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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. In which of the following is Coalhouse Walker a character?

2. What is the name of the first cow to appear in Norse myth?

3. Which of the following is Rushdie’s first published novel?

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

5. Which of the following does Rushdie use as a name for Chicago?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Rushdie assert that visitors to New York City feel they know it when they arrive there?

2. What reason for enjoying Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” does Rushdie note?

3. How does Rushdie define childhood in “Heraclitus” (57)?

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

5. What effect does Rushdie note of Romanian orphans having no access to stories?

6. Why is Rushdie grateful for the mixed reception of his first published novel?

7. Why does Rushdie note that the Philip Roth Lecture he gives takes Roth as its topic?

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

9. What does Rushdie remark the phase “so it goes” is used to euphemize?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What literary reference is the most important of Languages of Truth? How does the anthology support such an assertion?

Essay Topic 2

Overall, what is the most important theme of Languages of Truth. What in the text indicates as much? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

In “Heraclitus,” Rushdie asserts “These are the four roots of the self: language, place, community, custom” (58). Does your experience bear out the assertion? How or how not?

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