What's your favorite first line?

Quote:

---

Bysshe,

For some reason your quote immediately reminded me of The Bell Jar. I haven’t even read The Tin Drum but I think the part about the “inmate of a mental hospital” made me instantly think of Plath. The opening of her book is actually probably one of my favourites:

“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.”

- The Bell Jar

It’s really offbeat, and creates a sense of mental instability, intriguing confusion, and brimming darkness, despite the seemingly warm and sweet season.

---

Yes, I know what you mean. When I read the first sentence of The Tin Drum the book that it reminded me of at first was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - probably because I'd just been reading it - but thinking about it now, it is quite similar to the beginning of The Bell Jar.

I'm sure you already have a very long reading list, but if you're ever looking for something new to read I'd recommend The Tin Drum. I'm not that far into it, but it's very interesting so far.

Nice to see you on here, by the way. :)

I'm also a "first sentence" kind of person myself. I rarely remember the last lines of a book but i usually dwell on the first lines. There's just something about opening lines....I read them over and over again before I continue reading the whole thing...

Some of my favorite first lines are:

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul." (Lolita - V. Nabokov)

"If you really want to hear about it,the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born,and what my lousy childhood was like,and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me,and all that David Copperfield kind of crap.(Catcher in the Rye)

Bysshe,

Yes, I can see where you are coming from. I am practically burying myself up to the neck in books and papers already, but if I do get the chance to have a good look at The Tin Drum I'll sure let you know! ;) It does sound quite intriguing.

Sub,

I just wanted to officially welcome you to the neighbourhood! You're currently located at the coolest street, so feel free to drop by my place for a chat or some gorgeously fresh tea whenever you want. :)


Others that came to mind after I posted last time:

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

- Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

A very atypical, often cited beginning that certainly made me curious to read more.

''What's it going to be then, eh?''

- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

This plain and simple, but addictive, opening line is used in part one, two and three of the book. I even recall enthusiastically going around and uttering it to people straight after I originally read the book, now quite some time back.

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would by the flowers herself."

- Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

She is all the more lovely with her flowers.

"I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time."

- The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

For some strange reason the opening of Zafon's mammoth, mad, and mysteriously melodramatic gothic-inspired book has struck deep in my mind, though it's always nice to read about a book within a book, and this is definitely not the worst of this genre that I've encountered thus far.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

This is probably the best opening from a Charles Dickens work.

A good beginning and one which is significant tonally or thematically or for the plot is a kind of grail for many writers. Dickens was almost always excellent at the start of his novels. Some writers shock for the sake of it and that's their high point gone. If I remember rightly 'A Passage to India' starts as follows:
'Except for the Marabar Caves - and they are twenty miles off - the city of Chandrapore presents nothing extraordinary.'
I'd say he got it right there and the rest of the first paragraph continues with the same apparently indifferent travelogue tone while slipping in details that will be significant later to plot and theme. Self-consciously creative writers spend a lot of thought on their beginnings but it's only in retrospective analysis that we sometimes notice the more subtle artistry.

What about these eleven?

'In front of one of the most palatial hotels in the world, a very young man was accustomed to sit on a bench which, when the light fell a certain way, shone like gold.'

'See the child.'

'Captain Everard Gault wounded the boy in the right shoulder on the night of June the twenty-first, nineteen twenty-one.'

'I was set down from the carrier's cart at the age of three; and there with a sense of bewilderment and terror my life in the village began.'

'When I heard my father calling ''Charles!'' from his study I knew that trouble was coming.'

'I had even reached the point of wondering if Geraldine Brevoort's suicide. so long dreaded, might not prove in the event a relief, but like everything else about Geraldine, when it came, it came with a nasty twist'

'There came Death hurtling along the Bouevard in waning sepia light.'

'Even Camilla had enjoyed masquerades, of the sort where the mask may be dropped at that critical moment it presumes itself as reality.'

'The young women of Fada, in Nigeria, are well known for beauty.'

'The reader must not expect to know where I live.'

'A nis ri linn nam breitheamha bha gorta ' s an tir.'

Now granted I'm cheating you a bit with the last one which is very well known in many languages these beginnings are all different and all have something remarkable about them but , like Forster above, what is remarkable about them may not be obvious to the reader until later. Although this is a highly artificial exercise would any of these opening sentences (Bar the last which I'll translate later.) encourage you to read more - say the first page or so?

I was desperately trying to remember the opening sentence of a novel called 'The Tomorrow File' but I couldn't be certain so I didn't use it. If I can remember it I'll send it.

I'm sure a lot of you will know the titles or authors of a lot of the above.

Translation of the last one there goes like this, 'Now in the era of the judges there was hunger in the land'
There always is hunger when people are ruled by men with feet of clay and expect rules and man-made guidlines to save them. That is the sub-text of the opening and the story which illustrates the satisfying of spiritual and physical hunger takes off from there. I'm sure lots of you will recognise the beginning of 'The Book of Ruth.

The first things that came to mind;

It is a truth universally acknowledged that every single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Two households. (Both alike in dignity. In fair Verona where we lay our scene. Etc)

The opening sentance by Truman Capote "In Cold Blood"

Ah Capote - Lee's 'pocket Merlin'. How does it go? 'The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat fields of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call ''out there'' '

It's really the rest of that paragraph that I like.

'Yes,' said tom bluntly, on opening the front door. 'What d'you want?'

Opening line of Goodnight Mr Tom By Michelle Magorian.

I remember it cause it was so blunt and straight to the point. You where in the story before you even knew it!

Yep i think the first line from Pride and Prejudice is also memerable.

When shall we three meet again, in thunder lightning or in rain? MacBeth

"In a hole there lived a Hobbit." ;)

Magorian's novel is an excellent one for young teenagers. Wholesome. Time enough for decadence once your intellectual muscles are wiry and strong.

My favourite sentence from a book is actually not a first sentence but from the end of the third page of the book and has stayed in my mind for about ten years;

Framed in the doorway stood a man resembling an old umbrella forgotten at a picnic.
Its from a comic historical novel written by Robert Hogan and James Douglas called Murder at the Abbey Theatre

It's supposed to be a decription of W.B.Yeats as he enters the theatre. :)

Ah yes Yeats like a broken old umbrella - a good image. When I was wee I thought he had invented his lake Isle but there is such a place.

The first of my eleven above is from the brilliant James Purdy who is most certainly a decadent writer and probably proud to be so.

I thought it was a bit cheeky posting an Irish Quote- seeing as even i had difficulty translating it. but then again my irish is terrible!

Heres a first paragraph that made me laugh. (Hang her head in shame as she writes)

Whats my name? I don't even bother answering him, just reef open the glove compartment and hand him my licence through the window, roysh, and he gives it the once over and he goes, @this is a provisional licence,' making no effort at all to hide the fact he's a bogger. like he's actually proud of it. I go, ' Your point is?' and the way he looks at me, roysh, i can tell he wants to snap those bracelets on me and haul my arse off to Donnybrook.

Dont laugh its from Ross o'carroll Kelly;The miseducation Years by Paul Howard. :blush: