The Final Jeopardy question (11/30/2012) in the category “20th Century American Writers” was:

A publisher’s note on one of his books called him the “terror of typesetters” & “an enigma to book reviewers”

2-day champ Jason Shore has racked up total winnings of $45,200 so far. In this third appearance, he will take on these two players: Tim Norris, from Knoxville, TN and Karen Poole, from Washington, DC.

Karen found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “It’s Chile in Here.” She was in second place with $3,200, $5,800 behind Jason who was in the lead and kicking butt. She bet $3,000 and she was RIGHT.

Chile is the world’s leading producer of this metal that has been called “the salary of Chile.”
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WHAT IS COPPER?

Jason finished in the lead with $10,000. Karen was second with $6,200 and Tim was last with no money.

Jason found the first Double Jeopardy Daily Double in “The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.” He had a stupendous lead with $23,600, $12,600 more than Karen in second place. He bet $1,500 and he was RIGHT.

This man got the assignment in 1971; he’d get to appoint 2 other men to the job himself.
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WHO IS GEORGE H. W. BUSH?

Karen got the last clue and last Daily Double in “Dance Companies.” Still in second place, she had $11,400, $13,700 less than Jason’s lead. She bet $3,000, guessed “the Moscow Ballet” and that was WRONG.

During foreign tours, the Mariinsky Ballet Company is known by this name.
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WHAT IS THE KIROV BALLET?

Jason finished in the lead with $25,100. Karen was next with $8,400 and Tim still had no money so it was the end of the road for him.

NONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.

who is e.e. cummings?

The information in the clue is supplemented in “The quintessential quiz book: Being a compendium of curious words, derivations and literary allusions by the additional information that e.e. cummings was also ” the special target of all the world’s literary philistines”. The quintessential quiz book was originally published in 1979. We do not know if the quiz book was the actual source of the clue. Even if that last part had been included, we don’t think that would have been enough information to pull the correct answer out of your hat in 30 seconds, unless you’re just a dynamo with literary allusions and acquainted with e.e. cummings and his punctuation and capitalization eccentricities. To the contestants’ credit, they did pick unconventional authors.

Karen wrote down Kerouac and bet $8,399. She finished with $1.00.

Jason wrote down Cormac McCarthy and he bet $2,500, a nice even number today. He won today’s game with $22,600 and now has a 3-day total of $67,800. Speaking of dynamos, Jason Shore certainly was one today.