August 5th, 2009 / 7:46 pm
Random
Ken Baumann
Random
Favorite First Sentences
Alright. All this Lish talk has me thinking about first sentences: the pleasure derived from them, the importance, the world-containing, etc.
My favorite first sentence is from Blood Meridian, which is weird to me because I’ve tried to read the book three times and have put it down halfway each time, but it is still a powerful book, maybe too powerful for me at the moment. Anyway, its first sentence:
See the child.
That, to me, is awesome; a plain evocation, and commandment, biblical as all hell which is what Cormac does so wonderfully.
And my other favorite opener, from The Stranger:
Maman died today.
Detached, even with the endearing colloquialism. Prescient, full of doom.
Alright, now you go.
Tags: first sentences
i like the first sentence to notes form the underground:
I am a sick man…I’m a spiteful man.
i like the first sentence to notes form the underground:
I am a sick man…I’m a spiteful man.
“The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.” (from Beckett’s Murphy)
“The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.” (from Beckett’s Murphy)
I had to compile some for a recent class, so these are some I really dug digging through books I had around:
“Miss Mandible wants to make love to me but she hesitates because I am officially a child; I am, according to the records, according to the gradebook on her desk, according to the card index in the principal’s office, eleven years old.”
– Donald Barthelme
“We went over there, Nag and I, because of nothing else to do over here, and there were things going on, all right.”
– Barry Hannah
“The boy on the bike flew by the chink’s house, and the squatty-body’s house, and the house where the dead guy had rotted for five days, remembering that the chink had once called him nasty, the squatty-body had once called the cops when he’d hit her cat with a lug nut on a string, the chick in the dead guy’s house had once asked if he, Cody, ever brushed his teeth.”
– George Saunders
I had to compile some for a recent class, so these are some I really dug digging through books I had around:
“Miss Mandible wants to make love to me but she hesitates because I am officially a child; I am, according to the records, according to the gradebook on her desk, according to the card index in the principal’s office, eleven years old.”
– Donald Barthelme
“We went over there, Nag and I, because of nothing else to do over here, and there were things going on, all right.”
– Barry Hannah
“The boy on the bike flew by the chink’s house, and the squatty-body’s house, and the house where the dead guy had rotted for five days, remembering that the chink had once called him nasty, the squatty-body had once called the cops when he’d hit her cat with a lug nut on a string, the chick in the dead guy’s house had once asked if he, Cody, ever brushed his teeth.”
– George Saunders
I have a first edition Grove Press hardback of Murphy. It’s treasured.
& that’s a great one.
I have a first edition Grove Press hardback of Murphy. It’s treasured.
& that’s a great one.
Wow. Which books are these from?
Wow. Which books are these from?
First is from 60 Stories, “Me and Miss Mandible.”
Second I’m blanking on… I’ll double check when I get home. Either Captain Maximus or Airships.
Third is Pastoralia, “The End of FIRPO in the World”
First is from 60 Stories, “Me and Miss Mandible.”
Second I’m blanking on… I’ll double check when I get home. Either Captain Maximus or Airships.
Third is Pastoralia, “The End of FIRPO in the World”
That year was lost to him.
-Tomas Rivera, And the Earth did not Devour Him
That year was lost to him.
-Tomas Rivera, And the Earth did not Devour Him
First, try to be something, anything, else.
-Lorrie Moore, “How to Become a Writer”
A screaming comes across the sky.
-Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
First, try to be something, anything, else.
-Lorrie Moore, “How to Become a Writer”
A screaming comes across the sky.
-Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
Wow, any first edition of Beckett would be amazing. Here’s another from Stephen King’s half-literary self:
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”
Wow, any first edition of Beckett would be amazing. Here’s another from Stephen King’s half-literary self:
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”
“Either forswear fucking others or the affair is over.”
-Sabbath’s Theater
“Either forswear fucking others or the affair is over.”
-Sabbath’s Theater
“This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” – The Good Soldier
I know it’s sort of an obvious one, but damn is it good. Not just because it’s so boldly declarative as an opening but because it’s necessarily so. You don’t realize until it’s over what an odd little lie that is. But you do realize.
“This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” – The Good Soldier
I know it’s sort of an obvious one, but damn is it good. Not just because it’s so boldly declarative as an opening but because it’s necessarily so. You don’t realize until it’s over what an odd little lie that is. But you do realize.
The first line of Airships is the first line of “Water Liars.” Consequently-
When I am run down and flocked around by the world, I go down to Farte Cove off the Yazoo River and take my beer to the end of the pier where the old liars are still snapping and wheezing at one another.
The first line of Airships is the first line of “Water Liars.” Consequently-
When I am run down and flocked around by the world, I go down to Farte Cove off the Yazoo River and take my beer to the end of the pier where the old liars are still snapping and wheezing at one another.
