/lit/ - Literature

Fell asleep midway through that sentence.

Was this Dorian Gray?

>Incredible the first animal that dreamed of another animal. Monstrous the first vertebrae that succeeded in standing on two feet and thus spread terror among the beasts still normally and happily crawling close to the ground through the slime of creation. Astounding the first telephone call, the first boiling water, the first song, the first loincloth.

>How many swords had Lady Beveridge in her pierced heart! Yet there always seemed room for another. Since she had determined that her heart of pity and kindness should never die..

>>21568288
>In his open letter to Friedrich Nietzsche of 12 June 1872 Wagner explained that Woglinde’s opening gambit is based on OHG heilawâc ( = water drawn from a river or well at some divinely appointed hour), recast by analogy with the eia popeia ( = hushabye) of children’s nursery rhymes.
>In conversation with Cosima, Wagner described this passage as ‘the world’s lullaby’ (CT, 17 July 1869), a reading already suggested by Opera and Drama, where the composer imputes the birth of language to a melodic vocalization.

>>21568425
Maybe this is a good opening for a snarky OpEd but it doesn't feel like an invitation to enter a novel.

It was the Sneed of feed, it was the chuck of fuck

>It being an established fact that the object and the subject that are fit to be the contents of the concepts 'you' and 'we' (respectively), and are by nature as contradictory as light and darkness, cannot logically have any identity, it follows that their attributes can have it still less. Accordingly, the superimposition of the object, referable through the concept "you" and its attributes on the subject that is conscious by nature and is referable through the concept "we" and contrariwise the superimposition of the subject and its attributes on the object should be impossible. Nevertheless, owing to an absence of discrimination between these attributes, as also between substances, which are absolutely disparate, there continues a natural human behavior based on self-identification in the form of "I am this" or "This is mine". This behavior has for its cause a false ignorance and man resorts to it by mixing up reality with unreality as a result of superimposing the things themselves or their attributes on each other.

>No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
Not one of the best, but one of my favorites

>See the child. Call him Ishmael.
Damn

All of these openings you all posted suck

>>21568479
you have shit taste
>you all
N

>>21568444
Because it isn't a novel, it's the book of disquiet

mother died today. or maybe yesterday

>>21568288
>Someone must of slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.

>it was the best of times, it was the blorst of times

>>21568288
Call me Ishmael...
And
riverrun, past Eve and Adam's...

>>21568288
>When I stepped out into the bright sunlight, from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.

>>21568478
>>21568560
>see the feed.
>call me sneed.
>aujourd'hui, chuck est mort.
lit.

>Here bygynneth the Book of the tales of Caunterbury

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

>Lolita, love of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta, the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps on the palate to tap.

>>21569110
>the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps on the palate to tap.
Doesn’t really work does it

>Alif, Lam, Mim

‘Take my camel, dear,’ said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.

One summer afternoon Mrs Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary. Oedipa stood in the living room, stared at by the greenish dead eye of the TV tube, spoke the name of God, tried to feel as drunk as possible. But this did not work. She thought of a hotel room in Mazatlan whose door had just been slammed, it seemed forever, waking up two hundred birds down in the lobby; a sunrise over the library slope at Cornell University that nobody out on it had seen because the slope faces west; a dry, disconsolate tune from the fourth movement of the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra; a whitewashed bust of Jay Gould that Pierce kept over the bed on a shelf so narrow for it she'd always had the hovering fear it would someday topple on them. Was that how he'd died, she wondered, among dreams, crushed by the only icon in the house? That only made her laugh, out loud and helpless: You're so sick, Oedipa, she told herself, or the room, which knew.

>>21569270
Mhm crying of lot 49 starts off so good.

I am seated, screaming across stately, plump heads and bodies.

April is the cruellest month

>>21568288
Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. They were coming toward where the flag was and I went along the fence. Luster was hunting in the grass by the flower tree. They took the flag out, and they were hitting. Then they put the flag back and they went to the table, and he hit and the other hit. Then they went on, and I went along the fence. Luster came away from the flower tree and we went along the fence and they stopped and we stopped and I looked through the fence while Luster was hunting in the grass.

>>21569320
breddy gud

>>21569320
Worst dogshit ever.

In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf.
One Sunday morning the warm sun cam up...
and POP, out of the egg came a tiny, very hungry caterpillar.
He started looking for some food.
On Monday he ate through one apple. But he was still hungry.
On Tuesday he ate through two pears, but he was still hungry.
On Wednesday he ate through three plums, but he was still hungry.
On Thursday he ate through four strawberries, but he was still
hungry.
On Friday he ate through five oranges, but he was still hungry.

