Novels - New Theme

Andi 0:01

you've read it? Yes.

Tanner 0:02

Yeah. I have not, no. Never could get farther than the first couple chapters

Andi 0:06

is. It is long.

Sups 0:09

That's basically

Tanner 0:10

flaw, that's the whole novel. It's

Andi 0:12

Spoiler

Tanner 0:13

the

Sups 0:13

title

Tanner 0:15

No, I'm more than Da Vinci Code kind of

Andi 0:17

outta Oh no, don't tell people that. Don't advertise that .All right, Yeah. In the very book that we were talking about. it. Oh no. Hello and welcome to this episode of the I Should Have Known podcast for the trivia podcast that can't be trusted. Each week our Quizmaster presents you with four big facts on a topic, but one of those facts is a lie. We are finishing up our new theme for the new year I am your quiz master. I'm Andy, and I'm going to be presenting you with four facts about novels. Haha, get it. It's new. It's a pun. We haven't really done literature on the show before, so it's kind of a new thing. But remember, one of my facts is a lie, so join our other host, soups and Tanner and try to figure out which one it is.

Tanner 1:04

all right.

Andi 1:05

So our low hanging fruit it's not really the normal question for a low hanging fruit, it's just mostly to kind of start a conversation and there's a bit of kind of a trivia element. Do you think you read more books per year than the average American?

Tanner 1:19

Hmm.

Sups 1:20

I mean, no offense, but I think the average is pretty low. Yeah. I would

Tanner 1:25

Yeah. in the last year. I read maybe a handful. Okay. So yes.

Sups 1:30

I read four books last year, so, I think yes. very low

Tanner 1:35

opinions of how many books Americans read.

Andi 1:38

you guys might be surprised. According to 2021 Gallup Poll, on average respondent. Read 12.6 books per

Tanner 1:46

year. Holy moly.

Sups 1:47

dunno who they were. surveying.

Tanner 1:49

How long are

Andi 1:50

which, which is actually lower than past years. But this is an average, right? And AVID readers, are probably bringing that number

Sups 2:01

up. Mm-hmm.

Andi 2:01

the percentage of respondents who had read 10 or more was only something like 37%.

Tanner 2:08

Okay. Wow.

Sups 2:09

So majority were still in single digits.

Andi 2:11

and it's just books in general. So that conclude non-fiction and fiction, it could be anything.

Tanner 2:17

Wow. I

Sups 2:18

pretty low.

Tanner 2:18

something.

Andi 2:19

Well, yeah,

Sups 2:20

won me zero

Andi 2:24

I, I think I'm one of those people bringing that number up actually in 2022, I didn't read that many by number because I read the longest novel. without knowing it was the longest novel. I thought it was the longest novel at about 60% through when I was like, why is this taking so long to finish this book? That's in Search of Lost Time by Marcel Pros. If you're, curious,

Tanner 2:45

Wow.

Sups 2:46

Okay.

Andi 2:46

So we're gonna talk about novels. I have four facts about four novels. Mm-hmm. And I have a feeling you've heard of all of these. Maybe you've read them, I don't know, but I think you've heard of all four of Yeah. What is a novel? Tanner novel? What do you think a novel is?

Tanner 3:03

Well, it's not non-fiction. It's not a short story. It's Not a play or a poem.

Andi 3:09

I think

Sups 3:10

so.

Tanner 3:10

That's .So what's left is a novel

Andi 3:15

I mean that's actually like, that's kind of part of the problem is novels are one of those things where, you know what it is. Yeah. But when you start to define it, you run into problems because there are so many outliers and so many other things you consider. So It's fiction, it's prose, so it's not written in verse, it doesn't rhyme. Usually has a single author

Sups 3:33

mm-hmm.

Andi 3:34

has a single narrative, a. of, it's not a collection of stories. it's one single arc. Yeah. It has literary features including dynamic characters, themes, metaphors, stuff like this. Mm-hmm. And the important one for what we're going to talk about today is that they're printed in bound, in a book.

