgeous ripples of pear shape her skin to her cheek-bones, and long sad eyelids, and Virgin Mary resignation, and peachy coffee complexion and eyes of astonishing mystery with nothing-but-earth-depth expressionless half disdain and half mournful lamentation of pain.


55)
But in the fourth month of my year of grace, it happened to me that I fell in love with a woman within a brothel of Rome. I had gone there, on an evening, with a party of theologians. It was thus not a dashing place where people with lots of money went to amuse themselves, neither was it a murky house frequented by artists or robbers. It was just a middling respectable establishment. I remember the narrow street in which it stood, and the many smells which met therein. If ever I were to smell them again, I should feel that I had come home. To this woman I owe it that I have ever understood, and still remember, the meaning of such words as tears, heart, longing, stars, which you poets make use of. Yes, as to stars in particular, Mira, there was much about her that reminded one of a star. There was the difference between her and other women that there is between an overcast and a starry sky. Perhaps you too have met in the course of your life women of that sort, who are self-luminous and shine in the dark, who are phosphorescent, like touchwood.

56)
January 10.

The hope of getting better was only a dream. I am back in bed again, covered with plasters which burn me. If I were to offer the body that people paid so dear for once, how much would they give, I wonder, to-day?

[*]


57)
She had on a white T-shirt like McMurphy’s only a lot smaller, white tennis shoes and Levi pants snipped off above her knees to give her feet circulation, and it didn’t look like that was near enough material to go around, considering what it had to cover. She must’ve been seen with lots less by lots more men, but under the circumstances she began to fidget around self-consciously like a schoolgirl on a stage. Nobody spoke while they looked. Martini did whisper that you could read the dates of the coins in her Levi pockets, they were so tight, but he was closer and could see better’n the rest of us.


58)
“I feel so unhappy.”

I am sure that this one phrase whispered to me would arouse my sympathy more than the longest, most painstaking account of a woman’s life. It amazes and astonishes me that I have never once heard a woman make this simple statement. This woman did not say, “I feel so unhappy” in so many words, but something like a silent current of misery an inch wide flowed over the surface of her body.

[*]


59)
You’ve risen up this high —
How, you’re not sure.
Better remember what
Makes you secure.
Fuzz is still on the peach,
Peach on the stem.
Your looks looked after you.
Look after them.


60)
The landlord of their inn is a harassed wisp of a man, who does his futile best to find out whom he is entertaining. His wife is a strong, discontented young woman, with angry blue eyes and a loud voice. He has brought his own travelling cook. ‘What, my lord?’ she says. ‘You think we’d poison you?’ He can hear her banging around in the kitchen, laying down what shall and shan’t be done with her skillets.

She comes to his chamber late and asks, do you want anything? He says no, but she comes back: what, really, nothing? You might lower your voice, he says. This far from London, the king’s deputy in church affairs can perhaps relax his caution? ‘Stay, then,’ he tells her. Noisy she may be, but safer than Lady Worcester.

He wakes before dawn, so suddenly that he doesn’t know where he is. He can hear a woman’s voice from below, and for a moment he thinks he is back at the sign of the Pegasus, with his sister Kat crashing about, and that it is the morning of his flight from his father: that all his life is before him. But cautiously, in the dark chamber without a candle, he moves each limb: no bruises; he is not cut; he remembers where he is and what he is, and moves into the warmth the woman’s body has left, and dozes, an arm thrown across the bolster.

Soon he hears his landlady singing on the stairs. Twelve virgins went out on a May morning, it seems. And none of them came back. She has scooped up the money he left her.

61)
“What next!” said Madame Alvarez haughtily. “Have you any other *purposal* to make to me?”

“Yes, I have,” said Gilberte. “Have my skirts made a little longer, so I don’t have to fold myself up in a Z every time I sit down. You see, Grandmama, with my skirts too short, I have to keep thinking of my you-know-what.”

“Silence! Aren’t you ashamed to call it your you-know-what?”

“I don’t mind calling it by any other name, only — ”

Madame Alvarez blew out the spirit lamp, looked at the reflection of her heavy Spanish face in the looking glass above the mantelpiece, and then laid down the law: “There is no other name.”

A skeptical look passed across the girl’s eyes.

[*]


62)
. . . Accordingly, he took his comrade and repaired to the lady’s house, where finding her expecting him, the first thing he did was to put into her hands the two hundred gold florins, in his friend’s presence, saying to her, ‘Madam, take these monies and give them to your husband, whenas he shall be returned.’ The lady took them, never guessing why he said thus, but supposing that he did it so his comrade should not perceive that he gave them to her by way of price . . .

[*]


63)
She threw herself against him. He reeled back a step of two. A row of onions was growing in the thin snow beside the road.

“I hated it.” That sudden torrent of words came at him again. “You said I was a good woman, didn’t you? You’re going away. Why did you have to say that to me?”

He could see her stabbing at the mat with that silver hair-ornament.

“I cried about it. I cried again after I got home. I’m afraid to leave you. But please go away. I won’t forget that you made me cry.”

[*]


64)
It had got to be written down, it had got to be confessed. What he had suddenly seen in the lamplight was that the woman was OLD. The paint was plastered so thick on her face that it looked as though it might crack like a cardboard mask. There were streaks of white in her hair; but the truly dreadful detail was that her mouth had fallen a little open, revealing nothing except a cavernous blackness. She had no teeth at all.


65)
. . . And Dr. Macphail watched the rain. It was beginning to get on his nerves. It was not like our soft English rain that drops gently on the earth; it was unmerciful and somehow terrible; you felt in it the malignancy of the primitive powers of nature. It did not pour, it flowed. It was like a deluge from heaven, and it rattled on the roof of corrugated iron with a steady persistence that was maddening. It seemed to have a fury of its own. And sometimes you felt that you must scream if it did not stop, and then suddenly you felt powerless, as though your bones had suddenly become soft; and you were miserable and hopeless.

Macphail turned his head when the missionary came back. The two women looked up.

“I’ve given her every chance. I have exhorted her to repent. She is an evil woman.”

66)
She proferred the ten cents’ worth of melon seeds in their newspaper cone. “You want one?”

“Yes, but I honestly can’t open them,” I said. “You’ll have to teach me.”

“Try first.”

I tried several, but one after another the seeds splintered betweeen my teeth, crushing the kernels inextricably. My ineptitude sent the girl into delighted giggles; she buried her in her hands, her pony tail comically whisking and bobbing, then recovered herself, still twinkling with merriment, and gave me a demonstration — nipping a seed edgewise, peeling the shell, handing it to me with kernel intact.

“Well, that’s exactly what I did,” I said. “Yours must have been an easy one.”


67)
The streets grew very quiet and lonely after the theatre crowd had gone home. Only were to be seen the ubiquitous policemen, flashing their dark lanterns into doorways and alleys, and men and women and boys taking shelter in the lee of buildings from the wind and rain. Piccadilly, however, was not quite so deserted. Its pavements were brightened by well-dressed women without escort, and there was more life and action there than elsewhere, due to the process of finding escort. But by three o’clock the last of them had vanished, and it was then indeed lonely.


68)
Tamara Sperling — I had thought she was on Secundus, in retirement up country. Tamara the Superb, the Superlative, the Unique — in my opinion (and many others) the greatest artist of her profession. I feel sure that I am not the only man who chose when she left New Rome to remain celibate for a long time.


69)
Faye wept like a child. ‘Kate,’ she said, ‘don’t talk like that. You’re not like that. You’re not like that.’

‘Dear Mother, sweet fat Mother, take down the pants of one of my regulars. Look at the heelmarks on the groin — very pretty. And the little cuts that bleed for a long time. Oh, Mother dear. I’ve got the sweetest set of razors all in a case — and so sharp, so sharp.’


70)
Trying not to wake her, I sat on the bed, naked, my eyes accustomed by now to the deceptions of the red light, and I scrutinized her inch by inch. I ran the tip of my index finger along the damp nape of her neck, and she shivered inside, along the length of her body, like a chord on the harp, turned toward me with a grumble, and enveloped me in the ambience of her acid breath. I pinched her nose with my thumb and index finger, and she shook herself, moved her head away, and turned her back to me without waking. I succumbed to an unforeseen temptation and tried to separate her legs with my knee. On the first two attempts, she resisted with tensed thighs. I sang into her ear: Angels surround the bed of Delgadina. She relaxed a little. A warm current traveled up my veins, and my slow, retired animal woke from its long sleep.

[*]

71)
. . . . ‘What’sa matter?’ she asked.

‘Nothing’s the matter.’ Boy, was I getting nervous. ‘The thing is, I had an operation very recently.’

‘Yeah? Where?’

‘On my wuddayacallit — my clavichord.’

‘Yeah? Where the hell’s that?’

‘The clavichord?’ I said. ‘Well, actually, it’s in the spinal canal. I mean it’s quite a ways down in the spinal canal.’


72)
Francine, her back to the light, was smiling; again, he was aware of the light glinting from her eyes and teeth. She motioned to the couch. Andrews nodded and went across the floor; when he sat down, he looked at his feet; there was a thin carpet, worn and stained, over the floor. Francine came across the room from the table beside the bed and sat on the couch beside him; she sat a little sideways, so that she was facing him; her back was straight, and she looked almost prim, there in the lamplight, with her hands folded in her lap.

“You — you have a nice place here,” Andrews said.

She nodded, pleased. “I have the only carpet in town,” she said.


