What We Can Know: Full-Book Quiz
Quiz Instructions
Answer all 20 questions. The quiz uses multiple-choice and short-answer formats. Use the supplied outline and your reading of the book. The complete answer key follows the questions.
Section 1: Plot and Sequence (8 questions)
1. In which year does the main dinner party for Vivien Blundy’s 54th birthday take place?
– A) 2010
– B) 2014
– C) 2021
– D) 2030
2. What does Tom find inside the steel container on the island (Chapter 21)?
– A) Francis’s vellum scroll
– B) Percy’s violin and a folder of prose
– C) A map to the lost oil company documents
– D) Vivien’s journals
3. Short answer: What is the name of the archivist at the Bodleian Snowdonia Library?
4. Which global catastrophe kills over 200 million people in 2042?
– A) The Third Sino-American War
– B) The Inundation
– C) The nuclear winter after the Russia-West conflict
– D) The Spanish flu resurgence
5. Short answer: What is the title of the lost poem that Francis Blundy gives to Vivien as a birthday present?
6. Who leads the student walkout during Tom and Rose’s introductory lecture?
– A) Kevin Howard
– B) Mabel Fisk
– C) Donald Drummond
– D) Lars Corbel
7. What illness does Francis Blundy receive a diagnosis for in 2017?
– A) Alzheimer’s disease
– B) Pancreatic cancer
– C) Tuberculosis
– D) Heart failure
8. Short answer: According to the Note (Chapter 23), what book is published in 2125, revealing the novel’s framing?
Section 2: Character Motivation (5 questions)
9. Why does Vivien Blundy object to publication of the Corona poem after Francis dies?
– A) She finds the dedication painful and resents how the poem misrepresents their marriage
– B) She believes the poem is poorly written
– C) She wants to sell the vellum privately
– D) She fears the oil bribe rumor will be confirmed
10. Short answer: What is Rose’s main objection to her husband Tom inventing inner lives for historical figures in his biography?
11. Why does Mary Sheldrake feel triumphant when she arrives at the Barn?
– A) She has just won a literary prize
– B) She is having her own affair and can guiltlessly dissolve her marriage
– C) She has found the lost Corona poem
– D) She has reconciled with her husband Graham
12. Why does Harry Kitchener decide to abandon his biography of Francis Blundy?
– A) He is intimidated by the poet’s fame
– B) The power of the Corona poem moves him to stop the project
– C) He runs out of funding
– D) He discovers a hidden affair and loses interest
13. Short answer: What drives the future historian (the narrator) to obsessively research the lost Corona poem?
Section 3: Theme and Symbol (4 questions)
14. What does the lost Corona poem become for survivors in the post-Inundation world?
– A) A historical curiosity with no real value
– B) A talisman of lost nature and a promise of a better future
– C) A political manifesto
– D) A religious text
15. According to the epigraph by Richard Holmes, what three things does biography ask about?
– A) Truth, justice, and mercy
– B) Knowledge, belief, and love
– C) Fact, fiction, and memory
– D) History, poetry, and science
16. Short answer: What term does the narrator use to describe how each generation forgets the level of environmental damage that came before?
17. The epigraph suggests that biography resembles both a friendship and a betrayal. Which of the following best captures this idea?
– A) The biographer creates a narrative that is both personal and public, often revealing private secrets
– B) The biographer always sides with the subject’s family
– C) The biographer ignores the truth to protect the subject
– D) The biographer writes only for academic approval
Section 4: Synthesis (3 questions)
18. Short answer: How does the author’s note (Chapter 24) affect the reader’s understanding of the novel’s hidden meanings?
19. Out of the ocean I’ve come, a book review: The novel frames itself as a future scholarly edition. This framing primarily serves to:
– A) Make the story seem more scientifically accurate
– B) Emphasize the constructed nature of historical knowledge and the ethical dilemmas of biography
– C) Allow the author to add science fiction elements
– D) Simplify the plot for readers
20. The narrator expects to find the lost Corona poem but finds Percy’s violin instead. This outcome suggests that:
– A) Historical research never yields expected results
– B) The true treasure of the past is often personal and symbolic rather than the desired artifact
– C) The violin is more valuable than the poem
– D) The narrator’s methods are flawed from the start
Answer Key
1. B) 2014. (Evidence: Chapter 3 describes the October 2014 dinner; also noted in Chapter 6 outline.)
2. B) Percy’s violin and a folder of prose. (Evidence: Chapter 21: “open it to find a violin (Percy’s violin) and a folder of prose”.)
3. Donald Drummond. (Evidence: Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 mention the archivist Donald Drummond.)
4. B) The Inundation. (Evidence: Chapter 15: “The Inundation of 2042 … More than 200 million died.”)
5. “A Corona for Vivien”. (Evidence: Consistent throughout, e.g., Chapter 1 and Chapter 6.)
6. A) Kevin Howard. (Evidence: Chapter 17: Kevin Howard stands and delivers a message, leading a choreographed walkout.)
7. B) Pancreatic cancer. (Evidence: Chapter 13: “In 2017, Francis received a pancreatic cancer diagnosis.”)
8. The Confessions of Vivien Blundy, edited by Thomas Metcalfe, with introduction by Rose Church and preface by Donald Drummond. (Evidence: Chapter 23.)
9. A) She finds the dedication painful and resents how the poem misrepresents their marriage. (Evidence: Chapter 13: “Vivien Blundy never destroyed the Corona poem, though she found the dedication painful” and “Vivien objected to publication.”)
10. Rose believes it is not the biographer’s business to invent inner lives for historical figures. (Evidence: Chapter 9: “It was not my business, she insisted, to invent.”)
11. B) She is having her own affair and can guiltlessly dissolve her marriage. (Evidence: Chapter 3: “She felt triumphantly released … she too was having an affair … She could guiltlessly dissolve the marriage.”)
12. B) The power of the Corona poem moves him to stop the project. (Evidence: Chapter 8: “Harry’s decision to abandon the biography” after hearing the poem; the outline says “the power of poetry”.)
13. The narrator is driven by a desire to connect with the past, understand the vanished world, and find meaning in the lost poem. (Evidence: Frequent reflections on nostalgia and historical empathy, e.g., chapters 9, 15.)
14. B) A talisman of lost nature and a promise of a better future. (Evidence: Chapter 15: “a talisman to the survivors and a promise of a better future.”)
15. B) Knowledge, belief, and love. (Evidence: Chapter 1 epigraph: “It asks what we can know, and what we can believe, and finally what we can love.”)
16. Shifting baseline effect. (Evidence: Chapter 16: “reflecting on the shifting baseline effect.”)
17. A) The biographer creates a narrative that is both personal and public, often revealing private secrets. (Evidence: Epigraph says biography “makes it both his own (like a friendship) and the public’s (like a betrayal).”)
18. The author’s note states that nothing related to the novel is buried anywhere, asserting transparency and denying hidden puzzles, inviting interpretation based on explicit content. (Evidence: Chapter 24.)
19. B) Emphasize the constructed nature of historical knowledge and the ethical dilemmas of biography. (Evidence: The entire novel questions what can be known and the inventions required to tell a story.)
20. B) The true treasure of the past is often personal and symbolic rather than the desired artifact. (Evidence: The discovery of Percy’s violin reconfigures the narrator’s understanding; the poem remains lost, but the violin represents personal history.)
For deeper analysis, see our comprehensive book overview, questions and answers, and ending explanation.