Note from Aunt Mary: Today I'm thrilled to bring you a guest post by a dear and talented friend. Krista wrote this fun quiz last month and I had it scheduled for posting last week, but decided it was not the right moment for the lighthearted mood and invited a discussion on the facebook page instead. This week I've decided to get back to scheduled posts. I enjoyed this quiz very much and hope you do, too; I had not read any of these, so now I have some fun new books to enjoy as (some degree of) quarantine continues! Without further ado, enjoy.
By following Aunt Mary’s instructions you have already found out which 19th century classic tome and which modern brick you ought to be reading while in quarantine. But let’s be honest—the world is falling apart and you’d rather read something short, happy, and maybe a little bit escapist. True? Yep, so let’s find out which literary fairy-tale fits your mood.
1. You want our story to take place in…
A. Phantasmorania when Oberon was king of the fairies
B. The kingdom of Lagobel so long ago I have forgotten the date
C. The Grand Ducal house of Fugger-Babenhausen one hundred and twenty years ago
D. An unspecified Germanic kingdom in the 1890s
E. Euralia during its charming golden period so diligently chronicled by Sir Roger Scurvilegs
2. Should there be magic?
A. A little, but good advice and hard work is more useful
B. Magic sounds delightful
C. The magic hour is the best time to stealth-paint portraits
D. Only the magic of mathematics and true love—but you can have a prophecy so long as it is fulfilled naturalistically
E. Yes, give me invisibility cloaks, seven-league boots, magic rings, enchantments, the works!
3. Are you tired of christenings?
A. Never—that’s classic.
B. I’ll bet half the kingdom the king forgets to invite his own sister.
C. Like the kind of christening where you hope the archbishop’s eyesight is dodgy? I love it.
D. I’m down for a darker take on the christening—what if something is wrong with the baby?
E. Skip!
4. How do you feel about unusual health conditions?
A. Actually, perfect health was one of my christening gifts.
B. I’ll call in all my court metaphysicians and make a thousand puns about it.
C. Like, rosacea?
D. Let’s explore physical disability and the psychologically crippling effects of royal life.
E. Finding the right diet for your health condition is paramount—and surprisingly tricky if you have the, er, delicate apparatus of a lion.
