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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Approximately how many Moulinards live at the commune?

2. What weapon does the narrator have for others’ use?

3. What was the name of Bruno’s older brother?

4. What agent had failed to apprehend Pascal?

5. Where had René worked?

Short Essay Questions

1. How was Bruno’s older brother identified after World War II?

2. Of what does René’s smell remind the narrator?

3. What does the narrator remark agents do after their infiltrative assignments end?

4. Why does the narrator doubt Pascal’s violent intentions?

5. Per Pascal, why does Bruno part from his erstwhile Marxist associates?

6. Why do the old anglers in Guyenne want to go to Oklahoma to fish?

7. What prevents Lucien from filming in the Alpilles?

8. Why does the narrator voice skepticism of the commune to Pascal?

9. Why does Lucien posit there are stickers posted in the lodgings the narrator occupies?

10. In the novel, what is an épicerie?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How reliable is the narrator of the novel? What in the text indicates that reliability, and how does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

Readerly attention makes much of the narrator’s comment that “Charisma does not originate inside the person called ‘charismatic.’ It comes from the need of others to believe that special people exist” (17). Do the novel and experience bear out the comment? How or how not?

Essay Topic 3

What is the novel’s overall impression of humanity? What in the text indicates as much, and how does it do so?

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