First Lines

James Joyce is only good for the Joyce / Goethe joke.

(ie no apostrophe = a step towards the Kingdom of Plenty and Happiness, IMIO).

(Almost anything beginning with 'i' works: "insane" and "irritating" are two fine candidates...)

Here is the first line to the last novel I wrote. I believe it fits all the criteria that Tom mentions above - but the back jacket of the book - if it ever gets published - would be a lifesized sculpture of Julie Burchill done in candy floss.

‘I am going to kill those performance poets.’

“A screaming comes across the sky.”

“Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr’d the Sides of Outbuildings, as of Cousins, carried Hats away into the brisk Wind off Delaware,— the Sleds are brought in and their Runners carefully dried and greased, shoes deposited in the back Hall, a stocking’d-foot Descent made upon the great Kitchen, in a purposeful Dither since Morning, punctuated by the Lids of various Boilers and Stewing-Pots, fragrant with Pie- Spices, peel’d Fruits, Suet, heated Sugar,— the Children, having all upon the Fly, among rhythmic Slaps of Batter and Spoon, coax’d and stolen what they might, proceed, as upon each afternoon all this snowy Advent, to a comfortable room at the rear of the House, years since given over to their carefree Assaults.”

“Emmanuelle boarded the plane in London that was to take her to Bangkok.”

“‘No more school,’ said Mrs Olroyd.”

'CHAOS NEVER DIED. Primordial uncarved block, sole worshipful monster, inert & spontaneous, more ultra violet than any mythology (like the shadows before Balylon)......'

I recognise 'Mason & Dixon' by Pynchon in Mark's post (no.2); the first one might also be Pynchon - 'Gravity's Rainbow'? And the third quote of course sounds like 'Emmanuelle' by ....something's telling me 'Emmanuelle Arsan'(sp)? Can this be right? No idea abt the 4th. 'Mallory Towers'? Something by Elinor Brent-Dyer(sp)?

"many years later, as he faced the firing squad, colonel aureliano buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

"lolita, light of my life, fire of my loin."

"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, but i don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

"all happy families are alike, but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion."

"Dinnie, an overweight enemy of humanity, was the worst violinist in New York, but was practising gamely when two cute little fairies stumbled through his fourth-floor window and vomited on the carpet."

"It was a dull autumn day and Jill Pole was crying behind the gym."

I think I'm only half-kidding here.

"Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them."

"Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater. This was shortly after the Japenese had bombed Pearl Harbor... "

"Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo... "

"Dinah Kaufman lost her virginity a total of three times."

"I am Myra Breckinridge whom no man wil ever possess."

Fred - yr quotes are too easy (but maybe familiarity is the point) - 'Metamorphosis', 'One Hundred Years of Solitude', 'Lolita', 'Catcher in the Rye', 'Anna Karenina'.

Mark - yr quotes are too difficult, but I want to read the one abt the fat violinist and the vomiting fairies.

hehehe

x0x0

• It's easy to cheat by memorising a few suitably vague opening lines from random books beforehand. Any old 'real' line sounds more plausible than most things the avaerage non-author can come up with on spec.
• There aren't that many cards in the pack. There needs to be some kind of Ex Libris forum on the net where people can in new material that everyone prints off (closing their eyes while they do it). If you see what I mean.

  ― Nick, Monday, 25 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"She didn't stop screaming until she was dead"

- from a Jeffrey Archer novel ('Not a Penny More not a Penny Less'?). This prompted us to dive for all the other JA books in the cottage we had rented and check out what other opening/closing gems he had come up with - we weren't disappointed.

What was said about Joyce above, early in the thread, was nonsense. Its author should be ashamed of himself.

I don't quite feel that 'A screaming comes across the sky' is brilliant. It does make me think that I sense, though, something of Pynchon's kinship with the Beats, who were essentially Romantics.

"Every epitaph is a story, every story is an epitaph."

"The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country."

"Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting."

For a long time I used to go to bed early. (Proust, SwannÂ’s Way; obviously.)

At one time, according to Sir George H. Darwin, the Moon was very close to the Earth. (Calvino, Cosmicomics)

“Sleep well, dear.” (Mishima, The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea, possibly only lovely in the context of Mishima as a whole?)

“Take your specs off then,” said Tortose to Pierrot, “take your specs off then if you want to look the part.” (Queneau, Pierrot Mon Ami; something about the repetition gets me)

I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods. (Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s; included only because I’ve said the book is “perfect,” thus the first line must be as well)

(On the Stairs, I): Yes, it could begin this way, right here, just like that, in a rather slow and ponderous way, in this neutral place that belongs to all and to none, where people pass by almost without seeing each other, where the life of the building regularly and distantly resounds. (Perec, Life: A UserÂ’s Manual; this becomes devastating only once youÂ’re further in and realize that he does in fact intend to detail every single room in the entire building, down to items in drawers)

“What would you say if I shaved off my mustache?” (Carrere, The Mustache; the same premise-encapsulating trick as in Kafka only in opposition due to its mundanity)

It happened this way. (Greene, Monsignor Quixote; I am really quite devoted to this sort of opening)

Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutesÂ’ chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression.(OÂ’Brien, At Swim Two-Birds; which while IÂ’ve never read Molesworth I imagine that character being mentally near-identical to this narrator)

The proof-reader said, Yes, this symbol is called deleature, we use it when we need to suppress and erase, the word speaks for itself, and serves both for separate letters and complete words, it reminds me of a snake that changes its mind just as it is about to bite its tail. (Saramago, History of the Siege of Lisbon; sentence actually continues for pages due to Saramago’s non-use of periods but I’m cutting it off at the appropriate speaker’s-voice point—please copy closing metaphor to Snake and Snake 2 thread!)

Stop being so well read, you saucy boy. ;-)

Dan Perry, your inane lack of sensitivity probably means that you are a very happy person.

"1980. The sun comes up. My eyes open. Uh oh.. I've woken up again."

"People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles."

"On an April night almost midpoint in the Eighteenth Century, in the county of Orange and the colony of Virginia, Jacob Pollroot tasted his death a moment before swallowing it."

"I wake up.. the touch of the cold object against my penis wakes me up."

"Pale Fire, a poem in heroic couplets, of nine hundred ninety-nine lines, divided in four cantos, was composed by John Shade (born July 5, 1898, died July 21, 1959) during the last days of his life at his residence in New Wye, Appalachia, U.S.A."

(Okay, not all single sentences).

There is no Starry-speak in AS2B.

I think PALE FIRE a good call.

Actually the Portrait begins well - exceptionally, in its way. Pity about the bulk of the book.

yes, first one i got!

there's always 'It was the day my grandmother exploded.' (iain banks, the crow road) but i always thought that he was trying too hard to write a first line that people would quote.

andy

"May I, monsieur, offer my services without running the risk of intruding?"

"My first experience with junk was during the War, about 1944 or 1945."

"I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills."

"This is a sequel, not a formulation of prolegomena."

"Not everybody knows how I killed old Phillip Mathers, smashing his jaw in with my spade; but first it is better to speak of my friendship with John Divney because it was he who first knocked old Mathers down by giving him a great blow in the neck with a special bicycle-pump which he manufactured himself out of a hollow iron bar."

ILX 2001:
What are the greatest first lines of novels. Lines which brilliantly set the tone or immediately draw you in. Lines also which stand on their own as quotable or evocative phrases - even if they're ultimately meaningless when taken in isolation.

"riverun, past Eve and Adam´s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs."

ILX 2008:
just fuck off you stupid shitty moron who can't be fucked to differentiate between good-natured craic and O_o, or at least who posts shit to O_o just because it's from a certain poster