“When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.” — The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
“When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.” — The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Yes, I was just going by first lines of short stories there, not necessarily first in the collection.
My Hannah was I Am Shaking to Death from Captain Maximus.
Yes, I was just going by first lines of short stories there, not necessarily first in the collection.
My Hannah was I Am Shaking to Death from Captain Maximus.
“For thirty-five years now I’ve been in wastepaper, and it’s my love story.”
bohumil hrabal, too loud a solitude
so good.
“For thirty-five years now I’ve been in wastepaper, and it’s my love story.”
bohumil hrabal, too loud a solitude
so good.
Word. Lovin’ the Beckett. Word.
Word. Lovin’ the Beckett. Word.
“Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K, for he was arrested one fine morning, after having done nothing wrong”
“Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K, for he was arrested one fine morning, after having done nothing wrong”
“I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly consider’d how much depended upon what they were then doing;—that not only the production of a rational Being was concern’d in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost:—Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,—I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me.” —Tristram Shandy
“I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly consider’d how much depended upon what they were then doing;—that not only the production of a rational Being was concern’d in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost:—Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,—I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me.” —Tristram Shandy
DeLillo and Bellow have always had the most powerfully American lines.
‘I am an American, Chicago born—Chicago, that somber city—and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent.’
‘He speaks in your voice, American, and there’s a shine in his eye that’s halfway hopeful.’
Of course Graves has the best opening line for a memoir, I think:
‘The objects of this autobiography, written at the age of thirty-three, are simple enough: an importunity for a formal good-bye to you and to you and to you and to me and to all that; forgetfulness, because once all this has been settled in my mind and written down and published it need never be thought about again; money.’
Obviously every work of Nabokov’s, as well:
‘Spring in Fialta is cloudy and dull.’
‘Lolita, etc.’
‘999 lines written in heroic couplets’ (ha!)
But for sheer knee-weakening beauty, it’s Joyce:
‘riverrun, past Eve and Adams, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth, Castle and Environs’
DeLillo and Bellow have always had the most powerfully American lines.
‘I am an American, Chicago born—Chicago, that somber city—and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent.’
‘He speaks in your voice, American, and there’s a shine in his eye that’s halfway hopeful.’
Of course Graves has the best opening line for a memoir, I think:
‘The objects of this autobiography, written at the age of thirty-three, are simple enough: an importunity for a formal good-bye to you and to you and to you and to me and to all that; forgetfulness, because once all this has been settled in my mind and written down and published it need never be thought about again; money.’
Obviously every work of Nabokov’s, as well:
‘Spring in Fialta is cloudy and dull.’
‘Lolita, etc.’
‘999 lines written in heroic couplets’ (ha!)
But for sheer knee-weakening beauty, it’s Joyce:
‘riverrun, past Eve and Adams, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth, Castle and Environs’
I hadn’t written a word or a story or anything in months.
Mooch-Dan Fante
I hadn’t written a word or a story or anything in months.
Mooch-Dan Fante
“With a feeling of wild joy I returned from the northern railway station, where I had said good-bye to my wife.”
–Strindberg, “The Inferno”
“With a feeling of wild joy I returned from the northern railway station, where I had said good-bye to my wife.”
–Strindberg, “The Inferno”
I was once in a short fiction workshop in college and one of my peers wrote a story the title of which alludes me. All in all, the story was utterly forgettable, but it had one of the most striking opening lines I’ve ever read:
(from memory)
“Not only did the opening of hell make it brighter that day but also the fires that arose made it so hot that even god himself could be seen roaming the grounds nude.”
I was once in a short fiction workshop in college and one of my peers wrote a story the title of which alludes me. All in all, the story was utterly forgettable, but it had one of the most striking opening lines I’ve ever read:
(from memory)
“Not only did the opening of hell make it brighter that day but also the fires that arose made it so hot that even god himself could be seen roaming the grounds nude.”
A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. – JK Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces.
A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. – JK Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces.
Three from Harlan Ellison:
“They camped just beyond the perimeter of the dream and waited for first light before beginning the siege.” –The Outpost Undiscovered by Tourists (from Stalking the Nightmare)
“The King of Tibet was having himself a fat white woman.” –At the Mouse Circus (from Deathbird Stories)
“When Moby Dick awoke one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed of kelp into a monstrous Ahab.” –Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54′ N, Longitude 77° 00′ 13″ W (also from Deathbird Stories)
All three are available in The Essential Ellison: http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Ellison-50-Year-Retrospective/dp/1883398622/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249527903&sr=8-1
Enjoy!
