BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: GUEST,mauvepink
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 07:17 AM

Books: Best 100 opening lines

Lots of choice

as well as

Books: Best 100 opening lines (alternative)

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: Rafflesbear
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 11:59 AM

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 09:20 PM

The visitor, making his way unobserved through the crowded main laboratory of The Hill, stepped up to within six feet of the back of a big Norwegian seated at an electro-optical bench. Drawing an automatic pistol, he shot the apparently unsuspecting scientist seven times, as fast as he could pull the trigger; twice through the brain, five times, closely spaced, through the spine.

                      --E. E. Smith, "First Lensman"

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: Deckman
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 02:41 PM

"He had the gift of laughter, and a sense that world was mad." Scaramouch. OH DAMN ... I see that Don Firth beat me to it. Through our over 55 years of friendship, I've found that he usually has "beat me to it." Let's see ... there was Ellen, Joannie, Margaret ... oh never mind! bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 08:44 PM

Suibhne, another cheer for The Third Policeman. Brilliant surrealism.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: IvanB
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 05:23 AM

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." - Sidney Carton from A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

Ending line.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 08:08 AM

For simple dramatic effect it has to be Kafka's Metamorphosis:

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."

My favourite is probably Report to Greco by Nikos Kazantzakis (more famous for Zorba the Greek). He wrote the book when suffering from a terminal illness and it is part autobiography and part fiction. It's also one of the inspirational books that people should read before they die. It begins:

"I collect my tools: sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing, intellect. Night has fallen, the day's work is done. I return like a mole to my home, the ground. Not because I am tired and cannot work. I am not tired. But the sun has set."

The simple, poignant epitaph on his grave sums up his philosophy: I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 08:42 AM

Got to be:
"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams ......."

Oops, apologies, Jim, just read your post above. Great minds?

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 12:27 PM

Rapparee:
Just the one springs immediately to mind: Friday by Heinlein.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: Micca
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 12:35 PM

Rap, No3 is Heinleins "Number of the Beast
No 5 is Kipling " Stalky and Co"

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: GUEST,lefthanded guitar
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 12:38 PM

"When he as nearly thirteen my brother Jem got his arm badly
broken at the elbow."

It may not be the best line, but it's certainly the best book I ever read in my life. I re-read it every year; and am just about to the part where Scout makes her late entrance in the Halloween pageant in her ham costume, causing Judge Taylor to almost collapse with laughter in the school hall.

To Kill A Mockingbird.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: Amos
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 02:04 PM

Rapp's #1, concerning Uncle Louie's demise, is from Spider Robinson, "Lady Slings the Booze".


His second is Heinlein's THe Number of the Beast.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 04:16 PM

Yay, lefthanded guitar! If you can read only five books in you're lifetime, To Kill a Mockingbird has to be at the top of the list.

And the movie. A line I remember from the movie that really got through to me was when the case was over, Atticus had lost, and they were filing out of the courtroom. Scout is sitting in the balcony with a large group of people. They all rose to their feet. Then one of the older men says to Scout, "Stand up, Louise. Your Daddy's, passin'!"

Got kinda choked up. . . .

Don Firth