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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. What car company does Howie consider to do a good job with knobs?

2. What does Howie use the cardboard from his dry cleaned shirts for?

3. What word does Howie feel he says too often?

4. How does Howie's co-worker Ray hurt his back?

5. What does Howie purchase as a reward for making his garbage truck realization?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Howie mean by "the rule of nostalgia"?

2. Why does Howie consider the purchase of a rubber stamp to be one of his advancements?

3. What are Howie's thoughts on shopping bags?

4. What does Howie believe to be the four reasons why it is good for brain cells to die?

5. What does Howie mean by "vibratiuncles of comparison"?

6. What observations does Howie make about straws while he was at Papa Gino's?

7. What compelling realization does Howie remember when driving behind a garbage truck when he is thirty?

8. Where is Howie when he believes that his great period of growth as a human has ended?

9. What is Howie's feeling about ice cube trays?

10. What does Howie consider to be his sixth major advancement in life?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the theme of the innate philosopher in everyone and how it resonates throughout the book.

Essay Topic 2

What are some of the trivialities, interconnections with other people and thoughts outside of its main subject, tangents, abrupt thoughts that must not be lost and so on that the author illustrates in the footnotes? What greater truth is contained in these?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the aesthetic distance created in the novel and the reader's experience of spending the entire time inside Howie's thoughts.

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This section contains 823 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample