/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19955281]

What are /lit/s favorite opening paragraphs?

[Anonymous No.19955285]

Moby Dick and Swann's Way

[Anonymous No.19955294]

[Anonymous No.19955331]

>>19955281
>sth
What is this pseud shit?

[Anonymous No.19955392]

>>19955294
hideously overwritten

[Anonymous No.19955402]

>>19955392
Style is substance

[Anonymous No.19955424]

>>19955281
The Haunting of Hill House has a perfect opening.

[Anonymous No.19955447]

>>19955294
Beautifully written, a genuine master.

[Anonymous No.19955662]

>>19955281

[Anonymous No.19955758]

>>19955285
Where can I find a moby dick pdf, are there any good sites for free pdfs without registration? I usually just type 'bookname' pdf and find, but cannae find moby dick

[Anonymous No.19955765]

>>19955662
how do i do that big letter covering two lines thing in Word

[Anonymous No.19955816]

>>19955765
You'd have to fuck around for several minutes with textboxes and then completely redo the whole thing every time you edit it. Word is awful for book formatting.

[Anonymous No.19955819]

>>19955758
How new are you? Read the sticky.

[Anonymous No.19955828]

>>19955816
Ok i won't bother then, just thought it would look cool to have my story like that while i worked on it

[Anonymous No.19955855]

>>19955281
Probably the opening paragraph of Bleak House. Swann's Way was quite good, too.

[Anonymous No.19955882]

>>19955285
FOR A LONG TIME I USED TO GO TO BED EARLY .

Great pick, dude.

[Anonymous No.19955889]

>>19955765
You can't without taking the serranopill first.

[Anonymous No.19955918]

>>19955765
It's called a Dropped capital

[Anonymous No.19955919]

>>19955294
read the first sentence and didn't even register that it wasn't a paragraph until i got to the end. insane how this flows, complete command over rhythm. i want to learn to write like this if only to stop abusing semicolons and dashes.

[Anonymous No.19955935]

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

—Introibo ad altare Dei.

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:

—Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!

[Anonymous No.19955952]

>>19955402
Purple prose

[Anonymous No.19955965]

>>19955816
>>19955828
just put an image of the letter inline with text if you are so inclined

[Anonymous No.19956003]

[Anonymous No.19956019]

>>19956003
how does this writer know what a baby's penis tastes like

[Anonymous No.19956039]

>>19956019
privilege of the rabbi

[Anonymous No.19956046]

>sth

[Anonymous No.19956085]

It's one of the most relatable openings I've read.

[Anonymous No.19956090]

>>19956085
you are a meme

[Anonymous No.19956919]

>>19955281
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njpWalYduU4

[Anonymous No.19956957]

Bill pulled a new havana out of the cigar box. My God Monica looked great in that blue dress, he thought. She was plump and smelled somewhat like a boiled potato but he didn't care. Anything was bettter than the cankly tub of lard that was Hilldawg. He thought back to their younger days in Arkansas when they would give each other Cleveland Steamers. Now he wondered if Monica would submit to an Alabama Hot Pocket.

[Anonymous No.19957059]

>>19955919
lmao

[Anonymous No.19957706]

>I have to leave this place, because this is not where anyone can be, or where it would be worthwhile to remain, because this is the place —with its intolerable, cold, sad, bleak, and deadly weight—from where I must escape, to take my suitcase, before everything else the suitcase, two suitcases will be precisely enough, to stuff everything into two suitcases, then click the lock shut so I can dash to the shoemakers, and resoling—I have resoled, and resoled again, boots are needed, a good pair of boots—in any event one good pair of boots and two suitcases are enough, and with these things we can set off already, inasmuch as we can determine—because this is the first step—exactly where we are right now; well, so a kind of ability is required, practical knowledge is required so we can decide where we are exactly—not just some kind of sense of direction, or some mysterious thing residing in the depths of the heart—so that in relation to this knowledge, we can then choose the right direction; we need a sense, as if we were grasping some particular sort of orientation device in our hands, a device to help us state: at this point in time, we are here and here in this point in space, located, as it happens, at an intersection that is particularly intolerable, cold, sad, bleak, and deadly, an intersection from which one must leave, because this is not where a person can be, or can remain, a person—in this swampy, disconcertingly dark point in space—can’t do anything else besides say: leave, and leave right now, leave at once without even thinking about it, and don’t look back,

It goes on. A very beautiful beginning from a not so beautiful book (Krasznahorkai's The World Goes On).

[Anonymous No.19957712]

>>19955281
>Sth
what the fuck is this garbage
stopped reading there

[Anonymous No.19957717]

>>19955952
Buzzphrase.

[Anonymous No.19957723]

>>19956085
That is a truly awful translation, let me guess...P&V?