>>21569394
I thought it was pretty good, why do you think it's bad?

>>21568413
Fellow Terra Nostra enjoyers report

>>21569413
It overwhelms you with ridiculous nonsense right from page one. It feels like a chapter from the middle of the book.

I am surprised to see no one posted the One Hundred Years of Solitude one yet.

>>21569418
Every new term used there is defined right there in the text. You're just too stupid to grasp it.

>Though hundreds of thousands had done their very best to disfigure the small piece of land on which they were crowded together, by paving the ground with stones, scraping away every vestige of vegetation, cutting down the trees, turning away birds and beasts, and filling the air with the smoke of naphtha and coal, still spring was spring, even in the town.

>The sun shone warm, the air was balmy; everywhere, where it did not get scraped away, the grass revived and sprang up between the paving-stones as well as on the narrow strips of lawn on the boulevards. The birches, the poplars, and the wild cherry unfolded their gummy and fragrant leaves, the limes were expanding their opening buds; crows, sparrows, and pigeons, filled with the joy of spring, were getting their nests ready; the flies were buzzing along the walls, warmed by the sunshine. All were glad, the plants, the birds, the insects, and the children. But men, grown-up men and women, did not leave off cheating and tormenting themselves and each other. It was not this spring morning men thought sacred and worthy of consideration not the beauty of God’s world, given for a joy to all creatures, this beauty which inclines the heart to peace, to harmony, and to love, but only their own devices for enslaving one another.
Tolstoy, Resurrection

>>21569418
I thought it was pretty poetic and kept my interest but that's probably a fair criticism.

>>21568760
>I just met you
>and this is cray-cray
>but here's my number
>so call me Ishmae.

>>21569257
OK, I'm curious.

>>21568760
Finnegans Wake

It had snowed lightly in the night and her frozen hair was gold and crystalline and her eyes were frozen cold and hard as stones. One of her yellow boots had fallen off and stood in the snow beneath her. The shape of her coat lay dusted in the snow where she’d dropped it and she wore only a white dress and she hung among the bare gray poles of the winter trees with her head bowed and her hands turned slightly outward like those of certain ecumenical statues whose attitude asks that their history be considered. That the deep foundation of the world be considered where it has its being in the sorrow of her creatures.

>>21568288
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

>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.

>>21568288
>Omg so much exposition!!! Will never be published today

>>21568443
I remember writing pornographic poetry about Woglinde and her sisters in my early 20s.

>>21568288

>>21568288

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....

>>21569592
From? What happened to her?

It was a dark and stormy night..

>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 concerned 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.

>>21569320
Love me some grungy religious writing. You have more?

On one otherwise normal Tuesday evening I had the chance to live the American dream. I was able to throw my incompetent jackass of a boss from a fourteenth-story window.

-Larry Correia , Monster Hunter International

>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 concerned 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.

>>21570820
you would not believe how much I hate that intro

>>21568288
The gale tore at him and he felt its bite deep within and he knew if they did not make landfall within three days they would all be dead.

>>21569300
April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain.
American sports legend, Charles Barkley

>>21568288
However that books about dragons an anon was editing began. The one about a dragon whoring herself out for gold, because "while dragons enjoy sex they enjoy gold so much more."

>>21570935
Yes.

>>21568288
>Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.

>>21568425
Resorting to "had had" in the very first sentence does not bode well for the rest of the book.

One morning Chuck Samsa awoke and found himself transformed into a giant Sneed

>>21569117
Mozart strikes again

>>21568288
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

>>21568288
>it's a hideous sentence that evokes gore and scat... even though it's about pretty flowers... whoaa le enlightened homosexual

>>21569481
Lol what?? This isn't a guess the book thread LMAOOOO do you want a cookie for recognizing the most famous book ever? Hahahahaa someone give this kid some more homework!

This is how the story begins.
On a dark dark hill
there was a dark dark town.
In the dark dark town
there was a dark dark street.
In the dark dark street
there was a dark dark house.
In the dark dark house
there was a dark dark staircase.
Down the dark dark staircase.
Down the dark dark staircase
there was a dark dark cellar
and in the dark dark cellar...
some skeletons lived.

>>21571671
Why do ESLs always lose their shit over this?

>>21570934
>>21570944
a classic

>>21572002
It's a standard Stephen King-tier new writer nitpick, like thinking all adverbs are bad.

Здpaвcтвyйтe дopoгoй Mapтин Aлeкceич!

>>21568288
Peep the lil nigga.

