enough to admit my stupidity.
HEMINGWAY is to PLATH as WOOLF is to:
A. Thompson
B. Walden
C. Hawthorne
D. Faulkner
The only literary question on a verbal analogies test and. I. missed. it.
Who the heck is Thompson?
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What??? I don't get it.
ReplyDeleteFun post! I think the answer is A...Hunter S. Thompson, isn't it?? I definitely don't think you're stupid!...but if I'm completely out in left field here, I'll be feeling pretty stupid!
ReplyDeleteHunter Thompson, of course! Thanks, Robin. Which makes it all about the suicides. When I blanked on the Thompson name I resisted any notion that it might be a suicide set-up and went with Faulkner, reasoning Hemingway preceeded Plath, and Woolf preceeded Faulkner.
ReplyDeleteBut Hemingway and Thompson both had journalism in common, so it would have been a better analogy if it'd been "Thompson is to Woolf."
Or am I just trying to make myself feel better? :)
I don't follow it either. Thompson is the only one of the four who killed himself, and Walden isn't a person, and none of them is British. I don't see an authorial analogy. Explain, please?
ReplyDeleteThompson was supposed to be the answer, but there was no explanation given.
ReplyDeleteHemingway shot himself (as did Thompson), Plath put her head in an oven and Woolf drowned herself in a river.
Okay, now my question is, what kind of test is this? Is it really a literary question if getting the answer depends on knowing something about these people's lives and not their works? What do you prove by knowing about their suicides?
ReplyDeleteIt was a timed verbal analogy test in a book my son has checked out from the library. "You'll often have to know critical information about historical events, geography, and word etymology in order to arrive at the correct answer," according to the intro. There were some analogies I missed because I rushed, because I didn't know the vocab, and then this one. I didn't recognize the name Thompson and resisted the notion that it was about suicide. . .
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing Thompson is Hunter Thompson, gonzo journalist. But I think the analogy stinks. So there!
ReplyDeleteOkay...here's the connection I made...which may be really out there. Hemingway is so opposite of Plath, in every way, except that they were both incredible wordsmiths. And who could be more opposite Woolf, than Hunter Thompson, except that they were both incredible stream of consciousness writers? (Woolf completely in control of the style, and Thompson totally out of control with it.) Opposites but similar...pretty weird, I know.
ReplyDeleteI'd buy that connection completely if Faulkner wasn't one of the possible answers. He also wrote stream of consciousness and experimental works.
ReplyDeleteIt was a pretty stinky analogy.
That's true... Definitely a stinky one!
ReplyDelete