A member of the Drones Club declares that he wishes he belonged to this species because he could propose by “vibrating his tail and bending his body in a semi-circle.” For 10 points each:
[10e] Name these animals bred by Gussie Fink-Nottle in P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves series. The “sex life” of these animals is discussed in an appendix to a Karel Čapek (“CHAH-peck”) novel titled for them.
ANSWER: newts [accept salamanders; accept The War with the Newts or Válka s Mloky]
[10h] This humorist declared that a newt would “gyrate and undulate in a most conscientious manner” at a paperweight and an eraser in “The Social Life of the Newt.” This member of the Algonquin Round Table wrote “How to Get Things Done” and “How to Sleep.”
ANSWER: Robert Benchley [or Robert Charles Benchley]
[10m] A woman transforms into a salamander as she is burned at the stake in a story in this language by the author of In the Time of the Doves. This language was used for the medieval romance Blanquerna.
ANSWER: Catalan [or català] (The authors are Mercè Rodoreda and Ramon Llull.)
<JMC, European Literature>