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/lit/ - Literature


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16928317 No.16928317 [Reply] [Original]

you have 5 seconds to name a better opening line

>> No.16928328
File: 21 KB, 551x341, Capture d’écran 2020-12-02 à 15.23.38.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16928328

>>16928317

>> No.16928335

>>16928317
A screaming came across the sky...

>> No.16928337

Pretty much any line written horizontally.

>> No.16928342

The sky was the color of a tv tuned to me sniffing your sister's panties.

>> No.16928361

>>16928317
it was a dark and stormy night

>> No.16928441

>>16928337
I’m a retarded phoneposter and it it rotated automatically for some reason

>> No.16929792
File: 9 KB, 467x126, file.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16929792

>> No.16929870

>>16928317
See the child.

>> No.16929913

>>16928317
Ayo, muh dick hard.

>> No.16929947

>All happy families are more or less dissimilar; all unhappy ones are more or less alike

>> No.16930066

>>16928317
Only one enemy remained, two if you counted God.

>> No.16930091

>>16928317
>—Money? . . . in a voice that rustled.

>> No.16930265

>>16928317
I was named Ishmael when I visited existence

>> No.16930319

>>16928317

"The past was a foreign country; they do things differently there."

>> No.16930326

Arma virumque cano

>> No.16930329

>>16929870
My nigga

>> No.16930330
File: 431 KB, 556x644, 1462339803753.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16930330

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.

>> No.16930336

>>16928317
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
>>16928328
based

>> No.16930418

>>16929947
Nice

>> No.16930961

>>16929792
Lol no

>> No.16931001

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.

>> No.16931021
File: 1.88 MB, 4032x3024, C2BB231A-E219-4F3E-AE50-B32BAD353D80.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16931021

>>16928317
>he thinks that is the opening line
Get fucked OP

>> No.16931024

>>16928441
Imagine being so new you don't know why that happens or even that it happens.

>> No.16931052

"How is it so easy for you to be kind to people?", he asked. Milk and honey dripped from my lips as I answered, "Because people have not been kind to me".

>> No.16931169

>>16928317
"Justice? -- You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law."

>> No.16931198

>>16928317
riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay,

>> No.16931218

>>16928317
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

>> No.16931239

>>16928317
In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth.

>> No.16931264

>>16931021
BASED

>> No.16931357

>>16928317
If a first line is memorable, it is a terrible first line.

>> No.16931382

does somebody have the CRASH one from reddit?

>> No.16931560

I am a sick man.... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased.

>> No.16931718

>>16931382
Crash. It's never good to be awake. Mom made pancakes. We got a dog. A golden retriever. That never wakes me. It's never good.

>> No.16931742

"It all began as a mistake."

>> No.16931796

>>16930336
this

>> No.16931908

>>16928317
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

>> No.16932041
File: 218 KB, 720x1114, quixote.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16932041

>>16928317
My favorite authors are Homer and Dante, but the greatest first line in all of literature is certainly Don Quixote's.

Everything in it is perfect. The sentence goes from the indefinite towards the tangible through a musical cadence that mimics not only its meaning, but also the very duplicity of the novel, showing us both the dreamy, nameless world (En un lugar de la Mancha...) and the real, precise one (lanza en astillero, adarga antigua etc.) In the structure of the sentence, the indefinite takes precedence over the definite, but for this very reason everything must end in the definite.
Also, as a Portuguese speaker, it's interesting to note that in Portuguese "acordar" means "to wake up", so Cervantes's sentence could even be interpreted as subtly saying "I don't wish to wake up" - immediately before he "wakes up" and the images start to become definite! No idea if anyone has ever noted this before. Is it a bit of an interpretative stretch? Probably. Still, Cervantes could read Portuguese fluently, lived in Lisbon for a time, and was a great admirer of Camões, who is cited in the Quixote, and who employed the word "acordar" in its current Portuguese meaning, such as in his famous sonnet "Quando de minhas mágos a comprida".

>> No.16932156

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

>> No.16932434

>>16928317
See the child.

>> No.16932462

She loomed there like a watchtower, all light in the eyes and face and skin, yet casting nothing but a pit of darkness and precarious despair on her champion, her prize, her beloved automation.

>> No.16932466

Mother died today.

>> No.16932469

>>16931357
Question
What the fuck is wrong with you?

>> No.16932499

>>16932466
inferior translation
maman died today was way better

>> No.16932736

>>16928317
It was the best of times it was the worst of times

>> No.16932854

>>16932736
Kitsch crap.

>> No.16933353

>>16930330
Horrible. Considering that was Nabokov, I am pretty sure that's humorist. He would never have written "fire of my loins" in seriousness.