73)
“Oh, don’t laugh. It isn’t funny. It seems that Miss — this woman, wanted to do something for the hospital — can you imagine it? She offered to nurse every morning and, of course, Mrs. Elsing must have nearly died at the idea and ordered her out of the hospital. And then she said, ‘I want to do something, too. Ain’t I a Confedrut, good as you?’ . . . ”


74)
She waited, alone, in the Greeks. A doggie came in and ordered coffee and a hamburger. He asked her if she wanted something. Why not. He smiled. He pulled a bill from a thick roll and dropped it on the counter. She pushed her chest out. He told her about his ribbons. And medals. Bronze Star. And a Purpleheart with 2 Oakleaf Clusters. Been overseas 2 years. Going home. He talked and slobbered and she smiled. She hoped he didnt have all ones. She wanted to get him out before anybody else came. They got in a cab and drove to a downtown hotel. He bought a bottle of whiskey and they sat and drank and he talked. She kept filling his glass. He kept talking. About the war. How he was shot up. About home. What he was going to do. About the months in the hospital and all the operations. She kept pouring but he wouldnt pass out. The bastard. He said he just wanted to be near her for a while. Talk to her and have a few drinks. She waited. Cursed him and his goddamn mother. And who gives a shit about your leg gettin all shotup. She had been there over an hour. If hed fucker maybe she could get the money out of his pocket. But he just talked. The hell with it. She hit him over the head with the bottle.

75)
“The truth is,” said the dealer, “Grace here’s a hooker.”
“A what?” asked the poet.
“A hooker,” the woman repeated with a wink. “A quail, don’t ye know.”
“A quail!” the woman named Grace shrieked. “You call me a quail, you — *gaullefretière!*”
“Whore!” shouted the first.
“*Bas-cul!*” retorted the other.
“Frisker!”
“*Consoeur!*”
“Trull!”
“*Friquenelle!*”
“Sow!”
“*Usagère!*”
“Bawd!”
“*Viagère!*”
“Strawgirl!”
“*Sérane!*”
“Tumbler!”
“*Poupinette!*”
“Mattressback!”
“*Brimballeuse!*”
“Nannygoat!”
“*Chouette!*”
“Windowgirl!”
“*Wauve!*”
“Lowgap!”
“*Peaultre!*”
“Galleywench!”
“*Baque!*”
“Drab!”
“*Villotière!*”
“Fastfanny!”
“*Gaure!*”
“Ringer!”
“*Bringue!*”
“Capercock!”
“*Ancelle!*”
“Nellie!”
“*Gallière!*”
“Chubcheeker!”
“*Chèvre!*”
“Nightbird!”
“*Paillasse!*”
“Rawhide!”
“*Capre!*”
“Shortheels!”
“*Paillarde!*”
“Bumbessie!”
“*Image!*”
“Furrowbutt!”
“*Voyagère!*”
“Pinkpot!”
“*Femme de vie!*”
“Rum-and-rut!”
“*Fellatrice!*”
“Ladies! Ladies!” the Laureate cried, but by this time the cardplayers, including the two disputants, were possessed with mirth, and paid him no heed.

76)
“Leaving then?” he asked. He had better not underestimate her, he knew, tired as she was now, and shocked. He felt enormously tired himself. He had thought hate did not affect him. He had thought he was used to it.

“No, she said. “No, I will stay and watch Clay Blaisedell shot down like he shot Bob down.”

“Do it yourself?”

“Are you afraid I would? No, I won’t do that.”

He sat down on his chair, inhaled on his cheroot, blew smoke. “Maybe you can get somebody to go after him here. Like the one you just lost.” His voice rasped in his throat. “There are some that might be hard up enough to try it for a chance to sleep free with a hydrophoby skunk bitch.”

He felt a lift of pleasure to see her face dissolve. But she quickly regained control of it. She only shook her head.

“Why, you have gone soft, Kate.”


77)
I had counted twenty pulsations, and was going on fast towards the fortieth, when her husband, coming unexpected from a back parlour into the shop, put me a little out of my reckoning. — ’Twas nobody but her husband, she said; — so I began a fresh score. — Monsieur is so good, quoth she, as he pass’d by us, as to give himself the trouble of feeling my pulse. — The husband took off his hat, and making me a bow, said, I did him too much honour — and having said that, he put on his hat and walk’d out.

Good God! said I to myself, as he went out, — and can this man be the husband of this woman!


78)
His neat figure was like a symbol of Good Taste as he waited with folded umbrella for the traffic lights to go green; he had learned to hold his hand so that the one frayed patch on his sleeve didn’t show, and the rather exclusive club tie, freshly ironed, might have been bought that morning. It wasn’t lack of patriotism or loyalty which had kept Mr. Chalfont indoors all through Jubilee week. Nobody drank the toast of the King more sincerely than Mr. Chalfont so long as someone else was standing the drink; but an instinct deeper than good form had warned him not to be about.


79)
She was a large person with noble shoulders and broad hips, and she was wearing a dress of golden-orange taffeta, cut with a rather low square neck and a skirt that just covered her knees. Her short sleeves held her arms tightly and the flesh on them was heavy and smooth and white, like lard.

This was a startling sight. I would not have thought it possible that somebody could look both old and polished, both heavy and graceful, bold as brass and yet mightily dignified.


80)
Es casado? she said.

No.

He asked her why she wished to know. She was silent a moment. Then she said that it would be a worse sin if he were married. He thought about that. He asked her if that was really why she wished to know but she said he wished to know too much. Then she leaned and kissed him. In the dawn he held her while she slept and he had no need to ask her anything at all.

81)
The whole camp was collected before a rude cabin on the outer edge of the clearing. Conversation was carried on in a low tone, but the name of a woman was frequently repeated. It was a name familiar enough in the camp, — “Cherokee Sal”.

Perhaps the less said of her the better. She was a coarse and, it is to be feared, a very sinful woman. But at that time she was the only woman in Roaring Camp, and was just then lying in sore extremity, when she most needed the ministration of her own sex. Dissolute, abandoned, and irreclaimable, she was yet suffering a martyrdom hard enough to bear even when veiled by sympathizing womanhood, but now terrible in her loneliness.


82)
Lying in bed with me that night he seemed to me about the purest person I have ever known because he didn’t have any conscience at all, I guess I mean he didn’t have any prefabricated conscience. He just moved through it all like a swimmer through pure water.


83)
“ . . . I swear to you by the good God that I was not to blame! That gentleman, the bourgeois, whom I do not know, put snow in my back. Has any one the right to put snow down our backs when we are walking along peaceably, and doing no harm to any one? . . . ”

[*]


84)
Short and round, fat as a pig, with puffy fingers constricted at the joints, looking like rows of short sausages; with a shiny, tightly-stretched skin and an enormous bust filling out the bodice of her dress, she was yet attractive and much sought after, owing to her fresh and pleasing appearance. Her face was like a crimson apple, a peony-bud just bursting into bloom; she had two magnificent dark eyes, fringed with thick, heavy lashes, which cast a shadow into their depths; her mouth was small, ripe, kissable, and was furnished with the tiniest of white teeth.

[*]


85)
Ed closed the door. He put across the safety chain. He took the prophylactic from the ashtray into the bathroom, where he filled it full of water, to see if it leaked. The rubber held, though it swelled to a vanilla balloon in which water wobbled like life eager within a placenta. Good girl. A fair dealer. She had not given him venereal disease.

What she had given him, delicately, was death. She had made sex finite. Always, until now, it had been too much, bigger than all system, an empyrean as absolute as those first boyish orgasms, when his hand would make his soul pass through a bliss dense as an ingot of gold. Now at last, at forty, he saw through it, into the spaces between the stars.

86)
I said: “Calpurnia, I’m going to buy you a pearl necklace while I still have the money. You’re as clever as you are beautiful. And I only hope you are as discreet.”

“I’d prefer cash,” she said, “if you don’t mind.” And I gave her five hundred gold pieces the next day. Calpurnia, a prostitute and the daughter of a prostitute, was more intelligent and loyal and kind-hearted and straightforward than any of the four noblewomen I have married. I soon began to take her into my confidence about my private affairs and I may say at once that I never regretted having done so.


87)
The mourner sat with bowed head, rocking her body heavily to and fro, and crying out in a high, strained voice that sounded like a dirge on some forlorn pipe.

“I kin remember when she weared worsted boots an’ her two feets was no bigger dan yer t’umb an’ she weared worsted boots, Miss Smith,” she cried, raising her streaming eyes.


88)
‘Idleness is upsetting,’ she had said while they danced, and had asked the man who held her closer now if he had ever heard of Sharon Ritchie. People often thought they hadn’t and then remembered. He shook his head and the name was still unfamiliar to him when she told him why it might not have been. ‘Sharon Ritchie was murdered,’ she’d said, and wouldn’t have without the few drinks. ‘My husband was accused.’


89)
“Do you want me to read you this letter?” she said, knowing the girl couldn’t read. “It’s bad handwriting.”

Lorena held the letter tightly in her hand. “No, I’ll just keep it,” she said. “He put my name on it. I can read that. I’ll just keep it.”


90)
She was fruit of the charnel house, a heap of matter and blood, a shovelful of corrupted flesh thrown down on the pillow. The pustules had invaded the whole of the face, so that each touched its neighbor. Fading and sunken, they had assumed the grayish hue of mud; and on that formless pulp, where the features had ceased to be traceable, they already resembled some decaying damp from the grave. One eye, the left eye, had completely foundered among bubbling purulence, and the other, which remained half open, looked like a deep, black, ruinous hole. The nose was still suppurating. Quite a reddish crush was peeling from one of the cheeks and invading the mouth, which it distorted into a horrible grin. And over this loathsome and grotesque mask of death the hair, the beautiful hair, still blazed like sunlight and flowed downward in rippling gold.

[*]

91)
“Earl, what’s the word of a whore?”

Earl’s right eye arced a blue spark. “The word of the right whore’s good as a guvmint check. I learned that comin up in Nawlins. Folks referred to socalled good women as women of character. Well, I learned it was the other way around. It was the socalled bad ones, the whores and strippers and all who had the market cornered on character, yeah. Good girls was plain as grits, it was the bad uns had the gumption of gumbo. Only they understood when you down and out, when life’s laid you low, your word’s all that’s left to save you. The others, the ones who never had to fight to keep their souls, they never learned they had em to lose, and their word aint worth the breath they spend on it . . . Show me a gal who’s scuffed and scratched to save her heart and soul and I’ll show you God’s best version of a woman.”


92)
What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive money a Thursday. Shalt have a cap to-morrow. A merry song, come. ’A grows late; we’ll to bed. Thou’lt forget me when I am gone.


