/lit/ - Literature

I sure liked the opening lines to Anna Karenina, which I just started.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

riverrun

Its amazin gthat the bot can have threads all by itself.

Lolita, light 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 down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

>>976920
thats a good one too, ive heard it being quoted alot.

>>976899

"Prepare your anus" - The Penis Was: The black niggers.

>>976971

Fuck yea The Penis Was!

>>976971

niggerssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Read some Camus and lighten up. Do The Myth of Sisyphu sand then The Stranger.

It is severely depressing.

wow we really are being raided by /b/

>>977062
What, did you just now figure this out?

>>977048
>>977006
>>976971
... fucking trolls...

>>977062
I don't think it's /b/, it's on all the other boards.

>>977062


You mean by the bots?

It was the best of times;it was the worst of times.

>May it please Heaven that the reader, emboldened and become of a sudden momentarily ferocious like what he is reading, may trace in safety his pathway through the desolate morass of these gloomy and poisonous pages. For unless he is able to bring to his reading a rigourous logic and a spiritual tension equal at least to his distrust, the deadly emanations of this book will imbibe his soul as sugar absorbs water.
These are the first lines in Les chants de maldoror by isidore ducasse. a fucking warning label. and believe me, it is 100 percent medically accurate, bros. i did not heed and now i am a cursed heathenous wretch.

Considera, meu amor, até que ponto foste imprevidente!

"Who is John Galt?"

>>977076

Yea... Fucking trolls...

Theseus: Still awesome.

Is this the onyl book or aret heir multiples that mak eup a series?

Wait, what happenedt o /lit/? This board has more spam than fucking /b/, that isn't supposed to happen.

>>976971
>>977006
>>977048

in youth is pleasure by denton welch

"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since."

"call me ishmael"

or george orwell's 1984: It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

or kafka's metamorphosis line

>look at /x/ and /tg/ barely anything.

Totally random....

"I will kill your penis!" - The penis was 2

"Longtemps je me suis couché de bonne heure." (Proust, Remembrance of things past)
Always wondered how it's translated in English.

'It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.'

>>977123
>It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen
So... what's so great about this?

"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."

>>978736

What's wrong with it?

"The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn."

>>978743
There's nothing ohsogreat about it, it's banal.

>>978750

How so?

A screaming comes across the sky.

>>978755
Everybody could've write something like that

"Marley was dead to begin with."

>>978765

Why is your grammar collapsing?

No-one else wrote it but Orwell.

>>978770
Because I rarely write in English. And you know what I meant; there's nothing exceptional about it.

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane

>>978770
He's right, bro. The intro is not that great.

"I ignored the questions in the eyes of the groom as I lowered the grisly parcel and turned the horse in for care and maintenance. My cloak could not really conceal the nature of its contents as I slung the guts over my shoulder and stamped off toward the rear entrance to the palace. Hell would soon be demanding its paycheck."

>>978790
>>978779
It's a great opening line. Immediately sets the unorthodox tone of the story.

"There was once a man from Mars. And his name was Smith."

-Stranger in a strange land

So much win, epic and lolwut contained in so few words

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

Knobbiest To

>>978779

Clocks don't strike thirteen.

who cares?

'I hate traveling and explorers.'

&

'Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know.'

>>978796

I'm not that guy, but no that opening line is as average as ordinarry opening to random fan fiction.

>>978852
Who was this?

I think we already had one of those.

>We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive. . . .” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

isn't op's post david copperfield? i'm not sure.

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

>>976899

That's not that good. I'm reading David Copperfield right now though so bump for you.

Just finished the chapter where he meets Dora's aunts. Christ do I ever hate Dora. He needs to dump that ho (and he probably will, or she'll dump him, because Dickensian plots are predictable as balls because the plot techniques he developed and perfected have been imitated ad nauseam and we've all grown up with them).

lol my captcha is

>Micawber delivery
>Micawber

>>978861
Second one is Camus, The Outsider

>>978858
Actually I'm pretty sure you are that guy.

When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.

>>978875

I knew I heard that one before.
I read it for school some time ago in my native language. One of the most memmorable books I read at that time.

Weird that there's so little talk about it here. Just by shocking nature, I'd expect it to be as popular as Metamorphosis.

>>978893
>When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous insect

FTFY

>>978861
First one is Claude Levi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques

>>978902

nyet, vermin is correct

>>978897
>The Stranger
>Weird that there's so little talk about it here

>>978923
>>978902
>>978893
>implying "bug" is not the correct term

>Notes from the Underground
I am a sick man ... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know for certain what ails me. I don't consult a doctor for it, and never have, though I have a respect for medicine and doctors. Besides, I am extremely superstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine, anyway (I am well-educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am superstitious). No, I refuse to consult a doctor from spite. That you probably will not understand. Well, I understand it, though. Of course, I can't explain who it is precisely that I am mortifying in this case by my spite: I am perfectly well aware that I cannot "pay out" the doctors by not consulting them; I know better than anyone that by all this I am only injuring myself and no one else. But still, if I don't consult a doctor it is from spite. My liver is bad, well -- let it get worse!

