Friday, March 07, 2014

The Greenland Yarn Literary Quiz

Well I hope you enjoyed the Greenland Yarn, even if you were probably scratching your heads and wondering what the heck that was all about.

But rather than just explaining here's a quiz that might point you in the right direction:

1. There was a definite format to the story: what was it?

2. The format was a homage to one of sailing's great story tellers: who?

3. Tillerman wondered if it was all a shaggy dog story: there wasn't even a single dog involved, but if there had been how many legs would he have had?

If you're very lucky I might even tell the (true) story of how JP ended up going to Greenland with three Disney princesses.

12 comments:

Tillerman said...

It's either Melville or Homer. Or perhaps Erskine Childers.

Really I have no idea!

JP said...

Nope, but here's a clue: have a look back at the book reviews

Tillerman said...

I am struggling to recognize what to make of your clues about "format."

There is a certain structure to each tale. About 6-8 short paragraphs, often with 1 or 2 one line paragraphs.

Is that what you are getting at? Is it some author who writes that way?

JP said...

Maybe structure would be a better word, with units = posts.

Maybe worth giving clue #2: Look though those posts with label "Books" and those with label "Greenland"

Tillerman said...

Tristan Jones?

JP said...

Q2: Correct!

That should also give the answer to Q3 but can you also get Q1?

Tillerman said...

It was the dog that gave me the clue to Tristan. Three legs.

Still thinking about the format!

Tillerman said...

Did each post contain one incident from Tristan's book - something that may or may not have been fiction?

JP said...

First part of the answer is wrong but the second part of the answer on the right lines

Tillerman said...

I'm really struggling with this. A lot of your "yarn" is clearly a retelling of what actually happened on your Greenland voyage. But you have also added other stuff that is often hard to believe.

Does each post contain one thing that you totally made up?

JP said...

Close enough.

The basic idea was alternate non-fiction / fiction posts.

The first mostly true until the last line which would lead to a wholly fictional second post.

This came from reading Tristan Jones where some stories were almost certainly made up.

Tillerman said...

Duh. Good quiz. I should have spotted that!