93)
“Oh, Jim Williams will probably get off,” said Prentiss Crowe, a Savannah aristocrat, “but he’ll still face a few problems. There is bound to be a certain resentment about his having killed that boy — that boy in particular, I mean. Danny Hansford was a very accomplished hustler, from all accounts, very good at his trade, and very much appreciated by both men and women. The trouble is he hadn’t quite finished making the rounds. A fair number of men and women were looking forward to having their turn with him. Of course, now that Jim’s shot him they never will. Naturally, they’ll hold this against Jim, and that’s what I mean when I say ‘resentment’. Danny Hansford was known to be a good time . . . but a good time not yet had by all.”


94)
Millionly-whored, without womb,
Her heart already rubbish,
Watching the garret death come,
This thirty year old miss

Walked in park pastoral
With bird and bee but no man
Where children were catching armsful
Of the untouched sun.


95)
This story really doesn’t get anywhere at all. The rest of it comes later — sometime when Piggy asks Dulcie again to dine with him, and she is feeling lonelier than usual, and General Kitchener happens to be looking the other way; and then —

As I said before, I dreamed that I was standing near a crowd of prosperous-looking angels, and a policeman took me by the wing and asked if I belonged with them.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Why,” said he, “they are the men who hired working-girls, and paid ’em five or six dollars a week to live on. Are you one of the bunch?”

“Not on your immortality,” said I. “I’m only the fellow that set fire to an orphan asylum, and murdered a blind man for his pennies.”

96)
The house is closed now. That’s all I’ve been able to find out. Good, admirable Molly, if ever she reads these lines in some place I never heard of, I want her to know that my feelings for her haven’t changed, that I still love her and always will in my own way, that she can come here any time she pleases and share my bread and furtive destiny. If she’s no longer beautiful, hell, that’s all right too! We’ll manage. I’ve kept so much of her beauty in me, so living and so warm, that I’ve plenty for both of us, to last at least twenty years, the rest of our lives.

[*]


97)
“I’ll be thirty next month, and I’ll be opening up a dress shop. See how time changes things? If you’d met me a month from now, I wouldn’t be a whore. I’d be a brunette who didn’t look quite so much like Veronica Lake.”


98)
He wished her no harm. She was but half to blame. Had he not been told that it was her own mother who had sold her, when she was still little more than a child, at Nice, to a wealthy Englishman? But what an agonising truth was now contained for him in those lines of Alfred de Vigny’s *Journal d’un Poète* which he had previously read without emotion: “When one feels oneself smitten by love for a woman, one ought to say to oneself, ‘What are her surroundings? What has been her life?’ All one’s future happiness lies in the answer.”

[*]


99)
“Stuffy,” said the Stag. “Stuffy, is that all right? You take five. It’s up to you whom you drop off last.”

Stuffy looked around. “Yes,” he said. “Oh yes. That suits me.”

“William, you take four. Drop them home one by one; you understand.”

“Perfectly,” said William. “Oh perfectly.”

They all got up and moved towards the door. The tall one with dark hair took the Stag’s arm and said, “You take me?”

“Yes,” he answered. “I take you.”

“You drop me off last?”

“Yes. I drop you off last.”

“Oh mon Dieu,” she said. “That will be fine.”


100)
. . . I said, ‘It isn’t as if I don’t look forward to my appointments.’ He said, “Well, dear lady, I look forward to them too.’ I said, ‘But now that I have to get help in for Bernard again I can’t afford to pay you.’

He said, ‘Well, may I make a suggestion? Why don’t we reverse the arrangement?’ I said, ‘Come again.’ He said, “Do it vice versa. I pay you.’ I said, ‘Well, it’s very unusual.’ He said, ‘You’re a very unusual woman.’ I said, ‘I am? Why?’ He said, “Because you’re a free spirit, Miss Fozzard. You make your own rules.’ I said, “Well, I like to think so.’ He said, ‘I’m the same. We’re two of a kind, you and I, Miss Fozzard. Mavericks. Have you ever had any champagne?’ I said, ‘No, but I’ve seen it at the conclusion of motor races.’ He said, ‘Allow me. To the future?’

>>24457016
25 is (seemingly ever-present in these quizzes) Catch-22
>>24457020
30 — bit of a shot in the dark here, but this feels like Faulkner. Surely one of the major novels, maybe Absalom?
>>24457060
53... Siddhartha?
>>24457075
This is The Sot-Weed Factor
I like this one (but I'm pissed I couldn't find Joyce...)

>>24457259
4/4 here to get the ball rolling:

>25
>Catch-22
Correct.
>(seemingly ever-present in these quizzes)
Didn’t think it was that frequent. It hasn't been in the last four or five at least, has it?

>30 — bit of a shot in the dark here, but this feels like Faulkner. Surely one of the major novels, maybe Absalom?
Correct. Charles explaining to Henry about the elite New Orleans courtesans.

>53... Siddhartha?
Right.

>This is The Sot-Weed Factor
Right. Only the first third of the list, but you have to stop somewhere.

>(but I'm pissed I couldn't find Joyce...)
At the risk of sounding smug, I wouldn't call the JJ extract super-obscure. It's certainly not some unpublished letter or anything like that.

>>24457290
I don't know what to tell you. All I know is that I see the quiz in the catalog, scroll through, see Catch-22, and point it out. This has happened maybe 4 times now. Nonetheless, I think I have a couple more:
>>24456999
Surely 1 is Catcher in the Rye
>>24457028
And 34 here must be the Joyce, from Circe (i.e. Ulysses)

44 is swift the one about finding a woman's chamber pot
50 is macdonald fraser, flashman and the redskins or flash for freedom i believe

>>24457341

>Surely 1 is Catcher in the Rye
Haha, nope, although plausible since Holden does give money away fairly freely. This is definitely one of the obscure ones.

>And 34 here must be the Joyce, from Circe (i.e. Ulysses)
Correct.

>>24457362

>44 is swift the one about finding a woman's chamber pot
More or less. "A Beautiful Young Nymph Going To Bed". He did several like this, revelling in the sordid reality behind female glamour.

>50 is macdonald fraser, flashman and the redskins or flash for freedom i believe
Correct. Flashman and the Redskins.

8) The Sun Also Rises? This reads like Hemingway, and I seem to recall a Robert.
37) Neuromancer, or at least William Gibson.
43) Is this a hardboiled detective? I see Dashiell Hammett on the list.
71) This one's Catcher in the Rye, right?
96) Journey to the End of the Night?

>57 Cuckoo's Nest
>67 Jack London--People of the Abyss?
>94 Ted Hughes--Drowned Woman

>>24457707
Pretty much all good; just a couple of book names to be filled in:

>8) The Sun Also Rises? This reads like Hemingway
Correct.
>and I seem to recall a Robert.
Robert Cohn, the naive Jewish boxer guy.

>37) Neuromancer, or at least William Gibson.
WG yes, Neuromancer no.

>43) Is this a hardboiled detective? I see Dashiell Hammett on the list.
It is indeed Dashiell Hammett. I'm sure someone can pinpoint the book (he didn’t write many).

>71) This one's Catcher in the Rye, right?
Of course. Holden discovering he isn't quite suave enough to have sex with the prostitute he got sold.

>96) Journey to the End of the Night?
Correct. More translations than usual this time (25/100) but hopefully none of them depend too heavily on a particular version.

>>24457739
3/3 here:

>57 Cuckoo's Nest
Right, Ken Kesey. Candy arriving to go on the fishing trip.

>67 Jack London--People of the Abyss?
Correct. JL showing he can do George Orwell just as well as George Orwell.

>94 Ted Hughes--Drowned Woman
Correct.

>>24456999
4 is e.e. cummings
>>24457004
6 is Gene Wolfe
7 must be Catullus, nobody else is that vulgar. Great line though lol
8 is Hemmmingway
>>24457008
13 is Douglas Adams
18 is Tolstoy
>>24457050
48 is Lucian

>>24456999
>2)
I think this is Crime and Punishment when she finds her father dead.
>>24457008
>12)
Revelations
Whore of Babylon
>13)
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy I think
>>24457020
Is this Gilgamesh getting his future friend laid?
>>24457060
>52)
Bible Joshua and Jericho

>>24457792
>Gilgamesh
I meant to say 28

Guesses, but:
39. Aretino, from the Ragionamenti
62. Boccaccio (Decameron somewhere then).

>>24456990 (OP)
>1
Vollmann, Rainbow Stories
>12
The Apocalypse of St. John
>13
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
>48
Lucian, dialogue of the courtesans
>52
Book of Joshua
>86
I, Claudius>>24456992

>>24457785

>4 is e.e. cummings
Right, a sonnet from "Tulips and Chimneys"

>7 must be Catullus, nobody else is that vulgar. Great line though lol
No Catullus in the author list. Right language though. The original:

Aureolis futui cum possit Galla duobus
et plus quam futui, si totidem addideris:
aureolos a te cur accipit, Aeschyle, denos?
non fellat tanti Galla. Quid ergo? Tacet.

>8 is Hemmmingway
Correct, although Duck Man already got it (‘The Sun Also Rises’).

>6 is Gene Wolfe
>13 is Douglas Adams
>18 is Tolstoy
Correct but maybe someone will ID the books.

>48 is Lucian
Correct. ‘Dialogues Of The Heterae’

>>24457903
Oh thought it was just authors
>Gene Wolfe
Shadow of the Torturer probably but it's hard to place specific events in the series
>Douglas Adams
I think the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
>Tolstoy
Resurrection

>>24457792
>>24457793

>2)
>I think this is Crime and Punishment when she finds her father dead.
RIght, Dostoevsky. Sonia is basically the archetypal "soulful prostitute" that Nabokov disliked so much.

>12)
>Revelations
>Whore of Babylon
Correct. John the Divine being the author.

>13)
>Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy I think
The Hitch-Hiker series, yes, although the specific book is Life, The Universe And Everything.

>28
>Is this Gilgamesh getting his future friend laid?
Correct. The "unknown author" entry. Gotta tame the wild man before you can befriend him.

