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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. Of which of the following was Shah Zaman ruler?

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

3. To which of the following does Rushdie report his parents moved?

4. Which of Rushdie’s novels does he note Philip Roth read?

5. Which of the following novels does Rushdie reference?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Rushdie identify as the primary value of the protean in literature?

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

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

4. How does Rushdie report Slaughterhouse-Five presents war?

5. Why does Rushdie note it took him so long to write his second published novel as it did?

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

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

8. What does Rushdie note struck him most on his first reading of Portnoy’s Complaint?

9. What answer to the question of difficult reading does Rushdie propose?

10. What does Rushdie note was his first attraction to Thousand Nights and One Night?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

If the anthology were a work of fiction and nothing else about the work were changed, how reliable would the narrator be? Why?

Essay Topic 2

What does Rushdie gain from disparaging the works of other writers? That is, what effect is created by his doing so, and how does it work to the advantage of the anthology?

Essay Topic 3

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

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