0QUESTION
Directions for questions 4 to 6: The passage given below is followed by a set of three questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.
Okay, I’m getting tired of it now. If ‘A Lion among Men’ were the second book in “The Wicked Years,” I Would have probably liked it as much as I liked the actual second book in “The Wicked Years.” It’s a similar formula: take a not-terribly-sympathetic minor character and flesh him out in context. It’s the Cowardly Lion’s back-story this time. We saw Brrr (did Baum name him that?) in a couple of brief cameos in Wicked, and now it’s an illumination of the life lived in between being a motherless cub and a surprised, chucked aside adult member of the Dorothy team, as well as some events after. More engagingly, Maguire also fleshes out several of the bizarre bit players that have been circling the margins of the story till now. And really, more of this and less of that, please. It starts off well, with a heretofore rare Yackle point of view, a scene from the scarred eyes of the old bat that’s been pestering the characters with prophetic catcalls for a couple of books now. She demands her fellow nuns to lower her into the crypt, to hasten the end of the burden of her life and sweep her out after a year. The suicide is a near-comical, near-chilling failure. Deliciously macabre, (“wicked”), which is not my go-to place for entertainment, but a hell of an entrance in this case. The other secondary characters are almost this good too, but soon enough we’re with the Lion again, and his personal history gets Lion’s share of print. Some new folds in the character are revealed, and it wasn’t badly done, but it more coloured in the outline of his character than expanded it. And it costs us, readers, 200 pages of retreading old backstory, even while the author is telegraphing a larger plot and doing nothing about it. Now that these Oz books are a committed series instead of an entertainingly revisionist standalone, now that it’s a story arc, in other words, there’s an entirely different pacing at play. Or maybe it was all fine, and it was just too soon to get back in. The history of the Cowardly Cub picks up after his escape from the University lab, and he finds himself in
the wilderness, subsisting without meat, and, Frankenstein-like, without language. He picks up the art of words by spying on humans, and boy, he’s quick with that. The author isn’t about to let inexperience get in the way of a few good puns or a little witty banter. Like Shelley’s creature, or like old Quasimodo, the young Lion craves acceptance and commits love straightaway, which, due to his disconnectedness from the world, has brutish results. Neither does he fit in with Oz’s disenfranchised talking Animals, and his life flits between the spheres, from an uncomfortable society Animal to an uncomfortable outcast. Poor Brrr isn’t quite as likeable as he might be. He has a tendency for vanity, self-absorption and conflict-avoidance, but it’s clear they’d have only ever been venial sins were he not pushed around by circumstances. The tragedies aren’t so much that people suffer for his failures to act, but rather that he keeps ending up in situations where his inaction matters. A hard thing to illustrate
4. Which of the following is not used by the author as a justification or reason why the novel ‘A lion among men’ becomes boring or less interesting for him?
(a) The fact that the books of the “The Wicked Years” fall into a series which is maintained in a committed fashion instead of creating something entirely new.
(b) The author builds a larger plot which could have been developed well instead of the lion “Brr’s” back-story.
(c) The new aspects of the personal history of the lion do not add anything significant to the depth of the lion’s character.
(d) The lion “Brr..” is a character with brief cameos in earlier novels, who has been made the “major character” in the present novel.
5. All of the following can be inferred from the passage except:
1. Brr feels like an outcast basically due to his being a motherless cub.
2. People do not suffer when Brr fails to act, but at the same time Brr keeps ending up in situations
Where his actions have adverse consequences.
3. The lion receives exaggerated importance to the detriment of secondary characters.
4. Brr’s tendency for vanity, self-absorption and conflict avoidance would not have been a sin had
he not been pushed around by circumstances.
(a)1 and 2 (b) 2 and 3 (c) 1 and 3 (d) 1, 3 and 4
6. Which of the following is NOT a part of the story in the novel “A lion among men” according to the Author?
(a) A suicide attempt which gives a gruesome yet humorous feel.
(b) Humour brought out in spite of constraints.
(c) A readily likeable protagonist who evokes immediate sympathy due to his being an outcast.
(d) A protagonist who is surprisingly quick to acquire linguistic skills despite his circumstances.
ANSWER
Moderator 4. D Options (a) and (b) are in the last lines of paragraph 2 as a central reason why Brr’s boring back-story is maintained. Refer to the lines “And it costs us, readers, 200 pages of retreading old backstory, even while the author is telegraphing a larger plot and doing nothing
about it.” Option (c) can also be inferred as the author points to it in paragraph 2 “Some new folds in the character are revealed, and it wasn’t badly done, but it more coloured in the outline of his character than expanded it.” Option (d), although mentioned in the passage, is not given as a reason for the novel being boring.
5. A 1 cannot be conclusively inferred as his feeling of being an outcast probably stems from a number of reasons which haven’t been explored in detail. All that we know about his past is that he was a motherless cub and had a stint in a university lab. ‘3’ can be inferred from the lines in paragraph 2” The other secondary characters are also good……… Lion’s share of print’. ‘2’ is incorrect as it is Brr’s inaction which has adverse consequences.‘4’ is implied at the end of the last paragraph “He has a tendency for vanity………………………where he not pushed
around by circumstances”. This provides support for ‘4’ as an inference.
6. C Option (a) clearly refers to the opening of the story which is gruesome yet comical. Option (b) is correct as the author creates humour inspire of Brr not knowing the language for very long. Refer to lines “The author isn’t about to let inexperience get in the way of a few good puns or a little witty banter” Option (c) is not a part of the story. Refer to lines “Poor Brr is not as likeable ...” Option (d) can be inferred from the lines “He picks up the art of words.......”
