Despite some initial lack of enthusiasm the work of William Faulkner

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION



Despite some initial lack of enthusiasm, the work of William Faulkner, comprised of a series of elegant short stories and a number of blockbuster, overpoweringly complicated novels,, remains among the most revered in the American literary canon.

A) Despite some initial lack of enthusiasm, the work of William Faulkner, comprised of a series of elegant short stories and a number of blockbuster, overpoweringly complicated novels,
B) Despite some initial lack of enthusiasms, the works of William Faulkner, comprised of a series of elegant short stories and a number of blockbusters, overpoweringly complicated novels,
C) Despite some initial lack of enthusiasm, the works of William Faulkner, comprised of a series of elegant short stories and a number of blockbuster, overpoweringly complicated novels,
D) Despite some initial lack of enthusiasms, the work of William Faulkner, comprised of a series of elegant short stories and a number of blockbusters, overpoweringly complicated novels,
E) Despite some initial lack of enthusiasm, the works of William Faulkner are comprised of a series of elegant short stories and a number of blockbuster, overpoweringly complicated novels,

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
My annotations are in blue typeface.

• The main verb of this sentence is remains and its subject is work

• Since both remains and work are singular, in option A they are in agreement. Keep option A.

• Choice B incorrectly changes enthusiasm to enthusiasms, so eliminate B

• Choice C changes work to works. The plural subject works is not in agreement with the singular noun remains, so C can be eliminated

• Choice D also changes enthusiasm to enthusiasms, so D can be eliminated.

• Finally, Option E also changes work to works [and the latter does not agree with remains,, so E can be eliminated.

The correct answer is A

COMMENTS
Vanmotan and apwang and sanpreetsingh , welcome!

We face a long sentence and answers that look alike.

We should
-- strip the sentence
-- find the subject and verb
-- get a general idea of the meaning
-- look for differences among choices, and
-- use "splits" to eliminate answers.

(Splits and process of elimination (POE) are discussed on the first page of the SC Butler thread in this post..)

Use whatever works. Well, I take that back: do not look for the one correct answer. Look for four wrong answers.

• We do need to strip the sentence, though.

Despite some initial lack of enthusiasm, the work of William Faulkner, comprised of a series of elegant short stories and a number of blockbuster, overpoweringly complicated novels,[/u], remains among the most revered in the American literary canon.

Look for verbs first.
-- "comprised of" in this sentence means "made up of."
Comprised of is a past participle (a verbED), not a verb
-- remains in the non-underlined portion is singular

Subject? work
This "work" means all of Faulkner's writing.

Modifier?
comprised of? "OF" is a preposition and thus needs nouns. Look for nouns:
STORIES
NOVELS
-- The other noun cannot be "blockbuster." (1) A number of blockbuster" is ungrammatical. (2) if we stop at blockbuster, then what is the rest of the phrase doing in the sentence?

Intro? Rewrite a bit:
Despite little enthusiasm

Strip the rest

Despite some initial lack of [LITTLE] enthusiasm, the work of William Faulkner, comprised of a series of elegant short stories and a number of blockbuster, overpoweringly complicatednovels,[/u], remains among the most revered in the American literary canon.

Meaning: Despite a lukewarm reception, the work of Faulkner, comprised of stories and novels, remains revered (beloved and respected).

Split #1: work or works?
The verb remains, in the non-underlined portion of the sentence, is singular. We need a singular noun. Correct: Work remains.
(If in doubt, use a dog, or another easily pluralized noun.)
Correct: The dog remains sitting.
Wrong: The dogs remains sitting.

Eliminate Options B, C, and E

Split #2: enthusiasm vs enthusiasms
This one is idiomatic: enthusiasm functions in the same way as zeal. We do not pluralize it.
Technically enthusiasm can be pluralized, but standard North American English does not do so.

Eliminate option D

Answer A

Other issues

• What are the prepositional objects?

-- One prepositional object of a number OF is novels. The other prepositional object is stories.

Novels has two modifiers:
(1) blockbuster
and
(2) overwhelmingly complicated

• weird adjectives

What about the weird words in this phrase:

a number of blockbuster, overpoweringly complicated novels?

Essentially the phrase means
a number of best-selling and very complicated novels

A noun (blockbuster) is an adjective?
Yes. You will see this construction again.
The first noun in that phrase, "blockbuster," acts as an adjective that modifies the second noun, "novels."
Blockbuster means bestselling.

Again: the word blockbuster is not a noun in this sentence. It's an adjective that means "best-selling."

Blockbuster?

blockbuster is a "noun-adjective": a noun that acts like an adjective.

Noun-adjectives describe other nouns. Blockbuster describes novels.

Meaning?
A "blockbuster" novel is a bestseller.

English uses nouns as adjectives quite frequently:
office worker, math teacher, film director, airplane tickets.

As an adjective, blockbuster describes what type of novels these are (bestselling ones).

blockbuster
is followed by two more descriptors ("overwhelmingly complicated")

"Overwhelmingly complicated" is also an adjective phrase that describes novels.

-- "a number of" = quantifier

A number of is yet another noun modifier that refers to novels.

Structure?
[a number of] +
[blockbuster,] +
[overpoweringly complicated] +
[NOVELS]

[quantifier] +
[noun as adjective,] +
[adjective phrase] +
[NOUN]

One last time: the phrase means a number of best-selling and very complicated novels.

COMMENTS

As promised, everyone who explained gets kudos.

We have two outstanding answers by RamSep and GKomoku -- I'm bumping you both

Kudos to all who explained!