>>21572056
>Imma be Ishmaquille

>>21572032
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

>>21568288
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

>>21570957
great book.
So is King Rat.

>The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.
From my favourite Trinidadian pajeet writer.

> Only the young have such moments. I don’t mean the very young. No. The very young have, properly speaking, no moments. It is the privilege of early youth to live in advance of its days in all the beautiful continuity of hope which knows no pauses and no introspection.

>>21572032
>>21572066

>>21572103

Wrong Naipaul motherfucker

>TIRAICHBADFTHR

>>21568288
Poet
Good day, sir.
Painter
I am glad you're well.
Poet
I have not seen you long: how goes the world?
Painter
It wears, sir, as it grows.

Technically doesn't count but I find it kino.

"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 ringing Lids of 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 December, to a comfortable Room at the rear of the House, years since given over to their carefree Assaults."

Hwæt!

>>21568288
>L’anno moriva, assai dolcemente. Il sole di San Silvestro spandeva non so che tepor velato, mollissimo, aureo, quasi primaverile, nel ciel di Roma. Tutte le vie erano popolose come nelle domeniche di maggio. Su la Piazza Barberini, su la Piazza di Spagna una moltitudine di vetture passava in corsa traversando; e dalle due piazze il romorìo confuso e continuo, salendo alla Trinità de’ Monti, alla via Sistina, giungeva fin nelle stanze del palazzo Zuccari, attenuato.

Fuck! My liver hurts!!!!

- Notes from Underground

CRASH

>>21570922
The Passenger

Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληιάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
οὐλομένην, ἥ μυρί’ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε’ ἔθηκεν,
πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄιδι προίαψεν
ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν
οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή,
ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε
Ἂτρείδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεὺς.

>>21569048
>In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God
explain this to me immediately in normal terms
>>21569130
quran doesn't start with alef lam mim you gorilla nigga
>>21568748
kek

>>21569941
The Rosenbergs deserved it, though.

>>21570781
now we're talkin'

>>21572022
>>21570944
what is this

>>21572340
Uh, in English, doc?

>>21573089
Tristram Shandy

For a long time I used to go to bed early

>>21568288
not literally the first sentence, but this part from very early in introduction to magic leaves a powerful impression.

>>21568288
>A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows. To begin your study of the life of Muad’Dib, then, take care that you first place him in his time: born in the 57th year of the Padishah Emperor, Shaddam IV. And take the most special care that you locate Muad’Dib in his place: the planet Arrakis. Do not be deceived by the fact that he was born on Caladan and lived his first fifteen years there. Arrakis, the planet known as Dune, is forever his place.

>– from “Manual of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

>>21569320
Ah yes a giant autistic loredump with zero reason for me to care about what is happening and why. Exactly how I like to start my stories.

>>21569320
just awful writing, it reads about like 'guns, germs, and steel' does but with made-up shit thrown in

> From a little after two o'clock until almost sundown of the long still hot weary dead September afternoon they sat in what Miss Coldfield still called the office because her father had called it that—a dim hot airless room with the blinds all closed and fastened for forty-three summers because when she was a girl someone had believed that light and moving air carried heat and that dark was always cooler, and which (as the sun shone fuller and fuller on that side of the house) became latticed with yellow slashes full of dust motes which Quentin thought of as being flecks of the dead old dried paint itself blown inward from the scaling blinds as wind might have blown them.

>>21570852
>>21571728
Based moocow posters

>>21568425
This is a clunky sentence. The way it flows makes it sound like the narrator was born for the same reason the elders had been.

>>21569374
A boring paragraph about a boring pass time conveyed by a boring character. Faulkner is a major yawn.

>>21570953
It's universally regarded as one of the greatest intros in literature. You're just outing yourself as a philistine.

>>21573997
I don't care. I don't like it. Imagine being such a midwit that your opinions hinge on what other people say.

>>21574007
Imagine being such a nitwit that you think "I don't like it" carries any weight whatsoever. You can't even marshal enough intellect to even critique it, hell, you can't even name a reason you don't like it! Embarrassing!

>>21574063
What? Where the hell did you get that idea?

>>21574068
The fact that you've now had three (3) separate opportunities to post absolutely ANYTHING of substance and have failed all three times

>I am a sick man ... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man.

>>21574111
This.

>>21574103
Well, now I'm not gonna. I don't have to justify myself to a schmuck on 4chan.

>>21574111
came here to post this

>>21568288
opening of satanic verses is pure kino

>>21574128
I am convinced you can't. Also, 4 opportunities now, zero utterances of substance.

>>21570852
Best Joyce opening line.

>>21573790
What is this?