Challenge 1059

Then and Now

In Gary Inbinder’s Olga:
1. What, in particular, attracts Max Niemand’s attention to Olga as a potential office assistant and operative?
2. On what two matters of personality does Max’s and Olga’s conversation conclude? What might those matters portend for Max’s attempt to recruit Olga?
In Jill Jepson’s After Ian:
1. How does Cass know of the group that has a device that supposedly allows communication with the dead? Does the device actually work?
2. How did Ian die? How does Cass describe his corpse?
3. “Everything we perceive comes to us from the past. Everything we do goes into the future” — a BwS motto. What does it imply about the present, and how does it apply to Cass?
In Douglas Young’s From Festus, With Love:
1. Why is Huxley’s and Juniper’s romance depicted as relatively easy? Can one learn only from conflict?
2. Huxley’s and Juniper’s evening visit to the town graveyard is depicted as normal. In the U.S. South, graveyards often have more cultural significance than similar sites do in other parts of the country. Why might that happen?
3. What unusual activity does Petunia describe taking against an ex-boyfriend? Why might it cause Huxley alarm?
4. What offensive cliché does Huxley use in a misguided attempt to compliment Juniper? How does it display his ignorance concerning the esthetic sensibiity of painters such as Leonardo da Vinci and authors such as Marcel Proust?
5. Does the couple’s making out on Festus’ grave desecrate it? How does Huxley’s reciting the terse epitaph on Festus’ grave marker recall what was probably the most succinct and powerful political proverb in the USA during the Vietnam Era? How does Juniper suppose Festus might have felt about it?
In Blair Boleyn’s Till Death Do Us Part: What does the reader need to know about Morgan Le Fay in order to appreciate her lament addressed to Merlin?

Responses welcome!