We love old books. We love the way they look and the way they feel. We even love the way they smell, though we realize the odor is probably mold. The one thing we generally don’t like to do with old books is read them. Frankly, old books are frequently long and wordy and boring. Our theory is that in olden times there weren’t many other books for people to move on to when they were done, so no one cared if authors rambled on and on and on with no discernible point. Readers didn’t have anyplace else to be.
We were looking through one of our old books recently. It’s a famous nineteenth-century novel by a famous American author and it’s terrible. Most everyone has heard of it, but hardly anyone has read it so they don’t know how bad it is. They assume it must be good because it’s still so well-known. In the back of the book (this is an early-twentieth-century edition) are a dozen or so pages of ads for other books by the same publisher, all of them equally as bad as this one, we bet, if not as well remembered. For just seventy-five cents, the ads offer reissues of “great literary successes,” and claim the books are “library-sized,” whatever that means. Because it’s our particular bias, we thought these ads would make good puzzles.
Each clue will provide you with a word, abbreviation, part of speech, or proper noun. Put these answers together in each series and you will find the word that has been redacted from an old magazine or newspaper blurb promoting a library-sized literary success. The clues could be common definitions of uncommon words, or uncommon definitions of common words.
For instance, if the correct answer were “melodramatic,” the clues might be:
1. City in northeast Uruguay. (Melo)
2. Unit of apothecaries’ weight. (dram)
3. A small in men’s pajama sizes, once. (A)
4. “A sudden, spasmodic, painless, involuntary muscular contraction as of the face.” (tic)
Send your answers by noon Friday, January 23. The winner of a McSweeney’s book will be chosen at random from all correct (or at least plausible) answers.
THE AFFAIR AT THE INN by Kate Douglas Wiggin
“As __________ clever in the writing as it is entertaining in the reading. It is actual comedy of the most artistic sort and it is handled with a freshness and originality that is unquestionably novel.”
— Boston Transcript.
1. The portion of a hive in which honey is stored.
2. Not long.
3. Intravenous.
4. Hunky TV Tarzan.
“A feast of humor and good cheer, yet subtly pervaded by special shades of feeling, fancy, tenderness, or __________. A merry thing in prose.”
— St. Louis Democrat.
1. A vertical drum, often horse-operated, for winding in a hoisting rope.
2. To incite an attack.
3. Wife of Robert Evans and a famed poet-warrior.
4. Hunky TV carpenter.
ROSE O’ THE RIVER by Kate Douglas Wiggin
“A charming bit of __________, gracefully written and deftly touched with a gentle humor. It is a dainty book.”
— New York Tribune.
1. An aluminum coin of Indonesia, the hundredth-part of a rupiah.
2. “The system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or future.”
3. Rn, formerly.
“An __________ story, replete with pathos and inimitable humor. As story-telling it is perfection, and as portrait-painting it is true to the life.”
— London Mail.
1. Suffix from the Greek meaning “descendant of” used to indicate members of a zoological family.
2. Chemical suffix used in the naming of radicals.
3. Solmization syllable used for the semitone between the sixth and seventh degrees of a scale.
4. Carbon.
3. TILLIE: A MENNONITE MAID by Helen R. Martin
“The little Mennonite Maid who wanders through these pages is something quite new in fiction. Tillie is hungry for books and beauty and love; and she comes into her __________ at the end. Tillie is faulty, sensitive, big-hearted, eminently human, and first, last and always lovable. Her charm glows warmly, the story is well handled, the characters skillfully developed.”
— The Book Buyer.
1. Holes ten through eighteen.
2. Fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
3. Cosmic order to some.
4. Nurse Corps.
5. Award flag presented by the U.S. Army and Navy during World War II to factories meeting or surpassing production schedules of war materials.
[NOTE: Certain definitions taken from the Unabridged Random House Dictionary of the English Language.]
ANSWERS.
Many had trouble with “rita” in number five, although most just chose to forge ahead and misspell “inheritance”), and many who answered number one correctly offered an alternative answer—"combatively." Certainly a “comb” could be a place in a beehive where honey is stored, and the explanations for why “AT” could be the answer to “not long” eventually became so creative that we became persuaded. Although not technically correct (and not particularly sensical in context) we decided to accept “combatively.”
Chosen at random, this week’s winner of a McSweeney’s book is Neda Golchin.
THE AFFAIR AT THE INN by Kate Douglas Wiggin
“As SUPERLATIVELY clever in the writing as it is entertaining in the reading. It is actual comedy of the most artistic sort and it is handled with a freshness and originality that is unquestionably novel.” — Boston Transcript.