Sups 3:52

Mm-hmm.

Andi 3:52

these are all books that were mass distributed

Tanner 3:55

Okay. Okay. so,

Andi 3:57

So fact number one, donkey Jote is widely considered the best selling novel of all time.

Tanner 4:04

types. Yeah. Yeah. I believe this, I've heard of this as the first novel.

Sups 4:08

Mm-hmm. people are still buying this book. I mean, it's popular even today.

Tanner 4:12

So Yeah.

Andi 4:13

Yeah, So donkey or Donkey de lamancha, or there's an even longer title. Yeah. By Miguel Zante It was written in Spain. Mm-hmm. and it was published in two parts, originally in 1605 and 1615. So this is considered the first modern novel, meaning that it looks like what we think of today

Sups 4:36

Mm-hmm.

Andi 4:37

It's the story of a Noble in Spain. Who reads a lot of romances and decides that he is a medieval knight, and he goes out into the Spanish countryside and has all kinds of hair-brained adventures. Very famously, he thinks a windmill is a dragon and tries to slay a windmill. He thinks a prostitute is a princess. it's a very humorous story. And there's an off quoted stat that says that it's estimated that 500 million copies have been sold, which would make it the bestselling novel, not the bestselling book, but the bestselling novel. I was completely unable to find who estimated that. and of course we'll never really know because it's a 400 year old book.

Tanner 5:21

who's keeping track of all the book sales in the 16 hundreds in all these different countries.

Sups 5:25

yeah,

Andi 5:25

you've read it? Yes.

Tanner 5:26

Yeah. I have not, no. Never could get farther than the first couple chapters

Andi 5:31

is. It is long. It is. It is very long. Depending on your edition, it can get up to about 900 pages and of course the style is quite difficult. You know, it's old and Donte goes on long monologues,

Tanner 5:43

Yeah.

Sups 5:44

Yes. I identify

Tanner 5:45

Yeah, you're a little

Andi 5:46

Sonic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's a word. Quick

Sups 5:50

Yeah. Yeah. It, it takes a while for the book to grow on you. Uhhuh. yeah,

Andi 5:54

It's kind of a slow burn. You kind of have to sit with it and that, but it's funny. I like it. And there's also social commentary involved. So this story was, around the Spanish Renaissance, where they were moving from the medieval era with knights and castles and princesses to the more modern era and the enlightenment. And this story kind of reflects that, right? Donte is stuck in the past. He's hasn't adapted, he's not aware of the real world. So there's commentary involved and that's considered an important element to a novel.

Sups 6:25

Mm.

Tanner 6:25

Okay. Interesting. it was also his creation. Right? It was CTE's creation. It wasn't a story that was going around, Interesting.

Sups 6:32

Okay. So the fact was that this is the best selling novel of all time. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that like could be the some other really, really famous book that we are

Tanner 6:41

yeah. some novels. Right. Because I think it has time on its side. Right? I think it's assumed that the highest selling would be the oldest one. Sure. But if like the Da Vinci code was really that big of a hit and it outsold Donkey Hotel, that would be

Sups 6:56

I mean, 500 million like million copies and you're already a best seller, So 500 million, that's quite a lot of

Tanner 7:03

books. Yeah. even if they sold a million a year, he wouldn't be up to that

Sups 7:06

yet. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. true. Hmm.

Tanner 7:09

I don't know though. I think there might be something else that came with in the last 400 years that was better selling

Sups 7:14

yeah. Okay.

Tanner 7:15

I have to hear the other three though.

Andi 7:16

Okay. We're only Yes. Fact number two. Daniel Defo Robinson Cruso was originally published to be a real life travel log.

Tanner 7:27

Hmm. I know this book.

Andi 7:29

Yes. It's a classic Yeah. it is considered by some to be the first English novel. And when it was first published, it did not have Defoe's name on it and it bore the title. Adventures of Robinson Cruso of York Mariner who lived eight and 20 years, all alone in the uninhabited island on the coast of America, near the mouth of the Great River, or an oak having been cast on shore by shipwreck wherein all the men perished by himself with an account. How he was at last, strangely delivered by. written by himself.

Sups 8:03

That's basically

Tanner 8:03

flaw, that's the whole novel. It's

Andi 8:05

Spoiler

Tanner 8:06

the

Sups 8:06

title

Tanner 8:07

So

Andi 8:08

was the original title. Okay. And as it says, written by himself, it was published under the guise of like, this is just a real life account. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tanner 8:18

this is how he got off the island. This is a

Sups 8:20

This is biography? Mm-hmm.

Andi 8:21

But it was not, Yeah. it was published in 1719.

Sups 8:26

Mm-hmm.

Tanner 8:26

Okay. So it's kinda like castaway, but 28 years

Sups 8:31

Right.

Andi 8:32

Or any other story of a person being abandoned on an island, But yes. more famous one.

Tanner 8:38

Yeah,

Sups 8:38

Or how about Gulliver's Travels?

Andi 8:41

Actually, that's funny because go overs travels many people think was a direct response to Robinson Cruso.

Tanner 8:48

I haven't actually read it. actually. Have you read it?

Sups 8:50

Parts, Robinson Cruso when we were studying, this was one of like the novels you had to read part of English Pros.

Andi 8:58

Oh, interesting. But you didn't read it.

Sups 9:00

it was not in my, in my year we didn't have this. book. Yeah, Okay.

Andi 9:03

But it was in like the rotation

Sups 9:05

right. right. So for, for example, in my year we had Gus Travels, for example.

Andi 9:09

okay.

Sups 9:09

So it keeps changing every year.

Andi 9:11

would've been better to read those together, I guess,

Sups 9:13

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Andi 9:14

I would say probably literary. You got the better

Sups 9:18

better. Better version. yeah,

Tanner 9:20

So, the fact isn't that this was the first English one. It's that it was written sort of with a different idea in mind

Andi 9:27

that he didn't publish it as you know, a work of fiction by

Tanner 9:30

on the

Andi 9:30

Defo. He published it as

Tanner 9:32

Yeah. Kind of tried to pull a fast one on these

Sups 9:35

these people. Yeah. But I think in England it was quite common where people didn't share their original names. I think in this, era of literature,

Andi 9:44

we're gonna talk a little bit more about that with fact number three, actually.

Tanner 9:47

So let's let's, it

Andi 9:49

All right. speaking of pen names. Yeah. Noms de Plume, fact number three. Jane Austin published Pride and Prejudice under the pen name George

Sups 10:00

Yes.

Andi 10:01

pen names Wickham

Tanner 10:02

Wickham.

Andi 10:02

So Pride and Prejudice.

Tanner 10:05

Yes.

Andi 10:05

one? Yes. Yeah. you

Sups 10:08

have you watched the movie

Andi 10:10

Yeah, we've watched the movie. I know parts. I know for a fact we have

Tanner 10:14

watched I've watched parts. Yeah.

Andi 10:17

of Fred and Ppic.

Tanner 10:17

don't count that. I didn't watch the whole thing.

Andi 10:20

I was with you. You. Is this the same as how I didn't watch the Depart?

Tanner 10:23

Yeah. Yeah.

Andi 10:27

All right. So Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813. if. You haven't read it and you don't know, like Tanner, it follows a story of Elizabeth Bennett and her family as they navigate wealth, class, marriage and humanity in this time period in England. So Elizabeth's family is all daughters and they have to find husbands in order to support the family and. I guess spoiler alert, Elizabeth makes some judgment calls that are wrong and then has to learn to better judge people. And then she ends up marrying a really rich guy.

Tanner 11:01

Yeah. Mr. Darcy Yeah.

