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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What prevents the narrator from telling Ari about his origins?
(a) Ari’s wife shows up.
(b) Maggie phones him.
(c) A violet headache.
(d) Gulliver interrupts.

2. How does the narrator demonstrate his powers to Gulliver?
(a) He turns a brown leaf green in his hand.
(b) He hypnotizes Gulliver.
(c) He shows Gulliver the gifts in his left hand.
(d) He shows him how he healed Newton’s pains.

3. Why do the hosts tell the narrator to be careful?
(a) Because they are listening.
(b) Because they have sent a replacement.
(c) Because the fate of the universe depends on his actions.
(d) Because he might be disciplined.

4. What does the narrator say when Isobel describes the early days of her courtship with Andrew Martin?
(a) That was a lifetime ago.
(b) He must have loved you.
(c) Those people are dead, now.
(d) I really loved you then.

5. Why does the narrator put his hand on the stove?
(a) To show Gulliver that he is willing to suffer for him.
(b) To make himself feel something.
(c) To evoke Isobel’s sympathy.
(d) To burn away the hosts’ ability to listen to his life.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the narrator say the point of love is?

2. What is life like for the narrator after he loses his gifts?

3. How does the narrator dispose of the replacement’s body?

4. Why does the narrator want to replace the purple sofa?

5. Where does the narrator go at the end of the novel?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the narrator learn from reading Isobel’s novel Wider than the Sky?

2. What explanation does the narrator offer the hosts, for his inability to perform the task he was sent to perform?

3. What is the secret Ari has been keeping for Andrew Martin?

4. How does the narrator dispose of the replacement’s body?

5. What is the general tendency in the advice the narrator writes out for his son (and for the reader)?

6. What happens when the narrator tells Isobel about having sex with Maggie?

7. What happens when the narrator sets Gulliver up to fight Theo “The Fucking Business” Clarke (181)?

8. How does the narrator get Gulliver’s buy-in for his authority and power?

9. Why does the narrator put his hand on the AGA where the replacement’s hand had been burned?

10. What happens to prevent the narrator killing Gulliver?

(see the answer keys)

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