1. The portion of a hive in which honey is stored. (super)
2. Not long. (lat, as in latitude)
3. Intravenous. (IV)
4. Hunky TV Tarzan. (Ely, as in Ron Ely)
“A feast of humor and good cheer, yet subtly pervaded by special shades of feeling, fancy, tenderness, or WHIMSICALITY. A merry thing in prose.” — St. Louis Democrat.
1. A vertical drum, often horse-operated, for winding in a hoisting rope.
(whim)
2. To incite an attack. (sic)
3. Wife of Robert Evans and a famed poet-warrior. (Ali, as in Ali McGraw and Muhammad Ali)
4. Hunky TV carpenter. (Ty, from the Learning Channel’s Trading Spaces)
ROSE O’ THE RIVER by Kate Douglas Wiggin
“A charming bit of SENTIMENT gracefully written and deftly touched with a gentle humor. It is a dainty book.” — New York Tribune.
1. An aluminum coin of Indonesia, the hundredth-part of a rupiah. (sen)
2. “The system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or future.” (time)
3. Rn, formerly. (Nt—prior to 1923, the element Radon was called Niton and had the chemical symbol Nt.)
“An IDYLLIC story, replete with pathos and inimitable humor. As story-telling it is perfection, and as portrait-painting it is true to the life.” — London Mail.
1. Suffix from the Greek meaning “descendant of” used to indicate members of a zoological family. (id)
2. Chemical suffix used in the naming of radicals. (yl)
3. Solmization syllable used for the semitone between the sixth and seventh degrees of a scale. (li)
4. Carbon. ©
TILLIE: A MENNONITE MAID by Helen R. Martin
“The little Mennonite Maid who wanders through these pages is something quite new in fiction. Tillie is hungry for books and beauty and love; and she comes into her INHERITANCE at the end. Tillie is faulty, sensitive, big-hearted, eminently human, and first, last and always lovable. Her charm glows warmly, the story is well handled, the characters skillfully developed.” — The Book Buyer.
1. Holes ten through eighteen. (In—the first nine holes in a golf round are “out” from the clubhouse, while the last nine are “in.”)
2. Fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. (He)
3. Cosmic order to some. (rita, from Hinduism.)
4. Nurse Corps. (NC)
5. Award flag presented by the U.S. Army and Navy during World War II to factories meeting or surpassing production schedules of war materials. (An “E” Flag, for efficiency)
AMY JO JOHNSON BONUS
After reading some of Tillie: A Mennonite Maid, available via the good people at http://www.gutenberg.net/etext03/tilli10.txt, I believe that you have inadvertently (or perhaps not) stumbled upon the perfect star-vehicle to finally showcase all the theatrical gifts of Ms. Amy Jo Johnson!
When I think of Tillie’s hardscrabble existence toiling in her father’s “celery fields,” and her stolen joy in the moments she surreptitiously reads her “story-book,” and most of all, her blossoming sexual awareness as Miss Margaret caresses her for the first time, well, if that doesn’t scream AJJ, then I’m not sure what does.
In my cursory search I was unable to determine the status of the rights to this story. (With all the complaints in Hollywood about the lack of quality roles for women, I have to believe that this has to be in the pipeline somewhere.) But, nonetheless, I think you owe it to AJJ—not to mention movie-loving people everywhere—to investigate this possibility further.
Regards,
Tom West
THE ANSWER THAT CONVINCED US ON NUMBER ONE
1. combatively (according to Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, “a.t.” can mean “An indefinitely small space” and “An indivisible portion of time”—both of which could I suppose be considered “not long”, no?)
Thanks,
Rob Muth
WE LIKE THIS EVEN BETTER THAN COMBATIVELY, FRANKLY
1. comb
2. petit
3. IV
4. Ely
= competitively?! (I don’t know, that’s my best guess!!!)
Lisa Fortin
WISH WE HAD CHECKED THAT
I don’t know if there is any connection between these words. Possibly they could be used in ad blurbs for the five Rocky movies, in order.
Sincerely,
Alex Bautista
YOUR MAMA’S A WEISSMULLER GIRL, EH?
I’m guessing I might not have a chance—since I’m about to make up a word for the last answer—but I figured, well, maybe no one else got the last one, because, seriously… what the hell?
Anyway, my answers:
1. combatively (although my mom claims that Ron Ely was in no way “hunky”) 2. whimsical 3. sentiment 4. idyllic 5. and, of course: backhestarsanct.
I remember the day I got my backhestarsanct. Man, oh man. It was awesome.
Sincerely, Brian Graham