>> No.16933360

>>16933353
*humoristic

>> No.16933429

The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

>> No.16933459
File: 328 KB, 2160x1080, Screenshot_20201203-045517.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16933459

Ezclap

>> No.16933474
File: 1.08 MB, 1530x564, based..png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16933474

Easy work.

>> No.16934050

>>16928317
I can’t

>> No.16934135

>>16933474
Its technically a sentence, so yeah.

>> No.16934142

In the begging good made heaven and not heaven

>> No.16934182

>>16933353
imagine lacking so fucking much self-awareness.

>> No.16934195
File: 100 KB, 1317x421, Screenshot 2020-12-03 130625.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16934195

>>16928317

>> No.16934198

>>16928337
kek

>> No.16934214

>>16928317
Op is a faggot.

There

>> No.16934683

>>16928441
Use kuroba, it detects when pictures have rotation data and lets you reformat before posting
Also fuck you retard phoneposter

>> No.16934698

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.

>> No.16935311

>>16934698
based

>> No.16935351

LONGTEMPS

>> No.16935405

Unironically this

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

>> No.16935439

>>16931357
I'm using this as the first line of my novel

>> No.16936209

>>16932469
Why do you think a first line should be memorable?

>> No.16936311

>>16930336
cringe

>> No.16936327

>>16928335
now THIS. is
.
.
.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASED

>> No.16936343

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

>> No.16936625

>>16936209
A first line introduces the tone of the book, if not something about it’s thematic elements. A memorable first line means that the author is producing an impact from the very beginning.

Consider The Stranger
> Aujourd’hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.

You learn so much about the narrator’s relationship with his mother in those two sentences. His use of ‘maman’, rather than the more formal ma mere, shows familiarity, but then is immediately contradicted with the coldness of ‘or maybe it was yesterday, I don’t know’. It also introduces us to two basic themes of Camus’s existentialism, the proximity of death and the limits of our knowledge of life and death. Something as simple as if this old woman died today or yesterday is beyond our ability to know, what does that say for our ability to know things like the meaning of life or the nature of death itself.

>>16935405 this is a way less high brow example, but it presents the core thematic statement right at the very beginning of the story. Knowledge is costly, coming to know the true nature of the world will cost you greatly. And the following story will prove that to you, so be afraid. For a horror story it’s excellent. It also establishes the first person voice of the narrator. That this isn’t Lovecraft telling you that, it’s a character in the story who has been a witness to the events you are about to hear about.

This basic thing is also true for the openings mentioned by >>16930319
>>16930066
>>16929947

>> No.16936758

>>16936343
This is an excellent example to talk about because of what it tells us about translation.

As you have it (1972 Corngold translation) its extremely awkward. ‘in his bed’ disrupts the flow of the section half of the sentence, but if not there then where should that clause be placed?

One of Kafka’s stylistic features is that the ‘reveal’ of a sentence comes at the very end. So saying something like ‘...found himself transformed into a terrible vermin in his bed’ would be more natural in English it runs counter to what most translators recognize as what makes Kafka such a great writer of literary German. Other might argue that the awkwardness actually plays into the overall tone of alienation, but I’m not partial to that.

>> No.16937221
File: 5 KB, 648x44, line.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16937221

>>16928317

>> No.16937240
File: 2.30 MB, 4032x3024, lanomie 1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16937240

>> No.16937787

>>16937240
>
What book is this?

>> No.16938814

>>16928317
>I am in my mother’s room. It’s I who live there now. I don't know how I got there.
>>16928335
gets my juices flowing every time

>> No.16938858

>“Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.”
Unbeatable except maybe by l'etranger

>> No.16938932

>>16928317
Call me Ishmael.

>> No.16938951
File: 6 KB, 225x225, 88592059-24FD-46BF-A389-F4A63968B699.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16938951

>>16933474
>the and and and meme is real
Jesus, someone get this man an editor.

>> No.16939276

>>16932041
/thread

>> No.16939288

>>16928317
>En un lugar de la mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme...
>Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.

>> No.16939366

>>16933474
man i've never dropped a book before finishing the first sentence before, that's an incredible accomplishment.

>> No.16939409

>The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

>> No.16939437

>>16928317
A SCREAMING COMES ACROSS THE SKY.

>> No.16940640

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

>> No.16940766

>>16939409
>"Justice? -- You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law."
reddit answer

>> No.16940916

>>16928342
8/10 would continue reading

For me it's
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

>> No.16941050

>>16938951
You have seen nothing boy. Suttree doesn't abuse the polysyndeton like Blood Meridian does.

>> No.16941071

>>16928317
>En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme...

>> No.16941087

>>16928317
Call me what you wish, but my name is Ishmael.

>> No.16941450

>>16928317
They should change it to, "my name is Ishmael, refer to me that way please and thank you."

>> No.16941467
File: 443 KB, 1200x775, Het_aards_paradijs_met_de_zondeval_van_Adam_en_Eva.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16941467

>>16931218
>>16931239
In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram.