Andi 11:04

so the thing is Jane didn't live very long. She died at 41. And after her death, her brother continued to publish her novels and revealed her name.

Tanner 11:14

Oh. After she died.

Andi 11:16

I think she died in 1817, so it wasn't much longer after this was published. So basically four years after this was published, it was published under her name some, People don't really remember, but this was a very common practice at this time. Female writers wrote under male names. Correct. So the Bronte sisters, they did a clever thing. They all wrote under the name Bell, and then their first names all coincided with their actual first names. So Emily, Charlotte, and Anne, it's like Acton Bell. Yeah. So that was Anne Bronte. Mm-hmm. one of, I think the best English writers ever. As George Elliot.

Tanner 11:50

She's pretty great.

Sups 11:51

She's She's pretty,

Andi 11:52

amazing. Which is the pen name of Mary Ann Evans Cross

Sups 11:56

Yeah.

Andi 11:56

and also George Sand.

Tanner 11:59

Yeah. George is a

Andi 12:00

very I thought that was funny. yeah. So you can imagine why this was a practice. It's exactly why you think it was mm-hmm. So Novels were not taken as seriously. they were harder to publish but my personal opinion is that in the romantic Victorian era, this is the time period when the modern novel, as we in the 21st century, think of novels and what they can be and what they should be was born and it was created by women. I think it was these writers who did this. Partially a major reason for this because they're romantics who were also writing around this time, they were poets and they felt real literature is poetry. Mm-hmm. so only men can do it. Of course, yeah. but they were like, well novels. Those are for women. They're romances, they're not real works of literature. They're not real art. Let the ladies, let them entertain themselves. Mm-hmm. So this was a medium where women could do it, even though they still weren't really respected in it. And then they kind of created these ideas of novels that today we

Sups 13:02

yeah. Cause

Andi 13:03

just, that's what a novel is. Good look. Yeah. Yeah.

Sups 13:06

And excellent pieces

Andi 13:08

work.

Tanner 13:08

Yeah. Hmm.

Sups 13:10

I think, this is true. I mean,

Tanner 13:11

all of it checks out. I've just never heard of the name. And then the fact that her brother just published it later with her real name, that sounds real too. Yeah.

Sups 13:19

I'm, with this, I think I've

Tanner 13:20

I've

Sups 13:21

this before.

Tanner 13:22

if it is a lie, it could be the name of a character in one of her books. And Andy's just being real creative here.

Sups 13:30

Hmm. This, possible.

Tanner 13:31

Maybe she knows. I haven't read it

Sups 13:32

she if you, I'm trying to read the book. I'm trying to think

Tanner 13:36

So I'm inclined to believe that one too.

Sups 13:38

Okay.

Tanner 13:39

Interesting. one

Andi 13:40

one more. Fact number four. Salman Roe's Midnight Children not only won the Booker Prize, but it also won the Booker of Bookers and best of Booker prizes.

Tanner 13:51

Whoa.

Sups 13:52

Okay. Prizes prizes. on prizes. Wow.

Andi 13:56

One of the winningest novels.

Sups 13:58

a fantastic

Tanner 13:59

Wow.

Andi 14:00

Tanner. Have you read

Sups 14:01

any, any

Andi 14:01

books

Tanner 14:02

I'm zero for four. I tried to read this one.

Sups 14:05

How about the movie? Have you seen the movie? Nope. Um,

Andi 14:07

I also really like midnight's

Sups 14:09

Yeah. it's

Andi 14:09

magical realism. Mm-hmm.

Tanner 14:11

I got a couple pages in and that was about it. Uh, No, I'm more than Da Vinci Code kind of

Andi 14:15

outta Oh no, don't tell people that. Don't advertise that .All right, well, tater,

Tanner 14:20

please tell me

Andi 14:21

Uh, midnight Children was published in 1981. It is the story of Celia Sonai, born at midnight on the day of India's independence. So it follows his family and his life growing up. under these changes as India and his growing independence, the partitioning, the emergency, and also Salim and every other child born within the hour of India's independence. They all have magical powers. So he's telepathic and can smell really well. Oh, nice. And yeah, so it's magical realism. So it has these elements of, they have magical powers and abilities. But it's also about the real world

Tanner 14:58

a superhero book. I didn't know this.