>52)
>Bible Joshua and Jericho
Right. Rahab being the prostitute in question of course. Not sure she's so admirable (betraying her own people) but then again, Dante puts her in heaven, so who am I to argue?

wahts goingo n

>>24457877

>Guesses
Both good guesses.

>39. Aretino, from the Ragionamenti
The dialogue with Nanna, the courtesan (obviously). One of the three main career choices, beside nun and wife.

>62. Boccaccio (Decameron somewhere then).
8th day, 1st story. A married woman charges a guy 200 gold florins to sleep with her, so he borrows 200 gold florins from her husband without her knowledge, gives it to her, sleeps with her, and then tells her husband he repaid it to her. Chaucer stole the idea for the Canterbury Tales (the Shipman's Tale).

>>24457899

>1
>Vollmann, Rainbow Stories
RIght. A tricky one to start with I thought, especially since the dialogue is so nondescript.

>12
>The Apocalypse of St. John
>13
>Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
>48
>Lucian, dialogue of the courtesans
>52
>Book of Joshua
All good but all already ID'd.

>86
>I, Claudius
Robert Graves, correct.

>>24457918

>Gene Wolfe
>Shadow of the Torturer probably but it's hard to place specific events in the series
RIght, SotT. The brothel offering lookalikes of aristocratic ladies.

>Douglas Adams
>I think the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
As mentioned, it’s ‘Life, The Universe & Everything’.

>Tolstoy
>Resurrection
Correct. Semi-autobiographical, I believe (which doesn't reflect well on Tolstoy, lol).

>>24457097
98. from Proust concerning Odette, and Swann. Will guess Swann's Way although this could appear later

92. Defoe, Moll Flanders?

>>24458419
Falstaff to Doll Tearsheet, IV Henry ii

>>24458093
>98. from Proust concerning Odette, and Swann. Will guess Swann's Way
All correct.

>>24458419
>92. Defoe, Moll Flanders?
No, it’s —

>>24458485
>Falstaff to Doll Tearsheet, IV Henry ii
— this.

>>24457089
90. Kek, the very end of Zola's Nana: Nana's end, just at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. Next comes The Debacle..

>>24456990 (OP)
81.
>Cherokee Sal, RC
The Luck of Roaring Camp, Bret Harte

>>24457080
80. Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain, I think-- been awhile. The litany of 'too much' (when revealed) is so over-the-top as to become almost comical

>>24457080
79. Mark Twain, Roughing It? Don't remember this, but it feels possible

>>24457080
77. Dickens, Tale of Two Cities?

>>24457075
75. Kek, Sot-Weed Factor, Barth-- probably guessed, I'd guess

>>24459049

>90. Zola's Nana: Nana's end
Correct. Subtlety isn't everything, as Alan Rickman said re. his performance in Robin Hood.

>>24459067

>81.
>Cherokee Sal, RC
>The Luck of Roaring Camp, Bret Harte
Correct. Moderately obscure (The Outcasts Of Poker Flat also features a prostitute and is better known, I guess) but you got it anyway.

>>24459084

>80. Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain, I think-- been awhile.
Correct. John Grady and Magdalena.
>The litany of 'too much' (when revealed) is so over-the-top as to become almost comical
Huh? She's just being mildly modest about her happiness that he isn't married, isn't she?

>>24459090
>79. Mark Twain, Roughing It? Don't remember this, but it feels possible
Nope. I suspect this will prove one of the toughest. (For a start, the author never gets mentioned on /lit/.)

>>24459099
>77. Dickens, Tale of Two Cities?
No, but you're correct that it must be an Anglophone writing about France.

>>24459107
>75. Kek, Sot-Weed Factor, Barth-- probably guessed, I'd guess
Yes, and yes.

>>24459191
>isn't she?
Yes, here. But the omniscient recitation anent her 'past' in this novel, when noted, is rather much, or maybe.. only seemed so with respect to my 'tender ears'

>>24459576
When Cormac does angelic martyr whore-with-heart-of-gold he doesn't mess about.

>>24457008
14. Auguries of Innocence, Wm Blake
Its availability surprised me

>>24456990 (OP)
73's from Gone with the Wind, MM. Concerns that friend of Rhett's, former lover too, I believe, who both intrigues and disgusts Scarlet --almost always from a distance

>>24457065
68. is Heinlein, forget the title ('Love' is in it, I think)
65. Flat out guessing this is Denison, Out of Africa

>>24457756
>Dashiell Hammett.
Maltese Falcon?

>>24457028
>35)
Is this guy Ted Bundy?

>>24459994

>14. Auguries of Innocence, Wm Blake
Correct.

>Its availability surprised me
/lit/ anons like to get their money's worth. Most of them prefer a book you can safely hide behind when being shot at.

>>24460409

>73's from Gone with the Wind, MM.
Correct.

>Concerns that friend of Rhett's, former lover too, I believe, who both intrigues and disgusts Scarlet --almost always from a distance
Right, Belle Watling. The passage is Melanie speaking to Scarlet about her contribution to the hospital.

>>24460476

>68. is Heinlein, forget the title ('Love' is in it, I think)
Right. ‘TIme Enough For Love’. Tamara becomes part of their little group IIRC.

>65. Flat out guessing this is Denison, Out of Africa
Nope, not I.D. ‘Out Of Africa’ is first-person. The style is not a million miles away from some of her short stories but it isn’t those either.

>>24460569

>Dashiell Hammett.
>Maltese Falcon?
Nope. The character described is a sort-of femme fatale who ends up only being fatale to herself. The narrator is surprised when he meets her because despite her man-eating reputation she's not very glamorous; but she grows on people.

>>24460573

>35)
>Is this guy Ted Bundy?
Nope. Bundy's preferred method was strangulation, with occasional bludgeoning & stabbing. Not drugging then pushing off balconies.

>>24459060
Quite a cheery girl but I can't drag her off to my secluded cabin in the woods and add her to my collection without knowing her name. (Girls without names are safe from me.)

>>24459060
A fine, cheery girl. Normally I would carry her off to my secluded cabin in the woods and add her to my collection, but she doesn’t seem to have a name. (Girls without names are safe from me.)

>>24460877
>guessed wrong
>still got an anime girl
Looks like it is my day

Is A.A. Milne the most aesthetic author of all time?

>>24460877
Is the 'soiled dove' referred to here Dinah Brand in Red Harvest? I think Sam Spade's near 6', not sure how tall the Op is, so
43. Red Harvest?

>>24460948
>guessed wrong
>still got an anime girl
>Looks like it is my day
Yeah, I posted Kay to acknowledge the correctness of Dashiell Hammett for #43. But of course someone else supplied that. We’d better compensate. Here’s Asuka applauding your effort sarcastically.

>>24461060
>43.
>Is the 'soiled dove' referred to here Dinah Brand in Red Harvest?
Correct.

>I think Sam Spade's near 6'
Spade rose bowing and indicating with a thick-fingered hand the oaken armchair beside his desk. He was quite six feet tall. The steep rounded slope of his shoulders made his body seem almost conical — no broader than it was thick — and kept his freshly pressed grey coat from fitting very well.

>not sure how tall the Op is
The Continental Op. is indeed described as short(ish), fat(ish) and unglamorous.

>>24457065
61. Think the Gilberte *here* must be Colette's Gigi..
Nice Proust-trap! But.. is it also a Colette-trap?

>>24457063
56. This makes me think of Amiel's Journal OTOH, Heinrich Heine's fate OTO.. might this in fact be
UNKNOWN (memories of some Woman of Pleasure?)
Haven't spotted Cleland's yet, unless, but, surely not!

>>24457050
49. Defoe, Moll Flanders?

37. This Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn?

>>24457028
35. Elmore Leonard, Glitz

>>24461388

>61. Think the Gilberte *here* must be Colette's Gigi..
Correct.

>Nice Proust-trap! But.. is it also a Colette-trap?
Works in translation are sufficiently tricky already without additional deviousness.

>>24461422

>56.
>Amiel's Journal
>Heinrich Heine's fate
>UNKNOWN (memories of some Woman of Pleasure?)
>Haven't spotted Cleland's yet, unless, but, surely not!
Nope. This one is hard because it's such a small extract. I should probably have included a bit more.

>>24461438
>49. Defoe, Moll Flanders?
Correct.

>>24461460
>37. This Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn?
Nope. Not really HM-ish. More . . . future-ish.

>>24461465
>35. Elmore Leonard, Glitz
Correct. Poor Iris :( Vincent should never have let her wander off chasing fantasies. He should have tied her to a pipe in his basement for her own good.

>>24461514
Damn, the name 'Mona' led me astray..
In other news, this is the last time I'm requisitioning (in this instance Christological #33) pic rel as I feel strongly that I'm foiling at worst, interrupting at best, certain plans.
Had to find it first, however, as it's amongst the strays

>>24461964
>#33
>Under Milk Wood
No idea what the rest means but you're right about this. Always good to sneak some Dylan Thomas in wherever possible.

>>24462223
Oh. Last time I believe YOU said you'd shill Under Milk Wood until it took hold or hooked the 'collective consciousness' of /lit/ (or something like this)
I have no desire to thwart this endeavor iow's which I feel I do (I alone) if I gun for it every time out. Simply put, next time I'll NOT answer the UMW contribution

>>24457093
93 is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - John Berendt.
Interesting story, though the author's creative liberties really stretch the definition of "non-fiction."

100. Alan Bennett MFFhF Talking Heads2

15 is Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller

Is number 7 Martial from the Epigrams? The style seems familiar and Galla is a recurring subject.

Me just sitting here waiting for OP to do his usual midway point pity hint post.

>>24462247
Ah right. Well Dylan Thomas is one of those authors, like Damon Runyon, that I intend to keep posting until /lit/ likes them, but it may take many decades.

I suppose the last few questions to be answered do attract more attention, but I'm not sure that's sufficient reason to skip an extract you recognize. Imagine for example if you found D.T. and ignored him, then immediately afterwards someone else I.D.’d him and bagged the cute anime girl? That would be most frustrating.