Three from Harlan Ellison:
“They camped just beyond the perimeter of the dream and waited for first light before beginning the siege.” –The Outpost Undiscovered by Tourists (from Stalking the Nightmare)
“The King of Tibet was having himself a fat white woman.” –At the Mouse Circus (from Deathbird Stories)
“When Moby Dick awoke one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed of kelp into a monstrous Ahab.” –Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54′ N, Longitude 77° 00′ 13″ W (also from Deathbird Stories)
All three are available in The Essential Ellison: http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Ellison-50-Year-Retrospective/dp/1883398622/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249527903&sr=8-1
Enjoy!
miss mandible is techinically from come back dr caligari come back but it’s anthologized in 60 stories.
miss mandible is techinically from come back dr caligari come back but it’s anthologized in 60 stories.
“Just when I most needed important conversation, a sniff of the man-wide world, that is, at least one brain companion who could translate my friendly language into his tongue of undying carnal love, I was forced to lounge in our neighborhood park, surrounded by children.”
grace paley
faith in a tree
“Just when I most needed important conversation, a sniff of the man-wide world, that is, at least one brain companion who could translate my friendly language into his tongue of undying carnal love, I was forced to lounge in our neighborhood park, surrounded by children.”
grace paley
faith in a tree
technically two sentences, but I think of them as being spoken in one breath and so am counting it.
In watermelon sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar. I’ll tell you about it because I am here and you are distant. – Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar
Also, from the tradition of unassuming openers, “I ended up driving all night.” – David Gates, Jernigan.
technically two sentences, but I think of them as being spoken in one breath and so am counting it.
In watermelon sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar. I’ll tell you about it because I am here and you are distant. – Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar
Also, from the tradition of unassuming openers, “I ended up driving all night.” – David Gates, Jernigan.
“Jill ran her fingers down the tough golden beard of history.” —Kenneth Koch, The Red Robins
“Jill ran her fingers down the tough golden beard of history.” —Kenneth Koch, The Red Robins
Yep, I love that one, and would say it’s my third favorite.
Yep, I love that one, and would say it’s my third favorite.
I see a lot of pronouns and adjunctive wordy-words — i.e. they were when not only perhaps even whole might verily should made — and my eyes glaze over… that is horrible of me. No stamina for Victorian literature.
I see a lot of pronouns and adjunctive wordy-words — i.e. they were when not only perhaps even whole might verily should made — and my eyes glaze over… that is horrible of me. No stamina for Victorian literature.
“In August 1992, when the dog days were drawing to an end, I set off to walk the county of Suffolk, in the hope of dispelling the emptiness that takes hold of me whenever I have completed a long stint of work.” — Sebald, Rings of Saturn
“‘Beans have been known to sprout inside the bowel,’ says my eccentric, self-schooled sister, ‘therefore nothing is impossible.'” — Caponegro, “The Son’s Burden,” from The Complexities of Intimacy
“Some real things have happened lately.” — Didion, Last Thing He Wanted
In Watermelon Sugar is a good one lodged in me, too…
Keep ’em coming! This is great.
“In August 1992, when the dog days were drawing to an end, I set off to walk the county of Suffolk, in the hope of dispelling the emptiness that takes hold of me whenever I have completed a long stint of work.” — Sebald, Rings of Saturn
“‘Beans have been known to sprout inside the bowel,’ says my eccentric, self-schooled sister, ‘therefore nothing is impossible.'” — Caponegro, “The Son’s Burden,” from The Complexities of Intimacy
“Some real things have happened lately.” — Didion, Last Thing He Wanted
In Watermelon Sugar is a good one lodged in me, too…
Keep ’em coming! This is great.
Pre-Victorian, actually, published in 1760. Reading Sterne is a bit like reading Pynchon. I like to think of it as an endurance test, like the Ironman triathlon. It’s fun to psych yourself up and read it out loud while pacing around the room. I’m only 130 pages into it, but I’m already thinking it’s one of the great reading pleasures I’ve had. It’s actually very funny in an old-fashioned ultra British kind of way.
Pre-Victorian, actually, published in 1760. Reading Sterne is a bit like reading Pynchon. I like to think of it as an endurance test, like the Ironman triathlon. It’s fun to psych yourself up and read it out loud while pacing around the room. I’m only 130 pages into it, but I’m already thinking it’s one of the great reading pleasures I’ve had. It’s actually very funny in an old-fashioned ultra British kind of way.
“Nobody died that year.” – Renata Adler, Speedboat.
“A salesman who shared his liquor and steered while sleeping…A Cherokee filled with bourbon…a VW no more than a bubble of hashish fumes, captained by a college student…And a family from Marshalltown who head-onned and killed forever a man driving west out of Bethany, Missouri…” (not sure where this one technically ends cause of all the ellipses) – Denis Johnson, Jesus’ Son.
“You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler.” -uh, Italo Calvino, If on a winter’s night a traveler.
