Final Jeopardy: Literary Anagrams (3-19-15)

The Final Jeopardy question (3/19/2015), in the category “Literary Anagrams” was:

Vivian Darkbloom, a minor character in a 1955 novel by this foreign born author, is an anagram of his name.

New champ Andrea Keleher defeated a 5x champ yesterday and won $18,605. Today she is up against these two players: Brandon Bidlack, from Emeryville, CA; and Gina Shaddox, from Corvallis, OR.

Round 1: Andrea found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Inlets” under the $800 clue. She was in the lead with $4,200, $2,000 more than Gina and Brandon who were tied in second place. She bet $1,200 and she was RIGHT.

New York’s Irondequoit Bay is an inlet of this Great Lake. show

Andrea finished in the lead with $8,200. Brandon was second with $3,600 and Gina was last with $3,200.

Round 2: Brandon found the first Daily Double in “It’s Hyphenated” under the $1,600 clue. He was in second place with $5,200, $3,000 less than Andrea’s lead. He bet $3,000 but did not know so he was WRONG.

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself”, Emerson wrote in this essay. show

Gina got the last Daily Double in “The 16th Century” under the $2,000 clue, the last clue of the round. At $13,200, she just took over the lead with $200 more than Brandon in second place. She bet $2,000 but did not have a guess so she was WRONG.

This British poet, playwright & contemporary of Shakespeare was killed in a fight in 1593, allegedly over a bill. show

Brandon finished in the lead with $13,000. Andrea was next with $11,400 and Gina was now in third place with $11,200.

NONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.

WHO IS VLADIMIR NABOKOV?

“If you’re a fan of word play, you probably already know how much fun Nabokov had penning Lolita. There’s hardly a page in the novel that doesn’t make good use of a pun, play on words, or other cool lit-device. . . . Let’s start with perhaps the most famous, Vivian Darkbloom, the mistress of antagonist Clare Quilty. Ms. Darkbloom’s name is a simple anagram of Vladimir Nabokov.” (Mental Floss)

Check out Wordsmith.org for more literary anagrams.



Gina didn’t have a guess on this either but this time she only bet $200 bet. She finished with $11,000.

Andrea drew a blank, too. She lost her $10,000 bet and finished with $1,400.

Brandon wrote down something quite illegible. He lost $9,801 bet so he ended up with $3,199. That made Gina Shaddox the new Jeopardy! champ and left us without an answer as to whether just “Nabokov” would have been acceptable.

FJ-Results-3-19-15

Gina is an accounting service representative. During the chat, she talked about playing bass in an 8-piece ska band, mostly electric, right after Brandon gave Alex a demonstration of control nystagmus.

2 years ago:: TWO of the players got this FJ in “Science Words”

This biological term for cell division was borrowed in 1939 to describe a form of energy release. show

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4 Responses

  1. KJB says:

    So what do you think–would just Nabokov have been accepted (I correctly figured out Nabokov but in the pressure of the moment couldn’t for the life of me get the Vladimir to come forward in my brain)

    • VJ says:

      I think it would have been fine because just the last name is usually sufficient and nothing to the contrary was stated.

      If I get a minute, I’ll write the show and get an official answer on it (unless I need a stamp to do it – I’m fresh out of stamps!)

  2. William Weyser says:

    I only have 2 guesses for what Brandon was trying to write, which would have been wrong both ways: Brownread and Brownmead, which I’ve never even heard of those names, Vivian Darkblood and Vladimir Nabokov.

  3. john blahuta says:

    funny that alex said “i hope this final is tougher than it sounds” 🙂

    tough enough. even my 2 miss prediction was too optimistic again. foreign born, yes, but since the name vivian darkbloom sounds english, they were maybe thinking england, scotland or so. anything but russian…