[Anonymous No.19957740]

>>19955281
shit

>>19955294
meh

>>19955424
ok

>>19955662
shit

>>19956003
fuck off retard

>>19956085
good

>>19956919
great


>>19957706
overwrought and contrived

[Anonymous No.19957759]

>>19957740
go watch jordan peterson

[Anonymous No.19957765]

>>19957759
the Bible is retarded bronze age fanfiction but YOU are even more retarded if you think it could be as successful as it is without being well written, fuck off with your rent free pol shit no-one cares

[Anonymous No.19957769]

>>19957740
For whom does the narwhal bacon?

[Anonymous No.19957771]

>>19957765
No one is convinced by this posturing, you reek of onions

[Anonymous No.19957774]

>>19957769
KEK

[Anonymous No.19957782]

>>19957740
why don't you get a job if you're so eager to interact with every person in the thread? The world is full of collective endeavours you can join

[Anonymous No.19957786]

>>19957771
there's no need to be upset

[Anonymous No.19957791]

>>19957765
It's better written in Englsh than in Greek but ultimately you are correct and that anon is a huge faggot.

[Anonymous No.19957817]

>>19957723
What translation do you recommend?

[Anonymous No.19957827]

>>19957817
Why do assholes ask this question? Download a bunch of epubs from various versions and compare passages to determine which you like. Most people agree Garnett or Revised Garnett is the way to go though.

[Anonymous No.19957830]

>>19955294
>author describes the scene in overly-autistic detail
So basically, I'm just not going to imagine it (the scene) I KNOW, UGH I KNOW... I'm sorry!!!! It's just that I'm not going to imagine it is all

[Anonymous No.19957846]

>>19957723
pretty sure p&v translates it to "wicked man"

[Anonymous No.19957852]

>>19957827
I asked you for yours. Is that yours?
Most people can't tell what they like. I've read the paragraphs in that one article. It beats me.
It was only recently that I learned I need to be careful at all about foreign books as I'd never considered some fucking asshole making a shitty version.

[Anonymous No.19957853]

>>19957830
Shut the fuck up
I'm begging you: shut the fuck up
Please, shut the fuck up

[Anonymous No.19957855]

[Anonymous No.19957858]

>>19957852
Yeah I like Garnett

[Anonymous No.19957862]

>>19957853
A gothic harp doorway? Woah bro it's like I'm really there (in the scene), thank you daddy cormy for telling me exactly what everything looks like, I'm unable to imagine an old-timey town in the nighttime on my own!

[Anonymous No.19957864]

>>19955281
>all these plebs posting screenshots
>*laughs in bard*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfaVYn1v4jM

[Anonymous No.19957869]

>>19957858
Thank you.
I do wonder why it is so often the first one people tend to like. You'd think with all of the retards like me they would make one that's both more beautiful and more "readable", whatever that may mean.
Like I think it was 2018 we got a new good translation of The 3 Musketeers. I had no idea there was cut content so they don't offend American Protestants!

[Anonymous No.19957871]

>>19957862
>Umm, guys? Has anyone, um, like, um, ya know, um, like, told this guy to, like, show and, um, not, like, um, tell? Hasn't he watched my favourite booktuber's video on what, like, makes a good book.
Reddit.

[Anonymous No.19957891]

>>19957723
Nah, it's Ronald Wilks. The Penguin Classics one coupled with The Double, another of Dostoevsky's stories. It was actually pretty good in my opinion, why do you think it's bad?

[Anonymous No.19957904]

>>19957891
The prose is clunky and powerless, it loses all the prosody of the original even in the most obvious places. Take for example where most people translate 'My liver is bad -- well let it get worse!' there is an innate sense of progression here by using the words bad and worse which are so directly linked, but instead we get 'So, if my liver hurts, let it hurt even more!' which loses this element and is repetitive, doubly so because it has 3 fucking commas, all the flow of the statement and its dramatic unveiling is lost.

In general it is verbose and saturated with dogshit word choices.

[Anonymous No.19957939]

>>19957891
Because "My liver is ill- so let it be ill!" utterly mogs the tepid translation above.

[Anonymous No.19957954]

>>19957904
>The prose is clunky and powerless
But doesn't that fit the spirit and personality of the Underground man though? I'd argue that the "So, if my liver hurts, let it hurt even more! Is a more direct statement than the former, with the Underground man trying to appear brave out of spite but ultimately still looking rather clunky.

[Anonymous No.19957971]

>>19955294
Holy shit

[Anonymous No.19957986]

>>19957954
>>But doesn't that fit the spirit and personality of the Underground man though?
No, he's a smooth sophist through and through.

[Anonymous No.19958000]

>>19957986
Not really. From what I remember, the Underground man felt more like a friend who would just ramble on and on about random topics. He didn't care much about convincing people but moreso about just talking and getting things of his chest. With him only sometimes making references to the listener, in this case the reader, in order to look polite.

