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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does Charlie think Cantabile hopes to see George at the Baths?

2. Who is responsible for Life magazine commissioning an article from Charlie?

3. Charlie ruminates over Humboldt's obituary which appears in which newspaper?

4. Who arranges for Renata and Charlie to get together at a subway bar?

5. Where does Cantabile want Charlie to go with him once they meet in the street outside the Baths?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the difference between Charlie's ex-wife, Denise, and his new girlfriend, Renata?

2. How do Charlie and Renata first get together?

3. Why does Charlie think of the Mozartian Italian Denise likes, "Tutto tutto gia si sa" (Everything, everything about me was known)?

4. Charlie plays racquetball with Vito LangobardiIn, a big-time hoodlum. In what way is Charlie attached to Vito?

5. How has Cantabile's attitude towards Charlie changed?

6. What does Charlie think Cantabile's rank and place in the organized crime world is?

7. Humboldt used to accuse Charlie of trying to spend his whole life in the upper stories of higher consciousness. What is Humboldt's definition of higher consciousness?

8. According to Humboldt, what is the only art intellectuals can be interested in?

9. When Charlie returns to Chicago after ignoring Humboldt on the streets of New York, he tells Denise about the incident. What, in his story about being on the helicopter with Dr. Longstaff from the old days, is ironic?

10. What is the connection between Charlie's friend, George Swiebel, and Renata's former husband, Gaylord Koffritz?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Alone in his room in Madrid while Roger is at school, Charlie meditates. How is he coming to terms with being a middle-aged man with no woman in his life and no money?

Essay Topic 2

While Charlie is sitting on a sofa meditating, remembering everything that had happened in minute detail, Humboldt's obituary in the New York Times comes to his mind.

What is Charlie's view on the subject of the dead and the human soul?

How do the living starve the dead of their nourishment?

What happens to the soul in the next life?

Essay Topic 3

Charlie's car is nearly destroyed, and he is furious with Cantabile. Why does Charlie relent and decide to give Cantabile the $450 the man says Charlie owes him when Charlie was told that Cantabile and his cousin cheated at poker? Delve into Charlie's personality and those around him.

(see the answer keys)

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