question: When Marilynne Robinson published her first novel, Housekeeping, in 1980, she was unknown in the literary world. But an early review in The New York Times ensured that the book would be noticed. "It's as if, in writing it, she broke through the ordinary human condition with all its dissatisfactions, and achieved a kind of transfiguration ," wrote Anatole Broyard, with an enthusiasm and amazement that was shared by many critics and readers. The book became a classic, and Robinson was recognized as one of the outstanding American writers of our time. Yet it would be more than twenty years before she wrote another novel. 

During the period, Robinson devoted herself to writing nonfiction. Her essays and book reviews appeared in Harper's and The New York Times Book Review, and in 1989 she published Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution, criticizing severely the environmental and public health dangers caused by the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in England--and the political and moral corruption . In 1998, Robinson published a collection of her critical and theological writings, The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought, which featured reassessments of such figures as Charles Darwin, John Calvin, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Aside from a single short story--"Connie Bronson," published in The Paris Review in 1986--it wasn't until 2004 that she returned to fiction with the novel Gilead, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her third novel, Home, came out this fall. 

Her novels could be described as celebrations of the human--the characters in them are unforgettable creations. Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her sister Lucille, who are cared for by their eccentric Aunt Sylvie after their mother commits suicide. Robinson writes a lot about how each of the three is changed by their new life together. Gilead is an even more close exploration of personality: the book centres on John Ames, a seventy-seven-year-old pastor who is writing an account of his life and his family history to leave to his young son after he dies. Home borrows characters from Gilead but centers on Ames's friend Reverend Robert Boughton and his troubled son Jack. Robinson returned to the same territory as Gilead because, she said, "after I write a novel or a story, I miss the characters--I feel like losing some close friends."
1. Which book by Robinson is about Ruth and her sister Lucille?
2. When was it written?
3. How many years passed before she wrote another novel?
4. What did she write in between?
5. What did she publish in 1989?
6. And where did some of her essays and book reviews show up?
7. What did she publish in 1998?
8. What figures did it reassess?
9. What single short story did she write?
10. What did Anatole Broyard say about Housekeeping?
11. Who published Connie Bronson?
12. In what year?
13. When did Robinson start writing fiction again?
14. What was the name of the novel she wrote then?
15. When does her novel, Home, come out?
16. What happens to Ruth and Lucille's mother in Housekeeping?
17. Who takes care of them then?
18. What does the book Gilead center on?
19. How old is Ames?
20. Who is he writing his book for?
****
answer: 1. Housekeeping.
2. 1980.
3. More than twenty.
4. Nonfiction.
5. Mother Country: Britain.
6. Harper's and The New York Times Book Review
7. The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought,
8. Charles Darwin and John Calvin.
9. Connie Bronson
10. "It's as if, in writing it, she broke through the ordinary human condition with all its dissatisfactions, and achieved a kind of transfiguration
11. The Paris Review.
12. 1986
13. 2004
14. Gilead.
15. This fall.
16. She commits suicide.
17. Their Aunt Sylvie.
18. John Ames.
19. 77.
20. His son.


question: CHAPTER XI 

VON BEHRLING'S FATE 

It seemed to Louise that she had scarcely been in bed an hour when the more confidential of her maids--Annette, the Frenchwoman--woke her with a light touch of the arm. She sat up in bed sleepily. 

"What is it, Annette?" she asked. "Surely it is not mid-day yet? Why do you disturb me?" 

"It is barely nine o'clock, Mademoiselle, but Monsieur Bellamy--Mademoiselle told me that she wished to receive him whenever he came. He is in the boudoir now, and very impatient." 

"Did he send any message?" 

"Only that his business was of the most urgent," the maid replied. 

Louise sighed,--she was really very sleepy. Then, as the thoughts began to crowd into her brain, she began also to remember. Some part of the excitement of a few hours ago returned. 

"My bath, Annette, and a dressing-gown," she ordered. "Tell Monsieur Bellamy that I hurry. I will be with him in twenty minutes." 

To Bellamy, the twenty minutes were minutes of purgatory. She came at last, however, fresh and eager; her hair tied up with ribbon, she herself clad in a pink dressing-gown and pink slippers. 

"David!" she cried,--"my dear David--!" 

Then she broke off. 

"What is it?" she asked, in a different tone. 

He showed her the headlines of the newspaper he was carrying. 

"Tragedy!" he answered hoarsely. "Von Behrling was true, after all,--at least, it seems so." 

"What has happened?" she demanded. 

Bellamy pointed once more to the newspaper. 

"He was murdered last night, within fifty yards of the place of our rendezvous." 
1. Whose fate are we likely to learn of?
2. Did someone wake Louise by hitting her over the head?
3. How, then?
4. By who?
5. What country is she from?
6. Was Louise still very sleepy?
7. Had she been excited some hours ago?
8. What did she want Annette to fix for her immediately?
9. And what did she want after that?
10. Who did she want Annette to deliver a message to?
11. Where was he waiting?
12. Did Louise wish to convey she was taking her time, or hurrying?
13. How long did she say she'd be with him in?
14. What's Bellamy's first name?
15. Did the twenty minutes he spent waiting feel very long to him?
16. Was his business urgent?
17. What time in the morning is it?
18. What color gown did Louise end up wearing?
19. What did she wear to match it?
20. What had David brought to show her?
****
answer:
1. VON BEHRLING'S
2. no
3. a touch on the arm
4. Annette
5. France
6. yes
7. yes
8. her bath
9. a dressing-gown
10. Monsieur Bellamy
11. the boudoir
12. hurrying
13. twenty minutes.
14. David
15. yes
16. yes
17. nine o'clock
18. pink
19. slippers
20. a newspaper