[Anonymous No.19958007]

>>19958000
The person he convinces is himself. He references the reader out of a developed neuroticism, everything about his entire life is a trick he plays on himself, he's a sophist.

[Anonymous No.19958024]

>>19958007
He's a sophist, yeah, I agree with that. But I don't think he's smooth at all when it comes to narrating his own stories and arguments.

[Anonymous No.19958034]

>>19956003
Just finished reading this in January. The opening paragraph is definitely attention-grabbing. The rest of the book is pretty shocking but not as shocking as that opening implies.

[Anonymous No.19958046]

>>19958024
If he wasn't convincing he wouldn't have convinced himself to fuck his life or manage to charm half the retards on this board to keep reading with rapture.

[Anonymous No.19958059]

>>19958046
>If he wasn't convincing he wouldn't have convinced himself
lol. retard.

[Anonymous No.19958101]

>>19958059
>no argument
I accept your surrender

[Anonymous No.19958108]

if you posted an opening in this thread without stating its title, you are a dickhead.

[Anonymous No.19958113]

>>19955294
one of the funniest books ive ever read

[Anonymous No.19958123]

>>19958101
It was not meant as an argument, just pointing out the retardation of thinking a fictional character has a will of their own.

[Anonymous No.19958135]

>>19958123
they have internal consistency

[Anonymous No.19958165]

>>19958135
So?

[Anonymous No.19958193]

>>19958108
If you don't know how to Google a sentence with quotation marks, you might as well consider yourself a moderately functioning retard.

[Anonymous No.19959519]

>>19956085
optimized for the visually impaired

[Anonymous No.19959541]

>>19955281
>Sth, I know that woman.
What.

[Anonymous No.19959552]

obligatory

>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?''

[Anonymous No.19959594]

>>19956003
Only feminists write edgy shit like this.

[Anonymous No.19959606]

>>19956919
>literally written by a committee
ngmi

[Anonymous No.19959710]

[Anonymous No.19959867]

>>19959710
I still never got that passage, are you meant to understand it? Or is it something lost in translation?

[Anonymous No.19959878]

>>19959606
>le individual artist
ngmi

[Anonymous No.19959929]

>>19959867
>The opening paragraph sets the stage for a grand plot. The mysterious meta-morphosis from a fish called kun into a bird called peng, the biggest of all the creatures, and the apparently illimitable stage are the prerequisites for carry-ing out the lofty ambition. Bigness is the idea overriding every phenomenon. The flying was not wandering, because the bird had a destination in mind. There was no North Sea in China. Zhuang Zi did not mean to fool his readers, but he reminded them to use plenty of imagination.

[Anonymous No.19960890]

>>19955281
>Jazz, Toni Morrison

Was that hard OP?

[Anonymous No.19961261]

>>19955331
>>19956046
>>19957712
>>19959541
It's an onomatopoeia - the sound of someone wincing, or sucking air through the teeth. Like "tch."

[Anonymous No.19961366]

>>19961261
It's trashy.

[Anonymous No.19961583]

>>19958113
Yes holy FUCK it's a funny book. Unironically. I don't know if 4channers know how hysterical it is. So many little gems in it. Incredible dialogue. I'm gonna cum.

[Anonymous No.19961595]

>>19955424
Ooooo I like this. Why have I never read any of this?

[Anonymous No.19961651]

>>19957855
shit, what's this from? It's giving me a hard-on

[Anonymous No.19961664]

>>19955294
came here to post this

[Anonymous No.19961671]

>>19958034
what is it? it seems bizarre as hell

[Anonymous No.19961698]

>>19961671
Coinlocker Babies by Ryu Murakami. It's very 'bizarre' - a criminal with a passion for pole vaulting, a model with a pet crocodile, a drug that turns people into unstoppable crazed killers etc. etc. It was pretty good although drags a bit towards the second half IMO.

[Anonymous No.19961730]

>>19961698
Interesting. I thought it was Japanese. Is this guy the better Murakami?

[Anonymous No.19961752]

>>19961730
Eh. It depends what you like - Ryu is lot edgier and fun, whereas Haruki is more whiney. But I feel like Haruki is technically the better writer. Reading in translation though so its hard to say.

[Anonymous No.19961778]

>>19961752
Okay. I've only ever read Haruki's Norwegian Wood and I thought it was kind of gay. Really had to force myself to read it, but I hear people saying that Norwegian Wood is a departure from his usual work.

[Anonymous No.19961920]

bumperov

[Anonymous No.19962338]

>>19955281
I like this a lot

[Anonymous No.19962477]

>>19955424
Neat
>>19957904
Dosto is a bit clunky in general, isn't he? Thanks for expanding on your point though, I see what you mean. However, is "let it get worse!" accurate?

[Anonymous No.19962481]

>>19955281
/lit/ probably has a lot of them because they never read the book to the end.

