A LITERARY WAR QUIZ: Books, plays, poems and films about World War I

Here's the literary quiz I devised for the Chiswick Book Festival. You can't enter (sorry!), because you had to be there. But if you have an hour or two to while away, and have access to the internet (I'm not sure I'd have got more than 23 or 24 of the 55 available marks without recourse to the web - and I chose the questions!), it might amuse you to have a go. I'll be able to let you know how well you fared against the competition at the end of the month, and will provide the answers at the same time. Good luck!

1. Who wrote: "If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied"

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2. What is the Anglicised title of the German anti-war novel Im Westen nichts Neues

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3. Which poet provided the title for Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 novel set during the Italian campaign?

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4. The first line of the fourth stanza of which notable poem of remembrance forms the acronym: TSGNOAWTALGO

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5. Who was The Last Fighting Tommy?

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6. Which fictional WWI veteran – the hero of a hugely popular series of post-war thrillers - was described by the poet Cecil Day Lewis as “an unspeakable public school bully”?

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7. Who was suffering from shell shock in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway?

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8. In which story did a famous fictional detective utter the supposedly prophetic words: “There’s an east wind coming…”?

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9. Complete the third line (clue: it’s in Latin):

“My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children, ardent for some desperate glory,

The old lie: …........…    ”

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10. “Joey” was the star of a children’s book, a prize-winning West End play and a film. What was Joey?

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11. A notable WWI play and a notable WWI tetralogy of novels both ended in “End” – name both

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12. A poignant eight-line poem’s last line yields the acronym: “AWYSYRMOTD” – what is the actual line?

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13. In which novel does a granddaughter try to decipher her grandfather’s WWI journals?

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14. What was the title of Shirley’s mum’s memoirs covering WWI? (1 point)

And who played Shirley’s mum in the 1979 TV adaptation? (1 point)

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15. A 1917 song which started with the lines “Up to your waist in water/ Up to your eyes in slush” provided the title for a 1960s musical. Name the musical.
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16. In which battle were ghostly Agincourt archers supposed to have helped British troops? (1 point)

And who wrote the story which gave rise to the myth? (1 point)

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17. What connects Dr Evil and a fictional WWI flying ace?

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18. In which trilogy of novels is the real-life psychologist Dr. W.H.R. Rivers one of the main characters?

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19. In which collection of WWI-set spy stories does the Hairless Mexican appear?

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20. Give the title (in English) of a darkly comic Czech novel about a WWI soldier

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21. A member of the Hollywood Ten wrote a novel about an American soldier horribly injured by an exploding artillery shell. Give the title of the novel.

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22. Give the first name of the fictional character who plans to fake insanity by sticking pencils up his nose, wearing underpants on his head, and going “wibble, wibble”?

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23. What turned out to be the location of “some corner of a foreign field/ That is forever England”?

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24. In which 1987 novel does John James Todd, fighting on the Western Front, find himself being targeted by a homicidal Scottish soldier?

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25. Who wrote: “My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”

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26. A “psalm-singing, skinny old maid” was the heroine of a 1935 novel set in Central Africa at the start of WWI.

Give the book’s title and author. (1 point).

Name the stars of the film version. (1 point)

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27. In a 1916 Spanish novel with a “revelatory” title, the sons-in-law of an Argentinian land-owner find themselves fighting on opposite sides in WWI. The English translation was the best-selling book in the US in 1919. Give the English  title and author.

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28. The most commercially successful film of 1941 was a biographical account of an American WWI sharpshooter – name it.

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29. One of the 20^th Century’s most famous comic strip characters often imagined himself fighting a genuine WWI fighter ace. Name the character and the ace (the latter’s nickname will do).

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30. In a classic 1930s French film, a group of imprisoned French officers plot their escape from the Germans. Give its title.

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31. Which event was the subject of the 2005 film, Joyeux Noel?

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32. In which autobiographical book did Aircraftman Shaw describe his experiences during WWI?

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33. Its authorship is contested, but this epic novel concerning the experiences of Cossacks during the years of WWI won its author the Nobel Prize for Literature. Name the book.

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34. Which poet was the character David Cromlech in Siegfried Sassoon’s Memoirs of an Infantry Officer based on?

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35. “David Cromlech” (see previous question) had already published a compelling novelised account of his own WWI experiences by the time Memoirs of an Infantry Officer was published in 1930. Name the book.

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36. A young British actor played Harry in a series of non-WW1 films, then Jack in a TV movie – who was Jack?

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37. Four French soldiers were unfairly court-martialled for ”cowardice” in this 1935 novel, later filmed.

Name the book (1 point).

Name the famous poem from which the title was taken (1 point).

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38. This GBS play, set on the eve of the war, was not set in a hotel. Name the play, including its subtitle.

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39. A slip of paper with the words “Kasredin”, “cancer” and “v.l.” on it leads to the uncovering a dastardly German plot to foment trouble in the Muslim world. Name the novel.

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40. Give the astrological, upwardly-mobile title of this BBC co-founder’s account of his Military Cross-winning exploits as a WWI fighter ace.

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41. “If I were fierce, and bald, and short of
       breath,

      I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base…”

Supply the next line.

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42. Name the film – made during the war - in which the hero dreams of capturing 13 Germans by throwing foul-smelling cheese into their trench.

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43.  What was the name of the medal which pilot Lt. Bruno Stachel tries to win in the novel and film named after it?

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44.  Name the novel – later filmed – in which Charles Rainier wakes up in a Liverpool asylum in 1919 unable to remember the last two years of his life. As WWII approaches he tries to solve the mystery of his missing years.

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45. Who wrote the poem whose first line and title form the acronym “WYSMOTMD”?

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47. Who connects a musical about Queen and a detective novel about the investigation into the inexplicable shooting of a titled soldier and war poet. 

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48. Which novel about WWI – the last in a trilogy - won the Booker Prize?

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49. Published a year after the war, this attack on the Versailles Treaty helped establish the international reputation of the British economist who wrote it. Name the book.

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50. Which minister in Mrs. Thatcher’s government wrote a scathing non-fiction  account of British generals’ conduct of the 1915 Western front offensives. (1 point)

And which type of animal did he compare them to in the title of his book? (1point)

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