5. What’s your favorite flower?
A. Lavenders blue, dilly dilly
B. Dandelions, but just the fluff
C. The slim, white lily
D. An ancient breed of roses that have smelled only of decay for a hundred years
E. Hyacinths
6. What’s your favorite color?
A. Amethyst
B. Gold
C. A sharp, steel-bright white
D. The color of crushed dreams
E. I wear green when the muse is upon me.
7. Are you hungry?
A. Bring me peacock, boar’s head, and an Italian cake so tall you need a ladder.
B. Give me wine and food by your own hand.
C. I am nourished by my sense of honor.
D. No food for the tortured soul, thanks.
E. Watercress sandwiches don’t suit the tail but they go with the ears.
8. How much forest do you need?
A. Give me all the moss, ferns, and flowers of the Forest of Faraway.
B. I hope the forest has lakes for semi-nude bathing.
C. You said there was a lake for nude bathing? Please make sure there is also space for military exercises.
D. I’m dying for an ecological side-plot about leaf mold.
E. Sometimes one tree where you go to be thoughtful is just as good.
9. Do you like poetry?
A. “Lavenders blue, rosemary green, when you are king, I will be queen”
B. I don’t mind a few incidental songs.
C. No poems, thanks.
D. Not really, but you can quote a line from The Magic Flute.
E. I’m a slave to light verse.
10. Do you like animals?
A. I like a variety of forest creatures.
B. No, thanks.
C. I’ll exercise the horses for you.
D. Pheasants, please.
E. The lion, the woolly lamb, the rabbit, anything strokeable.
11. What about letters?
A. Don’t read them to me, but tell me how many servants it took to address them all.
B. No letters, please.
C. I write long letters about art and seduction to my best friend, the countess.
D. I keep my feelings locked within—it saves postage.
E. I’m ready to write a Stiff Note to anyone who disturbs my breakfast.
12. How do you feel about undress?
A. Sitting by the window in a petticoat! Scandal!
B. Time to swim in my nightdress!
C. Who needs clothes?
D. I wear extra-long sleeves to cover my deformed hand.
E. I keep my clothes on, thank you….and I look fabulous.
13. How much do you want to hear about castle servants?
A. Lots! Who takes home party leftovers? How do kitchen maids feel about extra washing up?
B. I’m ready for the adventures of John, Susan, Jane, and Thomas.
C. Tell me all the gamekeeper’s son-in-law’s old grudges!
D. I could hear about one or two faithful retainers if it is relevant to the plot.
E. Only if it is funny; tell me of Wiggs dusting the throne and the Chancellor getting kicked seven leagues!
14. Your idea of a princess is...
A. Gray eyed, freckled, with a propensity for climbing down wisteria vines
B. Gorgeous and a total psychopath
C. I’m more interested in her Valkyrie-like maid of honor
D. A biracial American heiress who loves math
E. Polite, intelligent, and secretly mischievous in a small way
15. What about a prince?
A. Princes are tiresome. Is there a man-of-all-work I could date instead?
B. He is unfailingly polite no matter how dire the circumstance.
C. He’s a good chess player, but I have a prior engagement to my childhood friend.
D. He’s sensitive and damaged, but able to summon courage to pursue love and his country’s good.
E. I’m not keen on the name Udo; is his best friend available?
16. What sort of problems should your protagonists face?
A. Threat of engineered dragon-abduction, dirty dishes, tailoring
B. Physical and psychological in-firm-ity (a problem of real gravity)
C. A seduction plot and a kidnapped baby
D. The conflict between court aloofness the intimacy required by friendship and love. Also, national bankruptcy
E. A humorous bewitchment. War with Barodia! Also, embezzlement of the army budget to fund calisthenics and the fine arts
17. What’s your favorite weird motivation?
A. My motivations are weirdly ordinary.
B. The kind of boredom that makes you sail a baby like a kite
C. Obsession with the idea of making someone blush like the Alps in sunset
D. Aversion to dances through having been mocked at one as a child
E. Addiction to throwing largess
18. What do you consider the height of romance?
A. Ditching work to eat leftover ice cream late at night
B. Banter and physical contact in the swimming pool
C. Looking magnificent, saving your country, and forbidding your loved one to think of you
D. Engineering an economic bailout of your country together
E. Dropping pebbles in the stream with a thoughtful air
19. Should anyone/thing die?
A. No deaths, thanks.
B. If they do I’ll laugh like a hyena.
C. No, but please have ghost jokes about the fate of Abelard.
D. Anyone who can’t bear happy endings will be forced to commit suicide.
E. Death to bad facial hair!
20. Should there be pictures?
A. Yes—the author’s own beautiful illustrations
B. I’ll take a ballet version.
C. Yes, please have Herr Cazotte paint them.
D. I can picture it in my mind, thanks.
E. Like this??
RESULTS
What you should read if you got…
Mostly As: The Ordinary Princess (M.M. Kaye)
Prepare to enjoy M.M. Kaye’s delightful novelette of a princess whose curse (or gift) is to be ordinary. Climb down the wisteria vine and find true love with the handsome young man-of-all-work who is ready to picnic in the forest on his day off.
Mostly Bs: The Light Princess (George Macdonald)
What is to be done with a princess who has lost her gravity? Read this beautiful and whimsical tale of a floating (and unsettlingly cheerful) princess to find out. Macdonald explores his premise with a light touch, devastating (if humorous) logic, and ALL THE PUNS!
This one is in the public domain and available for free in ebook and audiobook.
Mostly Cs: Ehrengard (Isak Dineson/Karen Blixen)
Will Herr Cazotte succeed in his plot to make Ehrengaard, the general’s stalwart and no-nonsense daughter blush? And can the Ducal House of Fugger Babenhause keep its delicately timed royal pregnancy secret and safe? The last story by Dineson, author of Babette’s Feast and Out of Africa and one of her finest. It is considered her response to Kierkegaard’s A Seducer’s Diary.
Mostly Ds: Royal Highness (Thomas Mann)
The author who brought you plague-classic Death in Venice and tuberculosis-classic The Magic Mountain tries his hand at a naturalistic fairy tale. Will the crippled prince be able to overcome the toxic ideas of royalty that make love impossible? Only if he suffers first… but then it wouldn’t be a proper Thomas Mann novel if there weren’t some suffering!
This one is in the public domain and available for free in ebook and audiobook.
Mostly Es: Once on a Time (A.A. Milne)
Put on a green dress, dust off your diary, and mend your feather pens because after you read Milne’s favorite of his works you will be writing sonnets in praise of Countess Belvane! Never mind that she is the ‘villain’ of the tale. Also, prepare to enjoy breakfast-etiquette spats between Eurelia and Barodia, the discomfiture of Prince Udo, a lovely, understated romance, and Wiggs’ longing to dance like a fairy.
This one is in the public domain and available for free in ebook and audiobook.
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