“Nobody died that year.” – Renata Adler, Speedboat.
“A salesman who shared his liquor and steered while sleeping…A Cherokee filled with bourbon…a VW no more than a bubble of hashish fumes, captained by a college student…And a family from Marshalltown who head-onned and killed forever a man driving west out of Bethany, Missouri…” (not sure where this one technically ends cause of all the ellipses) – Denis Johnson, Jesus’ Son.
“You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler.” -uh, Italo Calvino, If on a winter’s night a traveler.
I bet I’ll try it eventually. I like the read aloud while pacing plan. :)
I bet I’ll try it eventually. I like the read aloud while pacing plan. :)
“So, this is where people come in order to live, I would have rather thought: to die.” — Rilke, Notebooks of Malte Laurids Briggs
“So, this is where people come in order to live, I would have rather thought: to die.” — Rilke, Notebooks of Malte Laurids Briggs
(Also worth checking out is the meta-adaptation “Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story” with Steve Coogan, that came out a few years ago. It’s not a bad way to spark interest in the book, and it’s pretty funny itself.)
(Also worth checking out is the meta-adaptation “Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story” with Steve Coogan, that came out a few years ago. It’s not a bad way to spark interest in the book, and it’s pretty funny itself.)
“When she was finally crazy because she about to have an abortion, she conceived of the most insane idea that any woman can think of.” Don Quixote, Kathy Acker.
“Weidmann appeared before you in a five o’clock edition, his head swathed in white bands, a nun and yet a wounded pilot fallen into the rye one September day like the day when the world came to know the name of Our Lady of the Flowers.” Our Lady of the Flowers, Jean Genet.
“John, 18, hated his face.” Closer, Dennis Cooper.
“When she was finally crazy because she about to have an abortion, she conceived of the most insane idea that any woman can think of.” Don Quixote, Kathy Acker.
“Weidmann appeared before you in a five o’clock edition, his head swathed in white bands, a nun and yet a wounded pilot fallen into the rye one September day like the day when the world came to know the name of Our Lady of the Flowers.” Our Lady of the Flowers, Jean Genet.
“John, 18, hated his face.” Closer, Dennis Cooper.
“The rain which has been going on for two days and one night has just now stopped, of course probably only temporarily, but nonetheless an event worth celebrating, which I am doing by writing to you.” — Kafka, Letters to Milena
“On the thirteenth of January of this present year, 1865, at half-past twelve in the day, Elena Ivanovna, the wife of my cultured friend Ivan Matveitch, who is a colleague in the same department, and may be said to be a distant relation of mine, too, expressed the desire to see the crocodile now on view at a fixed charge in the arcade.” — Dostoevsky, “The Crocodile.”
“We are off!” — Melville, Mardi
“The rain which has been going on for two days and one night has just now stopped, of course probably only temporarily, but nonetheless an event worth celebrating, which I am doing by writing to you.” — Kafka, Letters to Milena
“On the thirteenth of January of this present year, 1865, at half-past twelve in the day, Elena Ivanovna, the wife of my cultured friend Ivan Matveitch, who is a colleague in the same department, and may be said to be a distant relation of mine, too, expressed the desire to see the crocodile now on view at a fixed charge in the arcade.” — Dostoevsky, “The Crocodile.”
“We are off!” — Melville, Mardi
“A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.” – Joyce
“The naked parrot looked like a human fetus spliced onto a kosher chicken.” – Tom Robbins
“A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.” – Joyce
“The naked parrot looked like a human fetus spliced onto a kosher chicken.” – Tom Robbins
Jeezus, people–how about every first line in Stories in the Worst Way. That book is full of ’em.
There’s also Diane Williams.
Jeezus, people–how about every first line in Stories in the Worst Way. That book is full of ’em.
There’s also Diane Williams.
Both good calls
“The woman, who is me–why pretend otherwise?–wants to love a man she cannot have” – All American, Diane Williams
“The wedding was curt and almost entirely without result.” – Being Good in October, Gary Lutz
another:
“Everybody wanted everything to be gleaming again, or maybe they just wanted their evening back.” – I’m slavering, Sam Lipsyte
Both good calls
“The woman, who is me–why pretend otherwise?–wants to love a man she cannot have” – All American, Diane Williams
“The wedding was curt and almost entirely without result.” – Being Good in October, Gary Lutz
another:
“Everybody wanted everything to be gleaming again, or maybe they just wanted their evening back.” – I’m slavering, Sam Lipsyte
Also, the first three sentences (two paragraphs) of Infinite Jest are killer.
Also, the first three sentences (two paragraphs) of Infinite Jest are killer.