>>24462288

>93 is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - John Berendt.
Correct.

>Interesting story, though the author's creative liberties really stretch the definition of "non-fiction."
I don't know anything of the truth of the matter outside the book. I do know that Berendt was very amused by the film. He said Kevin Spacey’s performance was hilariously wrong; Jim Williams was much sharper and more animated. He realized what had happened: Spacey had studied the video footage of Williams in court, but Williams had taken a massive dose of Valium to calm his nerves that day and was not even close to his usual self, lol.

>>24462639

>100. Alan Bennett MFFhF Talking Heads2
Correct. "Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet".

One of those where the woman is just teetering on the edge of prostitution, I suppose, since the guy just pays her to put shoes on her and take them off and have her walk on him (as far as we know). But she does say something like "I suppose they have a word for what I am now, but I try not to think about it". That’s good enough for me.

>>24462658
>15 is Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
Correct. Quite a forthright piece, given HM was married at the time.

>>24462706
>Is number 7 Martial from the Epigrams?
It is. #4 from Book IX, according to my compilation.

>The style seems familiar and Galla is a recurring subject.
Two gold coins was about two months' pay for a soldier, so she was presumably quite a cutie. Martial never had much money and was probably just annoyed he couldn’t afford her. That's my theory anyway. Go Galla!

>>24462969
>Me just sitting here waiting for OP to do his usual midway point pity hint post.
Momentum seems to be good so not sure any hints are needed, but anyway. Of those currently unanswered,

3, 11, 19, 46, 63, 69, 70, 79

were written by Nobel laureates.

>>24463011
Don't underestimate The Quiz's pedagogic value, or its power to influence. I also recently scored Potter's Complete Upmanship fwtw.
Also, I want some other to answer that one atp; it would be a show a progress, if slight. 'Baby steps' toward a worthy object.
Of course if one of The Skin Trade stories is referenced next I won't treat the matter this gently
*picked up the Humphries this morning: 50pp through-- it's wonderful

>>24463047
>63, 70,
Hmm. These are the only laureates listed not English.
I looked up a list of Nobel winners and saw 3 not English winners
Herman Hesse
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Yasunari Kawabata
No clue about 63 but in 70 Delgadina is a Spanish name.
Going to use the Spanish write about Spanish and say 70 is Garcia Marquez
And I'll say 100 Years of Solitude because it's the only book of his I know

That leaves 63 as Hesse or Kawabata. I'll say Hesse Siddhartha for no reason other than I read it.

>>24463864
Oh and if it is Siddhartha then it is that one rich elite prostitute lady he spends is Samsara days with among wealth excess and gambling.

>>24463864
>>24463868
Ah shit. I just looked and saw Siddhartha was already guessed.
So I'll change my guess Snow County for 63

>>24463864

>63, 70,
>Hmm. These are the only laureates listed not English.
Right.

> . . . logic . . .
>70 is Garcia Marquez
Correct.

>100 Years of Solitude
Nope. If you look down his bibliography another work will jump out at you.

>63
>Hesse or Kawabata
All seems pretty logical so far.

>Hesse Siddhartha for no reason other than I read it.
Just one problem: someone already found the Hesse. It is Siddhartha, but it's #53.

>>24463884
>Ah shit. I just looked and saw Siddhartha was already guessed.
>So I'll change my guess Snow County for 63
Right, Yasunari Kawabata. Basically the M.C. has been keeping this geisha hanging on wondering will he marry her, won't he, for ages. When he finally calls her a "good woman" it's sort of a way of saying he never will. It's a pretty bleak book.

>>24463884
>Siddhartha was already guessed.
>Snow County for 63
Right, Yasunari Kawabata. Basically the M.C. has been keeping this geisha hanging on wondering will he marry her, won't he, for ages. When he finally calls her a "good woman" it's a way of saying he never will. It's a pretty bleak book.

>>24463893
>Nope. If you look down his bibliography another work will jump out at you.
Death in the Time of Cholera?

>>24463924
Nope. It will jump out at you in a “quiz theme” sort of way.

>>24463047
Oh. 11 looks like a structure from a play so that'd be Samuel Beckett. No idea on the work

>>24463936
>Memories of Melancholy Whores
Heh

>>24463942
Know this one: Ah, Wilderness! O'Neill
Tricky. Is Mrs. Warren's Profession stacked up in here somewhere? If so I'll bump with it later

>>24463946

>Memories of Melancholy Whores
Correct. Protagonist buys himself a fresh young virgin as a 90th birthday present but then when he gets into the room she's asleep and refuses to wake up so he lets her sleep and gives her all his money anyway. Quite a sweet little episode really. Almost wholesome, one might say.

>>24463942
>11
>>24464071
>Ah, Wilderness! O'Neill
Correct.

>Is Mrs. Warren's Profession stacked up in here somewhere?
Having G. B. Shaw and *not* MWP would be a bit perverse, for sure.

>>24457065
64 - 1984 by George Orwell

>>24457069
69 - East of Eden by John Steinbeck

>>24463047
>3)
Talks about the east, rupees and jubjube trees seeming placing it in India so I'll say Kipling since that is his purview and he is a laureate.
One of his works about trees which he wrote a couple of.

>>24457050
>47
Cider with Rosie?

>>24464095
19. George Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Warren's Profession, near the end of the play..
Remember wondering if Vivie (the bitch) was inspired by Ada Lovelace --and became a kind of narrow-minded version.
I know Brecht never intended audiences to commiserate with Mother Courage; I wonder how Shaw initially expected Mrs. Warren to be viewed!

>>24464793
Yeah, that's definitely from a short story of his, but from which of the innumerable little chapbooks!

>>24463047
>46, 79
Looking at others guesses these are the remaining laureates Alice Munroe and Samuel Beckett.

I'm a gambling man and will take those 50/50 odds. Hope the other anons guessed right otherwise I'm on bad ground.

Alice Munroe is 46 with that list of data
Beckett is 79 with the first person narration

>>24464490

>64 - 1984 by George Orwell
Correct. A random Winston diary entry.

>69 - East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Right. Cathy Ames gets drunk and shares a few secrets.

>>24464793
>3)
>Kipling
Right.

>One of his works about trees which he wrote a couple of.
Err, nope. The tree doesn't play a big part in the story, sorry to say.

>>24465240
>Yeah, that's definitely from a short story of his
Correct, but which one? Quite tough since it's not one of the really famous ones. We'll give some Kipling specialist a chance to show his stuff.

>>24465131

>47
>Cider with Rosie?
Right. Laurie Lee. Rosie of course is the one who finally shows the narrator the delights of cider and other things, but I always wanted to know more about Bet. She deserves her own spin-off novel.

>>24465135
>19. George Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Warren's Profession, near the end of the play..
Correct.

>Remember wondering if Vivie (the bitch) was inspired by Ada Lovelace --and became a kind of narrow-minded version.
No idea what A.L. was like in person. All anyone hears about her these days is that she single-handedly invented computer science or whatever.

>I know Brecht never intended audiences to commiserate with Mother Courage; I wonder how Shaw initially expected Mrs. Warren to be viewed!
I'm sure he himself thought Mrs W. was entirely in the right.

>>24465314
>Ada Lovelace
In the end, she wanted to be buried next to daddy, and was. This in the face of her conveniently dead family

>>24465247

>46, 79
>Looking at others guesses these are the remaining laureates Alice Munroe and Samuel Beckett.
‘Munro’, but yes, correct.

>I'm a gambling man and will take those 50/50 odds. Hope the other anons guessed right otherwise I'm on bad ground.
What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss?

>Alice Munroe is 46 with that list of data
>Beckett is 79 with the first person narration
Unlucky. Maybe another anon can build on this result to hazard a guess.

>>24465321
Damn

>>24465321
...
Tempted to swoop down, but

How close to halfway, OP?
Update?

>>24465341
Bet OP didn't know that a quasi-anime lovely 'single-handedly invented computer science'!
Makes perfect sense, strangely

>>24465341
>How close to halfway?
We're just past the equator I think.

>Update?
These are the ones answered, unless I missed something:

1. William Vollmann, ‘Rainbow Stories’
2. Fyodor Dostoevsky, ‘Crime And Punishment’
3. Rudyard Kipling, [work unidentified]
4. e. e. cummings, ‘Tulips And Chimneys’

6. Gene Wolfe, ‘Shadow Of The Torturer’
7. Martial, ‘Epigrams’, Bk. IX
8. Ernest Hemingway, ‘The Sun Also Rises’

11. Eugene O’Neill, ‘Ah, Wilderness!’
12. John the Divine, ‘Revelation’
13. Douglas Adams, ‘Life, The Universe And Everything’
14. William Blake, ‘Auguries Of Innocence’
15. Henry Miller, ‘Tropic Of Cancer’

18. Leo Tolstoy, ‘Resurrection’
19. George Bernard Shaw, ‘Mrs. Warren’s Profession’

25. Joseph Heller, ‘Catch-22’

28. Unknown author, ‘Gilgamesh’

30. William Faulkner, ‘Absalom, Absalom!’

33. Dylan Thomas, ‘Under Milk Wood’
34. James Joyce, ‘Ulysses’
35. Elmore Leonard, ‘Glitz’

37. William Gibson, [work unidentified]

39. Pietro Aretino, ‘Ragionamenti’

43. Dashiell Hammett, ‘Red Harvest’
44. Jonathan Swift, ‘A Beautiful Young Nymph Going To Bed’

46. Samuel Beckett, [work unidentified]
47. Laurie Lee, ‘Cider With Rosie’
48. Lucian, ‘Dialogues Of The Courtesans’
49. Daniel Defoe, ‘Moll Flanders’

50. George Macdonald Fraser, ‘Flashman And The Redskins’

52. Joshua, ‘Book of Joshua’
53. Hermann Hesse, ‘Siddhartha’

57. Ken Kesey, ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’

61. Colette, ‘Gigi’
62. Giovanni Boccaccio, ‘Decameron’
63. Yasunari Kawabata, ‘Snow Country’
64. George Orwell, ‘1984’

67. Jack London, ‘People Of The Abyss’
68. R. A. Heinlein, ‘Time Enough For Love’
69. John Steinbeck, ‘East Of Eden’
70. G. G. Marquez, ‘Memories Of My Melancholy Whores’

71. J. D. Salinger, ‘Catcher In The Rye’

73. Margaret Mitchell, ‘Gone With The Wind’

75. John Barth, ‘The Sot-Weed Factor’

79. Alice Munro, [work unidentified]
80. Cormac McCarthy, ‘Cities Of The Plain’

81. Bret Harte, ‘The Luck Of Roaring Camp’

86. Robert Graves, ‘I, Claudius’

90. Émile Zola, ‘Nana’

92. William Shakespeare, ‘Henry IV pt. 2’
93. John Berendt, ‘Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil’
94. Ted Hughes, ‘The Drowned Woman’

96. Louis-Ferdinand Céline, ‘Journey To The End Of The Night’

98. Marcel Proust, ‘Swann’s Way’

100. Alan Bennett, ‘Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet’


That's 55/100 (with a few still needing the work identified).