Sups 15:01

kinda depends.

Andi 15:02

Yes, I dunno. I'm

Sups 15:04

for Marvel to pick it up.

Tanner 15:06

Yeah. Yeah.

Sups 15:07

Can

Andi 15:08

imagine? He can smell really well.

Tanner 15:09

Yeah. Yeah.

Andi 15:10

so the Booker Prize is an English language prize for a book published in the uk, Ireland, and then sometimes also the Commonwealth. And it has been given out since the sixties. And in 1993 they had the Booker of Bookers awards.

Tanner 15:28

Wow.

Andi 15:29

was chosen by critics to be midnight's children. Mm-hmm. And then in 2008, they had the best of Booker where it was actually voted by the public and midnight's children

Tanner 15:38

Wow. So it's kind of like the Oscars for books or

Andi 15:42

like mm-hmm.

Sups 15:42

Equivalent to Pulitzer I

Andi 15:44

was just gonna say the Pulitzer for Fiction is the American version, I

Tanner 15:47

think. Yes. Okay.

Andi 15:48

Or the National Book Award

Tanner 15:50

like what's the

Andi 15:51

equivalent? That's

Tanner 15:51

The

Andi 15:51

another very prestigious award, but mostly American. Mm-hmm. So we've kind of seen the whole life of novels. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And part of now what we think of as novels still has that same kind of prejudice as from pride and prejudice, where it needs to be about real life. So we have genre fiction today is not considered good enough for this. But what I think is funny about that is midnight's children is magical realism. Yeah. Which to me is just like fantasy that we wanna call literature,

Tanner 16:20

Mm-hmm.

Andi 16:21

people having magical abilities in the real.

Sups 16:24

Yeah. You could

Tanner 16:24

have a steamy erotic novel. Why isn't that ever considered in the

Andi 16:28

the book?

Sups 16:28

Mm-hmm. .Mm-hmm. .I don't think

Andi 16:30

think 50 Shades

Sups 16:30

Darker will make it to the

Tanner 16:31

not? Why not

Andi 16:33

very well

Sups 16:33

No, there's a because

Andi 16:34

this is

Sups 16:35

a very badly written book. well, there's

Tanner 16:37

Rush, he wrote it

Sups 16:39

He,

Andi 16:39

you

Sups 16:40

he'll write it with elegance.

Andi 16:41

there's are pretty steamy

Sups 16:43

Yeah.

Andi 16:44

uh, midnight's

Sups 16:45

Yeah, sure.

Tanner 16:45

Would you say it's the best book Like they said, it's the best book basically

Andi 16:49

So the over and over. the Booker of Booker, yeah. That had won this prize. It was the best of all the books that had won this prestigious prize. Right.

Tanner 16:57

That's a pretty high accolade.

Andi 16:58

Yeah. I don't know. So I think it's interesting the way that now novels have just become so ubiquitous, like they're, yeah. everywhere. Every kind. Mm-hmm. every level It's like food to us now. Yeah. Which is kind of amazing from starting at 400 copies of Donkey and Madrid where only 70 ended up making it to Peru cuz they fell off the

Tanner 17:18

Like

Sups 17:19

Amazing.

Tanner 17:20

It's really wild.

Sups 17:22

one of those facts are not novel.

Andi 17:24

Actually, I would say it is very novel because I invented it. for This episode. Yeah.

Sups 17:29

All right. So do you mind repeating the facts for us before Tanner, and I guess

Andi 17:34

course, fact number one. Donte is widely considered the bestselling novel of all time. Fact number two, Daniel Defo Robinson Cruso was originally published as a real life travel log. Fact number three, Jane Austin originally published Pride and Prejudice under the pen name George Wickham, and fact number four. Salman Rotis. Midnight Children not only won the Booker Prize, but also the Booker of Bookers and the best of Booker prizes. One of those is a lie.

Tanner 18:17

I really like this episode because it. makes me excited to read these books. Mm-hmm. because now I see them in a new light. You know, I wanna read how CTE's life comes through in Donkey. I wanna read about the superpowers in midnight's children and like, is the quest to get Mr. Darcy that compelling, that like, yes, it's been successful for 200 years. Yes. I wanna read it now, you And this travel log, how to Survive on an

Sups 18:41

one?

Andi 18:44

Yeah.

Tanner 18:44

which one are you leaning

Sups 18:45

I'm, I'm thinking number. I think that during that time there was a lot of this people not using these names. Okay. I think because the other facts are like, then it's about the something that we are missing. So for example, if we take midnight's children, Can you think of any other book from UK or Island, which is way more popular?

Tanner 19:05

mm-hmm. just

Sups 19:06

all of these three awards, so

Tanner 19:08

Yeah. Yeah. with the UK ones and the Commonwealth, like the work that comes to mind is Lord of the Rings, which is actually not one

Sups 19:16

Mm-hmm.

Tanner 19:17

and I don't think it won any Booker prizes, so I think it would be disqualified.

Andi 19:21

it.

Tanner 19:22

no exists? No. So something like that, which is like really, really beloved. I think that might be why the first one is fake. It's

Sups 19:31

Like it's

Tanner 19:32

more,

Sups 19:33

And I think the Jane Austin one sounds like, I mean, the only thing could be that it's not George Wickham, it's something George Graham, George Martin has to be George Yeah. It has to be George Okay, I'm gonna go with number two.

Tanner 19:44

Okay. Number one for me.

Andi 19:46

Okay. Wow. Boys. These lie is actually fact number three.

Tanner 19:52

Oh. Oh, what?

Andi 19:53

you actually guessed the truth. But you've never read Pride and Prejudice so it's too complicated of a novel to say there's a true antagonist, but mm-hmm. but George Wickham is basically the antagonist of pride and prejudice. He's the foil to Mr. Darcy and yeah, that was not her.

Tanner 20:11

He's the bad guy. In her

Andi 20:12

Yeah. In the very book that we were talking about. it. Oh no. But Jane Austin did not publish her books under her name though.

Tanner 20:21

Oh,

Andi 20:21

brother? She didn't use a male name. She published her first novel Sense and sensibility under the authorship of a lady. So it said, buy a lady. And then every subsequent novel of hers was published as by the author of Sense and Sensibility, or by the author of Pride and Prejudice. So again, she was kind of masking her identity like these other female writers at the time. But she was as a woman,

Tanner 20:47

Wow. not as So this is different from the other women,

Andi 20:50

Yes.

Tanner 20:51

the Bronte sisters. Interesting.

Andi 20:53

And so then it is true that her brother used her name after her death.

Tanner 20:56

huh? Wow.

Sups 20:58

No, it makes sense. I totally knew that Jane Nelson didn't write books under her name,

Andi 21:02

Yeah. George

Tanner 21:03

Wickham. That that name does Sign. Kind of familiar. Yeah. Yeah.

Andi 21:07

I

Sups 21:07

not Yeah. Famous.

Andi 21:10

I, I thought, oh, that's funny that the, the character's name is George, so I'm

Tanner 21:13

clever.

Andi 21:14

Yeah. it, .That's

Tanner 21:15

good.

Sups 21:16

Well, I should have

Tanner 21:17

known. I should have known.

Andi 21:18

Thanks for listening to this episode of the I Should Have Known podcast. This is the end of our novel, new theme. We're going to be moving on to another one in February where we are celebrating. Anti Valentines. So be on the lookout for that. And as always, thanks for listening. It's funny. It's a pun. Novels. Yeah.