“She was Betty Porter, a being as much of magic as of muscle, and I who I ever am — Heath “Pokey” Howell (Junior), banker, Luna County commissioner, and, as events will prove, the dimmest of sinners, male type.” – Ninety Nights on Mercury, Lee K. Abbott
“I was slapped and hurried along in the private applause of birth–I think I remember this. Well, I imagine it anyway–the blind boy’s rose-and-milk-and-gray-walled (and salty) aquarium, the aquarium overthrown, the uproar in the woman-barn…the fantastic sloppiness of one’s coming into existence, one’s sense in the radiant and raw stuff of howlingly sore and unexplained registry in the new everywhere, immensely unknown, disbelief and shakenness, the awful contamination of actual light. I think I remember the breath crouched in me and then leaping out yowlingly: this uncancellable sort of beginning.” – The Runaway Soul, Harold Brodkey (I know, more than one sentence, but c’mon)
“Propane slept in the tank and propane leaked while I slept, blew the camper door off and split the tin walls where they met like shy strangers kissing, blew the camper door like a safe and I sprang from sleep into my new life on my feet in front of a befuddled crowd, my new life on fire, waking to whoosh and tourists’ dull teenagers staring at my bent form trotting noisily in the campground with flames living on my calves and flames gathering and glittering on my shoulders (Cool, the teens think secretly), smoke like nausea in my stomach and me brimming with Catholic guilt, thinking, Now I’ve done it, and then thinking, Done what? What have I done?” – Burn Man on a Texas Porch, Mark Anthony Jarman
“She was Betty Porter, a being as much of magic as of muscle, and I who I ever am — Heath “Pokey” Howell (Junior), banker, Luna County commissioner, and, as events will prove, the dimmest of sinners, male type.” – Ninety Nights on Mercury, Lee K. Abbott
“I was slapped and hurried along in the private applause of birth–I think I remember this. Well, I imagine it anyway–the blind boy’s rose-and-milk-and-gray-walled (and salty) aquarium, the aquarium overthrown, the uproar in the woman-barn…the fantastic sloppiness of one’s coming into existence, one’s sense in the radiant and raw stuff of howlingly sore and unexplained registry in the new everywhere, immensely unknown, disbelief and shakenness, the awful contamination of actual light. I think I remember the breath crouched in me and then leaping out yowlingly: this uncancellable sort of beginning.” – The Runaway Soul, Harold Brodkey (I know, more than one sentence, but c’mon)
“Propane slept in the tank and propane leaked while I slept, blew the camper door off and split the tin walls where they met like shy strangers kissing, blew the camper door like a safe and I sprang from sleep into my new life on my feet in front of a befuddled crowd, my new life on fire, waking to whoosh and tourists’ dull teenagers staring at my bent form trotting noisily in the campground with flames living on my calves and flames gathering and glittering on my shoulders (Cool, the teens think secretly), smoke like nausea in my stomach and me brimming with Catholic guilt, thinking, Now I’ve done it, and then thinking, Done what? What have I done?” – Burn Man on a Texas Porch, Mark Anthony Jarman
i thought that too and almost put something by diane williams but then i thought those kinds of writers don’t qualify because they exist in a different dimension
i thought that too and almost put something by diane williams but then i thought those kinds of writers don’t qualify because they exist in a different dimension
“It was a dark and stormy night.”
-Though quite a few have taken Lord Lytton’s famous beginning, I am going to refer, here, to Madeleine L’Engle’s use of it in ‘A Wrinkle in Time’, which was the ‘Harry Potter’ of my childhood.
“It was a dark and stormy night.”
-Though quite a few have taken Lord Lytton’s famous beginning, I am going to refer, here, to Madeleine L’Engle’s use of it in ‘A Wrinkle in Time’, which was the ‘Harry Potter’ of my childhood.
Murakami has some great first lines.
Murakami has some great first lines.
the last questioning, hahah, wow, that makes it.
the last questioning, hahah, wow, that makes it.
i LOVE Pynchon
i LOVE Pynchon
“Yesterday a few things happened.” The title story in Typical by Padget Powell. Also, from the same collection, the opening sentence of “Flood”. Here’s the first little bit of it:
“In a flood we had, a poet I know came walking down the riverbank, just as I recovered from the river itself a woman–I was in it grabbing the good things a flood can bring, which might sound a bit dangerous but isn’t, really, if you place yourself on a sandbar, as I had, or in an eddy closer to the bank, as had a buddy of mine who’d come over to drink beer and watch the flood with me until we decided to get *in* it and grab the loot–…” It goes on like this for a good page and a half. Really great. Powell has some sentency sentences.
“Yesterday a few things happened.” The title story in Typical by Padget Powell. Also, from the same collection, the opening sentence of “Flood”. Here’s the first little bit of it:
“In a flood we had, a poet I know came walking down the riverbank, just as I recovered from the river itself a woman–I was in it grabbing the good things a flood can bring, which might sound a bit dangerous but isn’t, really, if you place yourself on a sandbar, as I had, or in an eddy closer to the bank, as had a buddy of mine who’d come over to drink beer and watch the flood with me until we decided to get *in* it and grab the loot–…” It goes on like this for a good page and a half. Really great. Powell has some sentency sentences.