>> No.16941707

>>16928317
I fucking fuck the fuck, fuck!

>> No.16941915
File: 146 KB, 917x1791, 100584826_2553773018272662_8454025862361120768_o.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16941915

>>16928317
Vine a Comala porque me dijeron que acá vivía mi padre, un tal Pedro Páramo. Mi madre me lo dijo. Y yo le prometí que vendría a verlo en cuanto ella muriera.

>> No.16943379

>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.

>> No.16943867

>>16941050
>polysyndeton
It's to make it seem biblical and it works and he does it the more freedom he has.

>> No.16944281

>>16928317
"The gods of Olympus have abandoned me... Now there is no hope."

>> No.16944679

>>16941467
in principio erat verbum, et verbum erat apud deum

>> No.16944686

>>16930066
Kino

>> No.16945271
File: 234 KB, 1113x870, Based derpartment.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16945271

>>16943379
My nigga.

>> No.16945544

>>16928317
i can give you a better thread instead of this shit again

>> No.16945578
File: 101 KB, 640x689, 7F280D3A-A24D-4F29-8704-D77811191CF5.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16945578

This

>> No.16945623

It was a pleasure to burn

>> No.16945633

>>16930066
I tried to find that thread but I think the OP deleted it. Literally a classic example of why you should go anywhere else but reddit for writing advice.

Obligatory: Holy... I want more.

>> No.16945658

>>16931052
Ew cringe

>> No.16945802
File: 166 KB, 750x1334, 8AE606C7-52A5-4516-A5F3-59F6A7570BC4.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16945802

>> No.16945810

>>16945802
Pic is first page of Call of the Arcade

>> No.16945833

>>16944281
it's actually pretty good

>> No.16946204

The old lady had changed her mind about dying but by then it was too late.

>> No.16946383
File: 88 KB, 771x328, Only one enemy remained.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16946383

>>16945633
>I tried to find that thread but I think the OP deleted it.

Evidently it was originally from reddit. See second post here, which is the source of pic related: >>/lit/thread/S8470021

>> No.16946410
File: 28 KB, 361x307, 0654_-_VOcxgCK.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16946410

>>16945810
there's no way that's true. that was a puddle of horse diarrhea. please don't tell me one of our own actually wrote that.

>> No.16946425

>>16945578
kek

>> No.16946461

>>16928317
"For a long time, I went to bed early."

>> No.16946807

>>16937787
L'anomie ou le tumulte des tapirs

>> No.16946819

>>16945578
that's great

>> No.16946837

While I didn’t like the book, the first line of Neuromancer is very memorable and sets the mood really well:
>The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

>> No.16946924

>>16928328
Janny posters are back.

>> No.16946937

[Verse 1: Gucci Mane]
I told partner bring the presser, huh
Apply some pressure to the jack, yeah
I got a thousand keys uncut, nigga
Guaranteed I make this money stack, nigga

>> No.16947175

>>16945802
Is the sister cute? Do they fuck?

>> No.16947203

What sheer iridiscent proses

>> No.16947206

>>16932499
Based

>> No.16947210

>>16928335
I'm cumming

>> No.16947223
File: 568 KB, 732x1144, 9E8A0673-D9BE-4AF9-AEB5-CEC8DD6E8620.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16947223

>>16947203
*Oops forgot pick

>> No.16947270

>>16934698
Read by Tyg Hynes

>> No.16947303

>>16946924
I wish anon, I wish... I'll always jannypost

>> No.16947336

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

>> No.16947403

>>16946410
According to the reviews I’m seeing it’s supposed to be amazing.

>> No.16947506

>>16946807
pige

>> No.16948155

>>16947403
The grammar is atrocious. But gardener is a pretty skilled storyteller. It’s a good book.....but he really needs to hire an editor.

>> No.16948232

>>16936625
>Something as simple as if this old woman died today or yesterday is beyond our ability to know

Doesn't the sentence just illustrate that the protagonist didn't care enough about the death of his mother to ask or remember when she died? It's not like we can't determine the moment of death, and the people in the facility probably know which day she died.

>> No.16948265

>>16945578
This is exclusive. I would read a book that would somehow adopt this style.

>> No.16948751

>>16929947
english is soulless lmao

>> No.16948784

"The world is the sum of facts, not of things."

>> No.16948810

>>16928361
I know its a meme but honestly building up to a comfy setting.
The Big Sleep's first 2 chapters building up to the storm at night ooze atmosphere.

>> No.16948911

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

"Dr. Strauss says I shud rite down what I think and evrey thingthat happins to me from now on, I dont know why but he says itsimportint so they will see if they will use me."

Also good choices:
>>16929947
>>16930066
>>16939409
>>16943379
>>16945623
>>16946837