>>978952
It's more accurately vermin, translations can't always be perfect.

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.

german original is superior though

>>978725
>>978725
'For awhile, I've been sleeping at a good hour.'

>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.

>>979054
Hey it looks like you forgot the first half of that sentence.
That book looks intriguing though, what'd you think of it?

"The Man in Black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed."

I wasn't a big fan of the book itself but goddamn that was one hell of an opening.

I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies.

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

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

MORE IMPORTANTLY - where the hell is OP's pic from...just heavenly

The opening page of Song of Kali.

"Some places are too evil to be allowed to exist. Some cities are too wicked to be suffered. Calcutta is such a place. Before Calcutta I would have laughed at such an idea. Before Calcutta I did not believe in evil-- certainly not as a force separate from the actions of men. Before Calcutta I was a fool.

After the Romans had conquered the city of Carthage, they killed the men, sold the women and children into slavery, pulled down the great buildings. broke up the stones, burned the rubble, and salted the earth so that nothing would ever grow there again. That is not enough for Calcutta. Calcutta should be expunged.

Before Calcutta I took part in marches against nuclear weapons. Now I dream of nuclear mushroom clouds rising above a city. I see buildings melting into lakes of glass. I see paved streets flowing like rivers of lava and real rivers boiling away in great gouts of steam. I see human figures dancing like burning insects, like obscene praying mantises sputtering and bursting against a fiery red background of total destruction.

The city is Calcutta. The dreams are not unpleasant.

Some places are too evil to be allowed to exist."

>The sky was the color of television tuned to a dead channel.
Gibson is often not terribly good with prose, but this is some opening line.

>The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
Gibson is often not terribly good with prose, but this is some opening line.

That every post in this thread isn't "Call me Ishmael" is fucking terrible.

>>979685
>MORE IMPORTANTLY - where the hell is OP's pic from...just heavenly
This is relevant to my interests

>>979685

Portuguese or some Spanish library probably.
I have one very similair somewhere

>>979726

>>979747
YOU HAVE ONE?
goddamn you rich motherfucker.

>>979747

Eh, its the exact same photograph.

But, found something equally breathtaking.

Personally I'd throw in a vote for Beckett's Murphy:

"The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new."

Although it's not going to have any weight for anybody who doesn't know the reference from Ecclesiastes 1:9 ("What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.")

A personal favorite:

"It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me."

(opening line of Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess)

>>Always wondered how it's translated in English.

I think usually something like: "For a long time, I used to go to bed early."

>>978750
Not really "banal," is it? If the sentence contains a paradox not often heard in normal usage, much less post-war Britain.

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents"

or
"Nyarlathotep...the crawling chaos...I am the last...I will tell the audient void"

or
"Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness. Wretched is he who looks back upon lone hours in vast and dismal chambers with brown hangings and maddening rows of antique books, or upon awed watches in twilight groves of grotesque, gigantic, and vine-encumbered trees that silently wave twisted branches far aloft. Such a lot the gods gave to me—to me, the dazed, the disappointed; the barren, the broken. And yet I am strangely content, and cling desperately to those sere memories, when my mind momentarily threatens to reach beyond to the other."

>It was love at first sight.
Non-fiction:
>A specter is haunting Europe!

>>979864
Fuck! I forgot Lovecraft!

>>979864

Cthuhlu, Nyarlathotep, and the Outsider. all by Lovecraft.

on The Outsider:
>dat twist ending

The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault.

>>977084

It was the best of times; it was the blurst of times.

>>979880

Outsider is a weird goddamn story if you think about it. He lives in the crypt, underground, right? But he always used to go outside and play in the forest, despite the fact that he's never been above ground in his life. Also, why is the crypt several hundred feet below the main castle, yet has no stairway leading down to it?

>>979947

see

>>978829

The best intros are from The Penis Was and After the face novels. Dumb assholes.

>>979968

its a party cellar

A personal fav of mine:

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.

And also:

I owe the discover of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia.

The more you reread a book, the more you love the opening sentence.

how about this:

It was a hot august afternoon in 1988. My family all rushed outside as I joined them to witness the most powerful moment of my childhood. Up our dusty driveway came a dark brown Chevette that I could immediately tell was more than twice older than I was. The round, bald face of my father emerged from the alien machine with his familiar quirky smile, announcing the brand new family car. It came with a cracked window, lacked an AC and it had no FM radio, and only went zero to sixty sometimes. Despite my naive age of only ten years, my jaw dropped as if all at once I watched years-worth of trees going by the windows in a single moment. All the trips picking up kids for church, all of my drives to high school and back; friends gained and friends lost. There in my childhood, in that one moment I saw all of the stars that I would in my adolescence from lying on the hood with the girlfriend who I can still blame for everything good and bad in my adult life. I knew then and there that it was my destiny to own this car, and even then I couldn't have had a clue as to how much it would shape the decisions I made as a teenager. I was the son of preacher, and he was a rich, poor man.

Muss es sein?

>>981439
Where's this one from?

>>976952
I would've voted for this too, but Nabokov himself seems to be a big fan of
>>976920
which he tosses around a bit in Ada.

This is not for you.