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. – Nabokov
that first paragraph, too good.
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. – Nabokov
that first paragraph, too good.
“A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.” Nathaniel Hawthorne
everyones read it- but really admire it.
“A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.” Nathaniel Hawthorne
everyones read it- but really admire it.
these do not begin, but end the story….
“Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!”
-Herman Melville “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street”
these do not begin, but end the story….
“Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!”
-Herman Melville “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street”
“I believed that I was dying in Palestine.” (H. V. Morton, In Search of England)
Only the true pioneer of British travel literature, H. V. Morton, could start the account of his travels around England like this and get away with it.
“It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination for some days.” (Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day)
Slightly mysterious, this makes you wonder what this expedition might be and who the person is that tells us this in such a formal way.
“Christie Malry was a simple person.” (B. S. Johnson, Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry)
This seems to be a fairly traditional beginning for a novel. In no way whatsoever does it prepare the reader for the narrative madness that Johnson is going to unleash on the reader in this most experimental of British novels.
“I never found a way to fill all the silence.” (Stefan Merrill Block, The Story of Forgetting)
You just want to go on reading. “A triumph of a novel” (Independent on Sunday)
THE classic beginning of all times: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
No need to say what this is taken from.
“Ich bin nicht Stiller!” [I am not Stiller!] (Max Frisch, Stiller)
This is one of the most mysterious and fascinating beginnings of German-speaking literature (Can you say that? Can literature speak?). In what situation would someone make an exclamation like that?
“Je ne sais pas, en vérité, pourquoi l’homme tient tant à la vie. Que trouve-t-il donc de si agréable dans cette insipide succession des nuits et des jours, de l’hiver et du printemps?” [I honestly do not know why man clings to life so much. What about this insipid succession of day and night, winter and spring does he find so enjoyable?] (Claude Tillier, Mon Oncle Benjamin)
This sounds like a pretty emo way to start a novel, but it does make you wonder what has happened to to someone to start their narrative like this.
This is a very personal selection, I hope you will find some of this interesting enough to go on reading the whole book.
Matthias
“I believed that I was dying in Palestine.” (H. V. Morton, In Search of England)
Only the true pioneer of British travel literature, H. V. Morton, could start the account of his travels around England like this and get away with it.
“It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination for some days.” (Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day)
Slightly mysterious, this makes you wonder what this expedition might be and who the person is that tells us this in such a formal way.
“Christie Malry was a simple person.” (B. S. Johnson, Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry)
This seems to be a fairly traditional beginning for a novel. In no way whatsoever does it prepare the reader for the narrative madness that Johnson is going to unleash on the reader in this most experimental of British novels.
“I never found a way to fill all the silence.” (Stefan Merrill Block, The Story of Forgetting)
You just want to go on reading. “A triumph of a novel” (Independent on Sunday)
THE classic beginning of all times: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
No need to say what this is taken from.
“Ich bin nicht Stiller!” [I am not Stiller!] (Max Frisch, Stiller)
This is one of the most mysterious and fascinating beginnings of German-speaking literature (Can you say that? Can literature speak?). In what situation would someone make an exclamation like that?
“Je ne sais pas, en vérité, pourquoi l’homme tient tant à la vie. Que trouve-t-il donc de si agréable dans cette insipide succession des nuits et des jours, de l’hiver et du printemps?” [I honestly do not know why man clings to life so much. What about this insipid succession of day and night, winter and spring does he find so enjoyable?] (Claude Tillier, Mon Oncle Benjamin)
This sounds like a pretty emo way to start a novel, but it does make you wonder what has happened to to someone to start their narrative like this.
This is a very personal selection, I hope you will find some of this interesting enough to go on reading the whole book.
Matthias
yeeha! great to see Padgett up here. I used to know his short-short “Texas” (from the same book) by heart. It begins- “I fell off the lightning rod.”
yeeha! great to see Padgett up here. I used to know his short-short “Texas” (from the same book) by heart. It begins- “I fell off the lightning rod.”
Oh yes, great, I love Bartleby! “I would prefer not to.”
You always get a new perspective when you ask students to give their view of the story, especially the meaning of the wall and the possible reasons for Bartleby’s refusal to go on living.
Oh yes, great, I love Bartleby! “I would prefer not to.”
You always get a new perspective when you ask students to give their view of the story, especially the meaning of the wall and the possible reasons for Bartleby’s refusal to go on living.
