Suddenly, a quiz!
I like reading books. I don't particularly like writing summaries or reviews, much to the chagrin of the guy who wrote something a while ago on this very blog.
Instead, what I do like are facts. Specifically, I enjoy putting the facts into question form for others.
Before I knew it, I ended up with a quiz related to the book I just completed. Enjoy!
1.
- This curve depicts the relationship between income inequality and intergenerational income mobility - how many generations it takes to rise in income levels.
- It is named after a book I finished reading recently that revolves around the distinction between the newly rich and families with generational wealth.
- The author, writing in the early 1920s, was not satisfied with the title, suggesting the alternatives "Trimalchio in West Egg", "Under the Red, White, and Blue", and "Among Ash Heaps and Millionaires".
- Instead, the final title features the name of the main character.
Name the book and the author.
2.
- In the novel, the route from West Egg to Manhattan goes via a "valley of ashes", the author's reference to the Corona Ash Dumps in Queens.
- As part of a plan to create an industrial port, land was filled with trucked-in household coal ash and street sweepings, overwhelming what had once been beautiful grasslands.
- A central figure in New York City politics conceived of converting this dumping ground into a park and, with his control over the government machinery (as chronicled in a 1974 biography), swiftly created the park, popularly known by the neighborhood bordering Corona.
- Today, this park is the site of Citi Field (home of the New York Mets) and is also the venue of the US Open tennis tournament.
Name the park, the 1974 biography and/or the New York City official.
3.
- This term connotes a sense of upward mobility, evoking the ideals of democracy, rights, liberty, equality, and prosperity.
- In the words of George Carlin, this term got its name because "you have to be asleep to believe it".
- The novel I read expressed the author's disillusionment with this concept, particularly during the 1920s and 1930s, which was characterized by a new music and dance style, popularly featured in the 2013 cinematic adaptation.
- This age, overlapping with Prohibition, got a reputation as being immoral, threatening the old cultural values and promoting a new decadence, as portrayed in the novel.
What is the term? What is this period of time called?
4.
- The character of Jordan Baker is an example of this term, which refers to women who flouted social norms in the 1920s, particularly with their dressing sense.
- This term comes from the movement of the arms of bird-costumed, acrobatic young female performers.
What is the term?
5.
- Commissioned to prepare the cover art for The Great Gatsby, artist Francis Cugat's first draft featured the eye of a Jazz Age flapper overseeing a water body lying between Connecticut and this New York island (Island 1).
- This island (Island 1), the most populous one in the US, contains some of the wealthiest communities in the country, including the Hamptons and the Gold Coast. The transformation of Island 1 by its Parks Commissioner, Robert Moses, was described in the 1974 biography The Power Broker.
- The author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, who claimed to have coined the phrase "The American Dream", completed the novel before seeing the final draft of the cover, which replaces the water body with colourful carnival lights, evoking a recreational island (Island 2) in New York City.
- Two carousels from Island 2 were transported and combined into the New York World's Fair Carousel, located in Flushing Meadows.
Name the two islands.
Answers
The answers are on this page.