A Contest for the Erudite

This is the slowest blanket I have ever knit.

I have been working on this double-sided blanket now for months, doing most of the work in the Schechter parking lot while waiting for Olive to get out of school.  It's also come with me to Olive's psychiatric appointments, since, odd as it sounds, Olive usually does not.  It's been to the waiting room of my dentist, Dr. Teenie-Tiny, all the way in Andersonville.  Sometimes it's gone on car trips where I thought I was going to knit, but only ended up adding mileage to the blanket's soul.  You might assume it's been to see Dr. Bow-tie, but it has not because he has excellent news magazines in his waiting room (People and Us Weekly).

It's made several sojourns to the back porch to be photographed.

Last year I spent an ungodly amount of time working on this blanket, for Henry:

It took roughly as long to knit as it took for the Prozac to kick in and give me relief instead of spilkes.  Now Olive is the one with the spilkes, and since it's so much harder to pinpoint what is and is not working for her, it makes sense that the accompanying Supplemental While-U-Wait Project should take even longer.

I've been dragging this blanket around with me so long it's actually showing signs of wear, on the Kidsilk Haze side.

It would have been wiser for me to knit the two sides separately instead of attached, but who knew the switch from Zoloft to Paxil would cause such difficulty for Olive?   Hopefully some aggressive blocking will make the finished product less careworn.  You can see the places where I've put in temporary basting stitches, to ensure I don't knit the merino part longer than the Kidsilk Haze part.

Today is the day we officially give up on the Paxil, and hopefully, Olive will have some relief soon.  If I showed you the pick marks she's made all over her left arm and on the inside of her mouth you would cry, so I won't do that.  She is, quite literally, not comfortable in her skin.

Instead we'll have a little contest to divert us.  Usual rules: Perlman DNA okay this time; make your guesses in the comments section.  Resist the temptation to Google but if you must, make sure you make your guess sounds extra tentative.  Feel free to piggy back on someone else's guess. 

The prize is also the usual: yarn for knitters, or a Starbucks gift card for those who abstain.  I'll do the drawing on Monday.

Here's the question:

What great opening sentence am I, very roughly, paraphrasing in the opening sentence of this blog entry?  Title of novel and author, please.  Clues: for once, American readers don't have the advantage here, and I'm pretty sure I've listed it before as my favorite novel of all times next to Yates' Revolutionary Road.  I'm pretty sure it was also the favorite novel of Richard Yates himself.

Oh, and since I can hear Reader Tom from here, complaining, Dammit!  I know this one but I don't knit and I find Starbucks coffee overly bright and cistrusy, I offer a third prize option: a hardcover copy of the book itself.  Unsigned of course, since the author died in 1939.  Whoops, another clue!

Comments

[Catherine]

Well, I feel quite ignorant after reading this because I have no idea what the book is. I guess the only consolation I have is that if it were science related I might know what it is. Oh well, no yarn or book for me, but I hope someone out there knows. Cheers!

[Lo]

I knew it even before I saw there was a contest, but I'll recuse myself on the grounds of being your personal literary advisor.

[Jen]

Let the record show that this is one book *I* told *you* about.

[Annie D.]

I'll take a guess! I didn't Google, but I did go through your archives. At first I thought it was from your December 29, 2008 entry entitled, It's About Hair. The story, Dog Heaven by Stephanie Vaughn (in her collection called Sweet Talk)....but it's a short story and I believe this author is still alive. So I read on and enjoyed the past entries and everyone looking younger! My best guess is that your favorite novel next to Yates is: The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig. And the Endless Steppe would be a similar analogy to, "slowest blanket I have ever knit"?!

[Miss Susan]

"Everyone Poops" by Taro Gomi.

[Michelle]

Arg - there you go being all high brow again and here I am with yarn lust and next to no knowledge of literature. CURSES!

I even shamelessly Googled the heck out of Erudite and found nothing but a bunch of French websites. Mon dieu, que lastima!

[TXC]

Reader Tom says he can't think of an answer at the moment, and if the above commenter is correct, he's never even heard of that book.

[Tamara]

You've never heard of "Everyone Poops"?!

[Brenda o Connor]

ford maddox ford
The Good Soldier .
I love this book too !
Brenda

[The Coffee Lady]

I hate literature competitions. They just serve to remind me how much I forgot.

If Brenda is right, I've even read the damn book 20-odd years back, and can remember NONE of it.

[Kathy]

What Brenda said! I didn't google it, I swear. I just remembered it was your favorite. And then she beat me to it.

[Laura]

Um, I was a history major, so unless this was written by a committee and edited by a department chair, I probably have no idea.

Good luck to the others! I could probably get behind the "Everybody Poops" bandwagon.... hee!

[Tamara]

That is a pretty dang loose translation of the opening line of that deeply disturbing novel. I don't remember any knitting in The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford. I read it shortly before I got married. . .whoa! (This is my official answer. The other thing was trying to be cheeky to Reader Tom.)

[Barbara]

There aren't any dachshunds in The Good Soldier, are there?

[quiltyknitwit]

I'm guessing Ford Maddox Ford because I seem to remember, "This is the saddest story I ever read," or something to that effect ... if I win I want the Starbucks card ... because I'm guessing you don't have Peets where you are. Nice knitting BTW!

[Amie]

I will guess The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford as well.

[Alice C]

You're all wrong...

it's a paraphrase of the Prologue in Romeo & Juliet

*dusts hands*

[kmkat]

I was going to say Accounting for Dummies, since that is the hardest book to read, but I decline. Clearly I am wrong.

[Amelia]

Argh! WV keeps defeating me. I have no idea what the answer is. First lines never stay with me. Sometimes characters names don't even stay with me. But I also love The Endless Steppe. It was one of my favourite high school books along with Dibs in Search of Self and (yawn) To Kill a Mockingbird.

[Lisa]

I thought of the saddest story, but had no clue of its author or title until I read the posts above...The Good Soldier. Also the posts made me want to read The Endless Steppe to my daughters!

[TXC]

I give up. Signed, Reader Tom.