“Us brothers, we took us our mud and our fish-fishing poles baited with worms and rust and mud and we hopped up into the dead man’s boat, that boat that we found washed up on our dirty river’s dirty shores, and we headed ourselves upriver, up past the shipwrecked mill where our father used to go inside to work, it sitting dark and silenced and fireless there on the river’s muddy bank, up around the bend in the river, past the other string of mills farther north along the river, mills with fires still burning there inside them, up toward where the beaded lights of that big steel bridge stretching from our side of the river all the way over to the river’s other side, it was all lit up in the night like a constellation of sunken-ship stars, each star shining out in the nighttime’s dark like the shiny heads of nails hammered into some backyard telephone pole.”
— “The Dead Man’s Boat” by Peter Markus from Detroit Noir
“Us brothers, we took us our mud and our fish-fishing poles baited with worms and rust and mud and we hopped up into the dead man’s boat, that boat that we found washed up on our dirty river’s dirty shores, and we headed ourselves upriver, up past the shipwrecked mill where our father used to go inside to work, it sitting dark and silenced and fireless there on the river’s muddy bank, up around the bend in the river, past the other string of mills farther north along the river, mills with fires still burning there inside them, up toward where the beaded lights of that big steel bridge stretching from our side of the river all the way over to the river’s other side, it was all lit up in the night like a constellation of sunken-ship stars, each star shining out in the nighttime’s dark like the shiny heads of nails hammered into some backyard telephone pole.”
— “The Dead Man’s Boat” by Peter Markus from Detroit Noir
Good one pr – love seeing Dan F get a shout out
my favorite opening remains:
“I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil dog stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Station, vault a turnstile and two flights down the iron stairs, catch an uptown A train…”
Naked Lunch – Burroughs
and also
“When mother found out she was pregnant she took an overdose. Father gave her the pills.”
Dandy in the Underworld – Sebastian Horsley
Good one pr – love seeing Dan F get a shout out
my favorite opening remains:
“I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil dog stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Station, vault a turnstile and two flights down the iron stairs, catch an uptown A train…”
Naked Lunch – Burroughs
and also
“When mother found out she was pregnant she took an overdose. Father gave her the pills.”
Dandy in the Underworld – Sebastian Horsley
Great topic.
“As he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.”–JG Ballard, “High Rise”
“Fog was so dense, bird that had been disturbed went flat into a balustrade and slowly fell, dead, at her feet.”–Henry Green, “Party Going”
Great topic.
“As he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.”–JG Ballard, “High Rise”
“Fog was so dense, bird that had been disturbed went flat into a balustrade and slowly fell, dead, at her feet.”–Henry Green, “Party Going”
Ken, the wordiness in “Tristam Shandy” is part of the joke.
Ken, the wordiness in “Tristam Shandy” is part of the joke.
Readers, friends, less than friends, enemies, critics! – Celine in Guignol’s Band
Readers, friends, less than friends, enemies, critics! – Celine in Guignol’s Band
I love me a good fart pun!
I love me a good fart pun!
Yeah, “Texas” is a great story, too. Padgett Powell rulez.
Yeah, “Texas” is a great story, too. Padgett Powell rulez.
“Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;”
t.s. eliot; the love song of j. alfred prufrock
“It is possible that to seem–it is to be;
As the sun is something seeming and it is.”
wallace stevens; description without place
“Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;”
t.s. eliot; the love song of j. alfred prufrock
“It is possible that to seem–it is to be;
As the sun is something seeming and it is.”
wallace stevens; description without place
A medical internship consists of more than spectating at complicated bowel operations, cutting open stomach linings, bracketing off lungs and sawing off feet; and it doesn’t just consist of thumbing closed the eyes of the dead and hauling babies out into the world either.”
-FROST, Thomas Bernhard
A medical internship consists of more than spectating at complicated bowel operations, cutting open stomach linings, bracketing off lungs and sawing off feet; and it doesn’t just consist of thumbing closed the eyes of the dead and hauling babies out into the world either.”
-FROST, Thomas Bernhard
fuck yes
fuck yes
also great are the monsters that open Bernhard’s Yes and Vollmann’s You Bright and Risen Angels.
also great are the monsters that open Bernhard’s Yes and Vollmann’s You Bright and Risen Angels.
Two I didn’t see here (both are paragraphs, though the opening sentences are strong on their own):
An aristocrat was riding down the street in his carriage. He ran over my father.
After the ceremony I walked back to the city. I was trying to think of the reason my father had died. Then I remembered: he was run over by a carriage.
– “Views of My Father Weeping,” Donald Barthelme
My name is Ned Maximus, but they call me Maximum Ned.
Three years ago, when I was a drunk, a hitchhiker stabbed me in the eye with my own filet knife. I wear a patch on the right one now. It was a fake Indian named Billy Seven Fingers. He was having the shakes, and I was trying to get him to the bootleggers off the reservation in Neshoba County, Mississippi.