>>24457093
95
O. Henry, Unfinished Story

>>24456990 (OP)
Godhood I imagine.
Unless you're a Goddess... then you just get metaphysically fucked by God

>>24465953
>95
>O. Henry, Unfinished Story
Correct. Technically only hinting at future sort-of-prostitution, but it's a good ending, well worth bending the rules for.

87
Believe this is the maudlin, near concluding scene of Stephen Crane's Maggie, A Girl of the Streets. Aar came up empty-handed hunting the names Jimmie, Nellie, Pete....

>>24466081

>87
>Stephen Crane's Maggie, A Girl of the Streets.
Right.

>maudlin
Well, possibly. Dostoevsky would probably say it’s not maudlin *enough*.

>>24465974
Though priesthood suffers professionalism in various sectors, I doubt seriously that gods get paid in any regular sense (with money, with goods) as they have no need of either. True, they tend to think that they are owed much, just like common crooks and the Kings of yore, but failure to pay them merely results in their exacting what's 'owed' by some other, life-compromising (yours) means. Like kings and crooks, then, dieties are somewhat beyond the pale of mere 'professionalism,' I think
>meta-
Has anyone noticed that G*d Himself seems to conclude the litany of crimes committed against Justine in Sade's novel of the same name? Just when J's almost home (at the very conclusion of her carnal ordeals) and, almost, 'ready to breathe again,' BLAMMO! : she's riven in a manner reminiscent of Zeus's encounter with Semele (albeit more naturally rendered). Finis.
Seems rather blasphemous, but I'm no expert

>>24466166
>G*d
Why not just say God?
It's not like you're gonna trick/pilpul Him.
I mean you can trick yourself into thinking you tricked Him, but that's just the hubristic cope of self-deception. Also you piss of God and can't tell you pissed Him off since you'll tell yourself the opposite that He approves.
Externally, it's really really odd behavior.

>>24466390
Kek, why not just stick to the 'oldest profession' point? Right, because it's been demolished
Nitpicking's old lady 'cope,' but hey, 'you do you'

>>24466522
well apparently to OP, God got tricked into fucken Nothing into Something ("Creatio Ex Nihilo).
Guess what gender "Nothing" is...
vapid bimbos come to mind when I jerk off to nothing.

>>24466522
well apparently to OP, God got tricked into fucken Nothing into Something ("Creatio Ex Nihilo").
For fun, let's guess what gender "Nothing" is...

>>24457020
>26)
Is this The Great Train Robbery when the guy with the key requests a "fresh" or virgin girl for his syphilis?

>>24466721
Neither the time nor place for this, anon, but given the suggestion within the context of what's supposed to be going on here I will note briefly that there *is* a reference to "whores' vows" in the Earl of Rochester's magnum opus 'Upon Nothing' (which see) but, unfortunately, he's not in the lists this quiz. Also, as the last quiz required 250+ posts for completion it's probably best that spaces be reserved for quiz participants' inquiries, guesses, and answers, as well as for OP's hints, explanations, and confirmations. I no longer wish to be party to some interruption scheme iow's, or Bump

>>24467456

>26)
>Is this The Great Train Robbery when the guy with the key requests a "fresh" or virgin girl for his syphilis?
Correct. Michael Crichton. Not like his usual stuff. It was the thieves' argot that really interested him, by the look of it.

A little mopping up
3. Kipling, 'On the City Wall' set appropriately in Lahore
46. The Beckett is Murphy, reference in an early chapter

>>24468050

>3. Kipling, 'On the City Wall' set appropriately in Lahore
Correct.

>46. The Beckett is Murphy, reference in an early chapter
Right. Celia, Murphy's girlfriend, being described. Best ever dry humour use of ‘etc’.

>>24468055
>Instep. Unimportant.
Not in 2025, Mr. Beckett. Not in 2025.

Is #79 Alice Munro's 'Voices'?
Will try to discern Sterne from Cleland later this evening-- thought I'd be able to do so easy enough when first going through the entries a few evenings ago but stalled

>>24469227

>Is #79 Alice Munro's 'Voices'?
It is. Funny story. You think it's going to be about the mother and the prostitute and then it turns out it's about something else entirely.

>discern Sterne from Cleland
Well they're easy to tell apart from each other, but less easy to tell apart from everyone else.

>>24469307
Well, you've toned down Cleland's raciness (is it that assignation?) and haven't given Sterne away through telltale punctuation, that's for sure. I'm sure /we're looking for Fanny Hill and Shandy (because Madame L's no whore)

Is the Neil Gaiman one the prostitute from American Gods that eats people with her vagina?

>>24457097
After reading the Stag and Stuffy entry I checked the author list and stopped at Roald Dahl: googled, found. #99 is Roald Dahl, Madame Rosette.

Is 56 Dame of Camellias, Dumas fils?

>>24470150
>Is the Neil Gaiman one the prostitute from American Gods that eats people with her vagina?
It is, but you didn’t give a number. Need a number for a cute anime girl.

>>24470195
>#99 is Roald Dahl, Madame Rosette.
Correct. From "Over To You". Fun story, and with a happy(ish) ending, which is unusual for that collection.

>>24470309
>Is 56 Dame of Camellias, Dumas fils?
Yes it is. Better known as the opera I guess but might as well have the original.

>>24470575
Is it 20 perhaps? She disposes of clothes but not a body which fits the absorbing him aspect.

>>24470637
>Is it 20 perhaps?
Correct.

>She disposes of clothes but not a body which fits the absorbing him aspect.
True. (The name ‘Bilquis’ is a good-sized hint as well.)

>>24470585
I've been to more than one Traviata and have even read Dumas fils and yet what held me up was doubt whether 'plasters' were applied to consumptives, and the feeling that Violetta was still too beautiful to entertain such a thought as the one shown here.

>>24456990 (OP)
>>24469475
>telltale punctuation
77. Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy?
*seems a little too forthright, but only Dickinson employs the dash more than Sterne does --
Wait!
>Monsieur
Change Shandy to Sentimental Journey

>>24471190
>77. Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy?
>Change Shandy to Sentimental Journey
Correct. Yorick getting to know a grisette. Depends how you interpret their intentions I guess, but surely she's at least teetering on the brink.

>>24457004
>flics
9. Anthony Burgess, The Pianoplayers?
Guess hangs on a CWO word

>>24471850

>9. Anthony Burgess, The Pianoplayers?
Nope. This might be the hardest one in the quiz. One of, anyway, for sure.

>>24471850

>9. Anthony Burgess, The Pianoplayers?
Nope. This might be the hardest question in the quiz. One of the hardest, anyway.

I was going to use Pianoplayers for the music quiz but I couldn't find a copy in English. Funny little book. The first half with her father playing the piano in the cinema is really good. Sadly the second half is much less good. You feel he just bolted another plot on to make it up to novel length.

>>24471933
Ok, then it's post-Clockwork, at least (I guess)

59. Thom Gunn, San Francisco Streets

38. Has to be Ben Jonson
It is: Dol is Doll Common from The Alchemist. A trap is being openly ruminated upon, 'tseems

>>24473148
>59. Thom Gunn, San Francisco Streets
Correct.

>>24473186
>38. Has to be Ben Jonson
>It is: Dol is Doll Common from The Alchemist.
Correct. A good woman, in her way. Or not.

>start reading Six Characters in Search of an Author
>get to Madame Pace
>remember this thread
>oh snap I bet she is in the quiz
>open thread
>not on author list
Damn it OP. I got excited for a second

>>24457012
Ok, #17 is Leaving Las Vegas, John O'Brien (what a depressing film), and #21 is from The Third Policeman by John's kinsman Flann (wait, no, that's a nom de plume, but I'm sure this'll pass muster) and later today I'll scan for Hawaii (Jones...I know the prostitute's from the Pacific NW *IF* FHTE's the quarry) and ca. 17th c. China, or likely perspective therefrom (FM, I think I know the title of this one too).
Feel free to drop an encouraging hint!

>>24473304
>Ok, #17 is Leaving Las Vegas, John O'Brien
Correct.
> (what a depressing film)
It's pretty good as adaptations go. Nicholas Cage is almost not annoying (or rather, his annoyingness is appropriate for the character).

>and #21 is from The Third Policeman by John's kinsman Flann
Correct. Not sure if the mother really is a prostitute but you have to suspect.


>Feel free to drop an encouraging hint!

SOME RANDOM HINTS:

5) Clearly set in Japan, but not translated: how can this be?

40) A protagonist who goes round telling everyone he isn't a god-damn preacher . . .

76) Thomas Pynchon says he was once part of a ‘micro-cult’ of admirers of this book.

45, 55, 65, 78, 84, 85, 88 are short stories. Some (45, 78, 85, 88) are pretty obscure.
Bonus extra hint for 55: MUAHHHHH THE FRENCH CHAMPAGNE
Bonus extra hint for 65: Title drop!

>>24473304
>Ok, #17 is Leaving Las Vegas, John O'Brien
Correct.
> (what a depressing film)
It's pretty good as adaptations go. Nicholas Cage is almost not annoying (or rather, his annoyingness is appropriate for the character).

