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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. In which of the following districts of Bombay does Rushdie report having lived?
(a) Byculla.
(b) Malabar Hill.
(c) Tardeo.
(d) Breach Candy.

2. To which of the following does Rushdie compare Joseph Heller?
(a) Rudolph Valentino.
(b) Buster Keaton.
(c) Charlie Chaplin.
(d) Stan Laurel.

3. With which of the following does Rushdie note Roth lived?
(a) Molly Bloom.
(b) Molly Danes.
(c) Claire Bloom.
(d) Claire Danes.

4. What ranking does Slaughterhouse-Five enjoy in the Modern Library’s list of the best English-language novels of the twentieth century?
(a) 15th.
(b) 9th.
(c) 18th.
(d) 12th.

5. Which of the following is attributed to Edward Bond?
(a) Blessed.
(b) Damned.
(c) Cursed.
(d) Saved.

Short Answer Questions

1. In what year does Rushdie note having first read Portnoy’s Complaint?

2. At which of the following universities did Rushdie study?

3. The phrase “sui generis” most nearly means which of the following?

4. Which of the following is carried in effigy in the Ganpati festival?

5. As which of the following does Rushdie rename Death?

Short Essay Questions

1. In what way does Rushdie contrast the animal fables of “the Eastern canon” with those represented by Aesop?

2. What, from context, does Rushdie mean by saying “English, I understood, could be chutnified” (91)?

3. Why do the deaths of Cervantes and Shakespeare occur on the same date but not the same day?

4. Paraphrase Roth’s reported comment to Remnick about setting a novel in a therapist’s office?

5. For what reason does Carlos Fuentes remark that Latin American writers hesitate to use the word “solitude”?

6. What is the central conceit of Now It Can Be Told?

7. Why does Rushdie note he initially resisted reading One Hundred Years of Solitude?

8. What lessons does Rushdie find in the story of Orpheus and Eurydice?

9. For what reason does Rushdie report Scheherazade pled for her life to be spared by her husband?

10. What does Rushdie assert that falling in love with stories awakens in children?

(see the answer keys)

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