– “Ride, Fly, Penetrate, Loiter,” Barry Hannah
…which is also my favorite short story title.
Two I didn’t see here (both are paragraphs, though the opening sentences are strong on their own):
An aristocrat was riding down the street in his carriage. He ran over my father.
After the ceremony I walked back to the city. I was trying to think of the reason my father had died. Then I remembered: he was run over by a carriage.
– “Views of My Father Weeping,” Donald Barthelme
My name is Ned Maximus, but they call me Maximum Ned.
Three years ago, when I was a drunk, a hitchhiker stabbed me in the eye with my own filet knife. I wear a patch on the right one now. It was a fake Indian named Billy Seven Fingers. He was having the shakes, and I was trying to get him to the bootleggers off the reservation in Neshoba County, Mississippi.
– “Ride, Fly, Penetrate, Loiter,” Barry Hannah
…which is also my favorite short story title.
Love Horsley.
Love Horsley.
Okay, it’s not THE first sentence, but it’s on the first page and I absolutely love it:
“In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it. In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge.” ~”Nineteen Minutes”-Jodi Picoult
Okay, it’s not THE first sentence, but it’s on the first page and I absolutely love it:
“In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it. In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge.” ~”Nineteen Minutes”-Jodi Picoult
gorsh, gotta get on the bernhard train
gorsh, gotta get on the bernhard train
yes!
yes!
This one from Samuel Delany’s DHALGREN is a masterful tribute to Joyce’s own amazing opening loop in FINNEGAN’S WAKE. (You know, “riverrun, 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.) Here’s Delany’s: “to wound the autumnal city.” The end of the novel has the beginning of the sentence: “Waiting here, away from the terrifying weaponry, out of the halls of vapor and light, beyond Holland and into the hills, I have come to” Note the stutter when you put the parts together. Simply masterful. You have to read this book!
From Jenny Boully’s impassioned and understatedly erudite prose poem [one love affair]*:
“She remembers the story he told her, about taking a walk with his former lover during one of the very first days of spring, a spring which soured then ripened then soured then ripened before beginning again, a spring which kept swelling out of winter in a way that Chaucer’s spring would never do.” Pick this book up at Tarpaulin Sky and anything else from Boully, for that matter.
From William Gass’s “Order of Insects,” a story Gass, in an issue of the Paris Review, called “the best thing [he] ever wrote.” I’d have to agree:
“We certainly had no complaints about the house after all we had been through in the other place, but we hadn’t lived there very long before I began to notice every morning the bodies of a large black bug spotted about the downstairs carpet; haphazardly, as earth worms must die on the street after a rain; looking when I first saw them like rolls of dark wool or pieces of mud from the children’s shoes, or sometimes, if the drapes were pulled, so like ink stains or deep burns they terrified me, for I had been intimidated by that thick rug very early and the first week had walked over it wishing my bare feet would swallow my shoes.”
From Brian Evenson’s “Wander”:
“And after many days of wandering – days of bitter cold, days in which we wore out what remained of our shoes and then lost toes and then wrapped our feet in rags, days in which we were hard-pressed to decide what wounded and floundering flesh was safe to consume and what must be passed over, days when we passed warily by other tribes of men such as ourselves, days when we were forced to decide whether to haul one another forward or abandon one another along what remained of the roadside – we came at last to a place not utterly undone by devastation.”
From Jorge Luis Borges’s “Library of Babel.” I was reminded of this great story by a wonderful article by Grant Munroe at The Rumpus (http://therumpus.net/2009/08/searching-the-library-of-babel/#respond):
“The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings.”
Such a great book. I was in a study group looking at this book recently with Burton Pike the translator of the most recent translation, the one put out by Dalkey Archive. I’d read the Mitchell translation already and it was fun to revisit it again.
‘One day, I was already old, in the entrance of a public place a man came up to me.’ – Marguerite Duras.
&
‘Call me Ishmael.’
‘One day, I was already old, in the entrance of a public place a man came up to me.’ – Marguerite Duras.
&
‘Call me Ishmael.’
[…] vs. the critics Jump to Comments If you find the style irritating, Matt Cozart, commenter, who’s apparently reading this simultaneously, although I wouldn’t be surprised if […]
‘A man called Berg, that changed his name to Greb, came to a seaside town intending to kill his father….’
– Berg, Ann Quin
‘A man called Berg, that changed his name to Greb, came to a seaside town intending to kill his father….’
– Berg, Ann Quin
“Jack Torrence thought : Officious little prick.”
The Shinning – Stephen King
“Jack Torrence thought : Officious little prick.”
The Shinning – Stephen King
[…] It seems appropriate to start this off with HTMLGIANT picking “Favorite First Sentences“ […]