>and #21 is from The Third Policeman by John's kinsman Flann
Correct. Not sure if the mother really is a prostitute but you have to suspect.

>Feel free to drop an encouraging hint!
FHTE is indeed a fruitful line of enquiry.

A FEW OTHER RANDOM HINTS:

5) Clearly set in Japan, but not translated: how can this be?

40) A protagonist who goes round telling everyone he isn't a god-damn preacher. /lit/ claims to like this author.

76) Thomas Pynchon says he was once part of a ‘micro-cult’ of admirers of this book.

45, 55, 65, 78, 84, 85, 88 are short stories. Some (45, 78, 85, 88) are pretty obscure.
Bonus extra hint for 55: MUAHHHHH THE FRENCH CHAMPAGNE
Bonus extra hint for 65: Title drop(s)!

>>24473295
>Madame Pace
I’m sure to have overlooked lots of iconic characters. (They generally come to mind about five minutes after the quiz is well and truly posted.)

>>24473397
>40) A protagonist who goes round telling everyone he isn't a god-damn preacher.
Catcher in the Rye!

>>24473411

>40) A protagonist who goes round telling everyone he isn't a god-damn preacher.
>Catcher in the Rye!
Holden does say god-damn occasionally but not the preacher bit. But more importantly he’s #71.

>>24473397
>5)...how can this be?
I'm not detecting James Clavell among the authors, anon (shame on you) OTOH this is the very first time in my brief history of Quiz participation that I'm sure of an answer sans actually scanning an entry. 5 is Memories of a Geisha, Arthur Golden. *I haven't read this book probably because it was gifted to me unsolicited. From the same person I got an NDP paperback copy of Ihara Saikaku's Life of an Amorous Woman, which I'm guessing *is* a translation: is it any good?

>>24473698

>5)...how can this be?
>Memories of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
Correct.

>is it any good?
Not sure which book you're asking about. I haven't read Life of an Amorous Woman. Memoirs of a Geisha is good. He just gets out the way and lets her tell her story and she tells it well. (OK, he might not have got out the way, but he gives that impression.)

>>24457016
22. A. E. Housman, The Faeries Break their Dances
How is this still up?

Ok, 84 has to be that short story by Maupassant about the starving man on the train and the midwife full to bursting with untapped milk, um, right? I admit the second sentence makes me doubtful, but the peony bit did make me kind of thirsty. Wasn't hunting for Maupassant specifically (haven't yet) but did have the passing thought that fwr you'd probably use Bel-Ami for this one

>>24474235

>22. A. E. Housman, The Faeries Break their Dances
From “Last Poems”, correct.

>How is this still up?
/lit/ anons don't really go for slim volumes of poetry. Most of them prefer the sort of novel a robust man can play see-saw with.

>>24474259
>Ok, 84 has to be that short story by Maupassant about the starving man on the train and the midwife full to bursting with untapped milk, um, right?
Not exactly. It is Maupassant, but she's not a midwife and it's not a train and there's no starving man.

>>24457043
#42
is Houellebecq, and the novel is probably The Elementary Particles
#65
is Somerset Maugham, the story 'Rain'
#72
is perhaps Graham Greene?
#74
geez, this must be From Here to Eternity, James Jones
#82
I'm gonna guess John Cheever hoping that the clue itself shadows forth yet another, 'meta-clue'. If it is, then it's from one of the Wapshot Chronicles.

>>24474736
2½/5 here:

>#42
>is Houellebecq, and the novel is probably The Elementary Particles
Correct.

>#65
>is Somerset Maugham, the story 'Rain'
Also correct.

>#72
>is perhaps Graham Greene?
Nope. A more popular author on /lit/ than GG (although that's not saying much since no-one on /lit/ ever mentions GG).

>#74
>geez, this must be From Here to Eternity, James Jones
Nope.

>#82
>I'm gonna guess John Cheever
It is Cheever . . .
>Wapshot Chronicles.
. . . but not this.

lol... rare w for reply count

>>24475105
Anon, it's been ca.250+ the last 2x out

>>24456990 (OP)
Virus transport?

>>24474776
82. I think only Falconer fills this bill (among the longer works, which are almost exclusively written in the third person), so: John Cheever, Falconer

>>24473397
>claims to like
40. Miss O'Connor, Wise Blood

>>24456990 (OP)
>>>/tv/211616599

>>24475347

>82.John Cheever, Falconer
Correct.

>>24475401

>40. Miss O'Connor, Wise Blood
Correct.

>>24473397
76
>micro-cult
Didn't he mention this in a latter day introduction to the Slow Learner collection? I remember reading this somewhere (in his own words)
Warlock, Oakley Hall

>>24475844

>76
> . . .
>Warlock, Oakley Hall
Correct. Ex-prostitute, but that’s close enough.

>>24474736
#74
Another shot in the dark:
James Ellroy, Clandestine?
#10
This Harry Crews?
#23
Murakami?
#24
Not at all one of my childhood recollections of Fanny Hill, but this must be John Cleland's book right HERE
#31
Damn it, this is more likely Harry Crews

>>24475926

>#74
>Another shot in the dark:
>James Ellroy, Clandestine?
Nope.

>#10
>This Harry Crews?
Nope.

>#23
>Murakami?
Correct. Someone must remember a Murakami book with a Hegel-quoting prostitute?

>#24
>Not at all one of my childhood recollections of Fanny Hill, but this must be John Cleland's book right HERE
Correct. Perhaps unsporting to choose one of the rare U-rated sections.

>#31
>Damn it, this is more likely Harry Crews
Correct. ‘The Mulching Of America’. Not one of his most famous titles, but a bunch of character names make up for the obscurity, maybe.

>>24475963
>Hegel-quoting prostitute
Kafka on the Shore

>>24476065

>Hegel-quoting prostitute
>Kafka on the Shore
Correct. (Working her way through college, obviously.)

>>24456990 (OP)
Hang it, haven't the patience to scan everything AGAIN, atm:
29. Dickens, Twist (but I'm not sure). I *am* sure that it's either Twist or Copperfield (and NOT Martin fucking Chuzzlewit, which one of the entries made me consider despite its 'indelicate raciness'). This quiz plays games, man

>>24476345

>29. Dickens, Twist
Correct. Bet and Nancy being the ‘nice girls’ of course. A short extract, but a well-known work. With luck it all evens out.

>>24457082
83 and 36 are of the large-scale translations left the two most likely to be either Balzac or Hugo, i.e. Esther or Fantine (in my way of reckoning)
83. just sounds like a Hugo character, so that's Les Miserables (Fantine, probably talking about how she met her student-lover, i.e. ground zero of her subsequent career)
36. is therefore Esther; I mean, she's a good girl despite her past, right? (and aren't her words here worthy of a self-styled poet's undying love?)
So, this is Balzac from Lost Illusions pt. 2: Splendors and Miseries of a Courtesan, a title I see little reason OP's resisting.
*There's another that *could* be Hugo, but I strongly doubt it.

>>24476629
>83 and 36 are of the large-scale translations left the two most likely to be either Balzac or Hugo, i.e. Esther or Fantine (in my way of reckoning)
Hmm. Half of this is right.

>83. just sounds like a Hugo character, so that's Les Miserables (Fantine . . .
Correct.
> . . . probably talking about how she met her student-lover, i.e. ground zero of her subsequent career)
The snow-down-the-back merchant is just some random obnoxious dandy, making F.’s life harder when it was already more than hard enough.

>36. is therefore Esther
>So, this is Balzac . . .
Nope. #36 is tricky. A short extract from an obscure work (obscure on /lit/, at least).

>*There's another that *could* be Hugo, but I strongly doubt it.
Time to reconsider this option perhaps.

Bump

Not OP
Here are the active #s to the best of my knowledge, an asterisk precedes a short story:
9, 10, 16, 27
32, 36, 37 is William Gibson but no work
41, *45, 51, 54
*55, 58, 60, 66
72, 74, *78
*84 is Maupassant but no work
*85, *88, 89, 91, 97
And the remaining authors are:
Balzac, Bukowski, Burgess
Osamu Dazei, Isak Dinesen
James Ellroy
Rumer Godden, Graham Greene
James Jones, Jack Kerouac
Hilary Mantel, Richard Mason, Larry McMurtry, Feng Menglong, Seth Morgan
Terry Pratchett, Nawal El Saadawi
Hubert Selby, jr., William Trevor
John Updike, John Williams
Daniel Woodrell
*puzzle, or rather Quiz, is just over 75% complete

>>24478245
>Balzac
lol ballsack in a prostitute quiz

>>24478248
That might be funny in a Quiz about Priests, but in a Quiz about Prostitution it makes perfect sense

>>24478245
That's curious
>36, 41, 45, 58
Are the only ones marked as translations but
>Balzac
>Dazai
>Dinesen
>Menglong
>Saadawi
Are the non English writers. I'm going to guess then that Isak Dinesen is there for an English work then.

Also 45 has Liu so I will guess a short story by Fenglong because I am racist and think Liu is Chinese.
41 talks about deserts so Saadawi because I am racist and Arabs are desert people.
And I will guess 58 is Dazai No Longer Human because it starts with "I am so unhappy" and they guy is a moppy fuck

>>24478295
And I guess that makes 36 Balzac through elimination

>>24478295
>they guy is a moppy fuck
That guy is a mopey fuck
Damn spelling

>>24478295
>Fenglong because I am racist and think Liu is Chinese.
Pulled up his bio. See he wrote The Oil Vendor and Courtesan Tales so I'll say that is the work for him. Whether I am right about the number or his work is a different number.

>>24478295
Dinesen wrote in English, anon. Like Nabokov she later translated these back into her native tongue

>>24478342
I assumed she switched back and forth between works but that works too.

>>24478299
Deep-sixed yesterday
>>24476750

>>24478365
Hmm. Well I am pretty sure 45 is the Chinese author with names like Lovely Mother and Liu.
36 is first person from a prostitute and I don't think that fits Dazai.
So maybe Balzac wrote 41 about deserts and the Saadawi woman wrote something from the perspective of a prostitute.

