>>24864751
3/3 to get things started:—


>20 is of course Infinite Jest
Correct.

>82... "Uncle Toby" makes me think Tristram Shandy? Also it does read like Sterne
Does and is. It's the ridiculous war games they play where they set up a gadget to use their pipes to fire several cannons at once but then get distracted by smoking and forget to fight the battle at all.

>84 is Catch-22
Right.
>(although I forget who this is referring to - Cathcart?)
Also right:

. . . He had no doubts at all that someone as debonair and intellectual as General Peckem approved of his smoking with a cigarette holder, even though the two were in each other’s presence rather seldom, which in a way was very lucky, Colonel Cathcart recognized with relief, since General Peckem might not have approved of his cigarette holder at all. When such misgivings assailed Colonel Cathcart, he choked back a sob and wanted to throw the damned thing away, but he was restrained by his unswerving conviction that the cigarette holder never failed to embellish his masculine, martial physique with a high gloss of sophisticated heroism that illuminated him to dazzling advantage among all the other full colonels in the American Army with whom he was in competition. Although how could he be sure?

>>24829320
Our Hellenophile joins the party. 5/6 here:—

>3 fates (clotho, lachesis, atropos)
Right. C spins the thread of life, L measures it, A wields the scissors.

>5 rivers of hades (styx, lethe, acheron, phlegethon, cocytos)
Right. Dante had four of them but put Lethe at the top of Mount Purgatory, weirdly.

>7 sages? (P=protagoras?)
Not what I intended. I'm worrying about plausible alternative answers of course but I think the intended answer fits this one better.

>9 muses (clio, calliope, erato, euterpe, melpomene, terpsichore, thaleia, urania)
Right.

>12 labours of herakles
Right.

>5040 - ideal population of a city (plato's laws)
Right. This was supposed to be the tricky one. 5040 has lots of factors so obviously you have to have this many people. Plato was a fine fellow but he was completely bonkers.


Well this has got another good chunk of "no author" entries out the way. Just the 7 S (D of A and P) to get.

>>24505697

>#38
>safe bet
>Samuel Richardson. Clarissa
Correct. After C. dies every other character in the book sits around for fifty pages weeping and saying how great she was.

>#63
>Is *this* maybe Vollmann in a story or something?
Nope. The hunt continues.

>#70
>Ok, this is Wharton, Age of Innocence iinm
Correct. May doing whatever it takes to get / keep her man. But she’s a 21-year-old Winona Ryder, so we forgive her.

>#75
>Dylan Thomas has been guessed already
Leaving this blank was just a mistake. This is confirmed as Under Milk Wood.
>Is there a missing still active number?
Don’t think so. Might need to count them, which is pretty arduous.

>>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)!