>>24478373
I'm trying to find Jones (it's From Here to Eternity), Bukowski, and Kerouac
I think #72 is Butcher's Crossing, John Williams; in fact, I know it is

>>24478245
>51
>suction pump for a pussy
Is this Bukowski being crass?

>>24478420
I don't know, but if it is, fair play
Found one I wasn't looking for:
74's the whore Tralala in Last Exit to Brooklyn

>>24478431
Selby, Jr., OP
>>24456990 (OP)

*Lise
9) Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy by Rumer Godden

>>24478295

>45
>Fenglong
>>24478317
>The Oil Vendor and Courtesan
Correct.

>41
>Arabs are desert people.
Correct . . .
>Saadawi
. . . but nope.

>58
>Dazai No Longer Human
Correct.
>it starts with "I am so unhappy" and they guy is a moppy fuck
He is certainly moppy, although it's the woman (Tsuneko) who is talking about being moppy in that passage.

>>24478308
>mopey
He’s both, let’s face it.

>>24478373
>So maybe Balzac wrote 41 about deserts and the Saadawi woman wrote something from the perspective of a prostitute.
All sound reasoning; just some details to be filled in.

>>24478399

>I think #72 is Butcher's Crossing, John Williams; in fact, I know it is
Correct.

>>24478420

>51
>suction pump for a pussy
>Is this Bukowski
It is Bukowski, yes. Factotum.

>being crass?
Well technically it's just a character in a Bukowski book being crass. Not sure he can be held responsible for the actions of his characters.

>>24478431

>74's the whore Tralala in Last Exit to Brooklyn
Correct. A nasty person to whom nasty things happen. The story of the whole book really.

>>24478439
>Selby, Jr., OP
Right.

>>24478532

>9) Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy by Rumer Godden
Right. Another of the obscure ones. Maybe still well-known in Roman Catholic circles.

>>24478727
41. Balzac, The Girl with the Golden Eyes?

>>24478968
>41. Balzac
Yes.

>The Girl with the Golden Eyes?
You’d think so, but sadly, no.

>>24479061
Dang, only other thing I can think of is that long short story about the imperial soldier who gets lost in the desert and falls in love with a panther, but this is a longer work, correct?

>>24479061
Splendours and Miseries of a Courtesan?

>>24479293
>Splendours and Miseries of a Courtesan?
That's the one.

>>24457040
#36
Woman at Point Zero, Nawal El Saadawi?
Checking out her books, this seems a solid suspect

>>24479936
>#36
>Woman at Point Zero, Nawal El Saadawi?
Correct.

>>24457097
97
James Ellroy LA Confidential
89
Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove

>>24457060
Is 55 from 'Converse in Copenhagen,' among Dinesen's Last Tales?

>>24480629

>97
>James Ellroy LA Confidential
Correct. Prostitutes who look like film stars should ring a bell from the film.

>89
>Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove
Correct. Lorena learns to read (and becomes a schoolteacher) in Streets Of Laredo, so she does eventually discover Gus’s parting words.

>>24480916

>Is 55 from 'Converse in Copenhagen,' among Dinesen's Last Tales?
It is Isak Dinesen, but not Last Tales. One of her most famous short stories.

>>24481244
Out of Africa?

>>24481282
>Out of Africa?
Nope. OoA is episodic, but it isn't really a short story collection.

I gave a hint here:
>>24473397
Orson Welles was an I.D. fan. One of his many unfinished projects was a film adaptation of the story in question.

>>24481316
'The Dreamers' in Gothic Tales?

>>24481411

>'The Dreamers' in Gothic Tales?
Right. Pellegrina (maybe), the woman who appears in different guises to a bunch of characters.

>>24456990 (OP)
Time for a little mopping up
37 Wm Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive?
*not really a sci-fi guy (or Fantasy either) but I have read Necromancer, and the title-list there informed me that this one's probably a gimme
84 Maupassant, Boule de Suif (butterball, dumpling..)
*far more effective than Marx (perhaps not Engels, though) for promoting a healthy level of contempt for all levels of bourgeoisie, at least to a credulous mind (preferably young)

>>24482077
*Neuro-, kek

>>24482077

>37 Wm Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive?
Correct. Character names don’t lie.
>Necromancer
>*Neuro-
Neuromancer : Mona Lisa Overdrive :: A New Hope : Return of the Jedi

>84 Maupassant, Boule de Suif (butterball, dumpling..)
C’est aussi correct. I imagine the scriptwriter for "Stagecoach" had this story in mind.

>>24456990 (OP)
91. If Seth Morgan, gotta be Homeboy
*like his gen x confrere Robert Bingham (Lightning on the Sun) he completed only a single novel

>>24457008
15 is Tropic of Cancer?

>>24457069
#66
Pic rel

>>24457060
#54
>Virgin Mary resignation
Who else but Kerouac at this point? I read some of his drunken ramblings a few weeks ago (Satori in Paris-- an awkward theme, 'satori,' and rudely forced.. but yeah, I shamefully enjoyed the tiny book anyway); this one's probably Tristessa, but.. maybe some observation at the Mexican whore ranch at the conclusion of OTR? Going with Tristessa, Kerouac

>>24457028
#32
>right, Rosie Palm and her 5 sisters
Because this is Terry Pratchett (let somewhere in Discworld suffice)
#60
is most likely Hilary Mantel, as this seems the most Tudor-esque of what's left; I'll guess Wolf Hall as Thomas C (if this is Thomas C) is a youngish man here, and OP wd not be so cruel as to assign something else, surely

>>24457012
#16
James Jones, From Here to Eternity
I mis-remembered Private Prewitt as Private Pruitt, or as Pru, not Prew, and so avoided this one as a trap..
I've been trying to see it somewhere all freaking week (except here) and failing, and this in despite of KNOWING that Lorene was 'the princess'..
Now that it could hardly be anything else, I checked the spelling only to discover....

>>24483059
>91. If Seth Morgan, gotta be Homeboy
Correct, and it is. Would be pretty mean to dig something else up from a one-hit author.

>>24483215
>15 is Tropic of Cancer?
Correct, although someone else already identified it.

>>24483752
>#66
>The World Of Suzie Wong
Correct. The extract comes before he learns her profession, but that doesn’t matter.

>>24483776
>#54
>Who else but Kerouac at this point?
>Going with Tristessa
Correct.

>>24483838

>#32
>Rosie Palm and her 5 sisters
Daughters. "Dating Rosie Palm and her five daughters" being of course a time-honoured euphemism for DIY sex.

>Terry Pratchett (let somewhere in Discworld suffice)
The cruelty to commas (plus general unworldliness) is a key. It's Carrot’s letter home after he arrives in Ankh-Morpork in ‘Guards! Guards!’.


>#60
>is most likely Hilary Mantel
Correct.

>I'll guess Wolf Hall as Thomas C (if this is Thomas C) is a youngish man here
Right trilogy, wrong book. He doesn’t have to be *that* young. It's ‘Bring Up The Bodies’ (the second one).

Something I have wondered about:

In the courtyard when they're getting ready to leave the next morning, the woman asks Cromwell to send her something nice from London. She specifically says, send me something you can’t get here. Not sure if that is just because she wants something luxurious, or because she specifically wants to signal to her husband what happened, to humiliate him. Maybe I'm over-reading it.

>>24483888

>#16
>James Jones, From Here to Eternity
Checked and correct.

>I mis-remembered Private Prewitt as Private Pruitt, or as Pru, not Prew, and so avoided this one as a trap..
Finding someone called Prew when another famous author in the list had a character called Pru would be a pretty devilish bit of misdirection.

>>24456990 (OP)
Dang, only a few left--
10. Daniel Woodrell, Tomato Red
27. Tony Burgess, Nothing like the Sun-- his Shakespeare/Dark Lady novel
*88. William Trevor, 'The Room'
**Greene and Updike are pretty easy to tell apart when they're the only two remaining
*78.
>Chalfont
>neat figure, folded umbrella
>horrible class consciousness, Jubilee Week, the King
>'good form'
Um, Greene?
*85.
>'Ed'
>silly stunt with a condom
>Introspective
> Thurber-esque
Updike, 'Transaction'-- a Christmas story, actually

>>24484312
The GG story's 'Jubilee,' I think

>>24484312
>10. Daniel Woodrell, Tomato Red
Right. A rare ‘not Winter’s Bone’ DW offering.

>27. Tony Burgess, Nothing like the Sun-- his Shakespeare/Dark Lady novel
Correct.

>88. William Trevor, 'The Room'
Right. Definitely one of the hardest since /lit/ doesn't talk about WT and this isn’t one of his most famous stories either. Basically, an expensive prostitute is murdered and a man is suspected because he paid her with a cheque. His wife gives him an alibi although she isn’t quite certain whether he might have done it.

>78.
>Greene
>‘Jubilee’
Right. Another hard obscure short story. Typically sleazy GG milieu. (The main character is a fading male prostitute. He sees a woman in a bar who he hopes might be a client. It turns she’s an ex-prostitute who made it big and retired. She sees him for what he is immediately.)

>85.
>Thurber-esque
Not all that Thurber-esque, is it? A lot more explicit than Thurber would ever be. And not really funny either.

>Updike, 'Transaction'-- a Christmas story, actually
Correct. Obscure short story #3. Not surprising these were the last to go.


I think this wraps it up. That’s three in a row. Time to up the difficulty, perhaps.

>>24484377
Thanks OP.

>>24484377
Will add mine, as well
Thanks!

>>24484377
>Up the difficulty
They're difficult enough!

>>24484377
>Thurber-esque
Sure, it's more 'explicit,' but that's because it's more modern; nonetheless the 'pretty' ruminating in awkward circumstances leads to 'death,' just as it does in say Walter Mitty. These stories may not be funny, but they are humorous, odd, poignant, pretty. The source of this species of writing is probably Melville, but Melville is *more* whereas Thurber (like Bierce) is not much more, if
Sp? Pretty much..