[Anonymous No.19962556]

>>19962477
It's actually far more accurate than the other version. The most literal translation would be 'my liver hurts? well let the affliction hurt stronger' which very directly suggests intensity unlike 'let it hurt more'.

[Anonymous No.19962585]

>>19962477
It's actually far more accurate than the other version. The most literal translation would be 'liver hurts? (well) let (the) affliction continue (to) hurt stronger' which very directly suggests growing intensity unlike 'let it hurt more'.

t. speaks Russian
The Garnett version is significantly better in terms of prose and accuracy imo.

[Anonymous No.19962614]

>>19962585
It's also worth noting that when you use more instead of 'stronger or worse' you have confused the actual vector for lack of a better word of the adjective, if you were trying to learn Russian by translating in reverse this would be very confusing and completely obfuscate the sort of word play involved here, because Dosto uses the word кpeпчaть which can also mean something like 'become healthier or fortify' . In short, translation is a fucking involved process, just read the version which has had the most scrutiny and exposure to be safe, and that is definitely the revised Garnett, it's been around for over a century iirc.

[Anonymous No.19962629]

>>19955281

[Anonymous No.19962640]

>>19959710
foot notes in translation are so fucking retarded

[Anonymous No.19962641]

>>19956085
I'm starting to realize why Jordan Peterson talks the way he does

[Anonymous No.19962655]

>>19962640
Then you would REALLY hate that edition

[Anonymous No.19962695]

Suttree's opening is no doubt lyrical and amazing but Blood Meridian has a certain mythic and timeless quality to it. It feels like something an old sage in some hut in the middle of the west would read to you late at night by a fire. Second paragraph in particular gives me chills every time.

[Anonymous No.19962760]

>>19962695
That's really nice actually. I need to read this someday.
I actually didn't get the second paragraph for a bit. I don't understand the Dipper stove bit still, is it a murican/spoiler thing?

[Anonymous No.19962791]

>>19961698
Yeah, he's definitely got a knack for cataloguing Japan's degenerate tendencies. Wouldn't say he's much more than a sensationalist, though. "In the Miso Soup" felt more like a filler read than anything of genuine substance.

[Anonymous No.19962921]

>>19962760
Stove here could be the past participle of "stave", which means to break something by piercing it, hence the dipper (an astronomical constellation) is pierced by all the other stars in the sky, it's broken open

The passage as a whole is the father speaking about the night of the kid's birth, a famous meteor shower in 1833. It was so amazing and unusual that papers and books at the time published drawings of it (see pic related). On a thematic level, the kid is born on a night that is not a night, a virtual day-time, which could be said to signify the brightness or 'purity' of his origins that McCarthy is describing (and thus of humanity in general). The falling of the stars foreshadows his subsequent fall from grace. A lot of Miltonian / Biblical allusions to Lucifer here too of course

[Anonymous No.19963206]

>>19957871
>enjoys cormack
>reddit
>criticises his autism
>reddit

Like a broken record

[Anonymous No.19963333]

>>19962921
>Stove here could be the past participle of "stave", which means to break something by piercing it
I wouldn't have gotten that in a million years, thank you anon.
Yup, I got the rest. That must have been an incredible sight

[Anonymous No.19963503]

"One cannot raise walls against what has been forgotten.
The citadel of Ishuäl succumbed during the height of the Apocalypse. But no army of inhuman Sranc had scaled its ramparts. No furnace-hearted dragon had pulled down its mighty gates. Ishuäl was the secret refuge of the Kûniüric High Kings, and no one, not even the No-God, could besiege a secret.
Months earlier, Anasûrimbor Ganrelka II, High King of Kûniüri, had fled to Ishuäl with the remnants of his household. From the walls, his sentries stared pensively across the dark forests below, their thoughts stricken by memories of burning cities and wailing multitudes. When the wind moaned, they gripped Ishuäl’s uncaring stone, reminded of Sranc horns. They traded breathless reassurances. Had they not eluded their pursuers? Were not the walls of Ishuäl strong? Where else might a man survive the end of the world?
The plague claimed the High King first, as was perhaps fitting: Ganrelka had only wept at Ishuäl, raged the way only an Emperor of nothing could rage. The following night the members of his household carried his bier down into the forests. They glimpsed the eyes of wolves reflected in the light of his pyre. They sang no dirges, intoned only a few numb prayers.
Before the morning winds could sweep his ashes skyward, the plague had struck two others: Ganrelka’s concubine and her daughter. As though pursuing his bloodline to its thinnest tincture, it assailed more and more members of his household. The sentries upon the walls became fewer, and though they still watched the mountainous horizon, they saw little. The cries of the dying crowded their thoughts with too much horror.
Soon even the sentries were no more. The five Knights of Trysë who’d rescued Ganrelka after the catastrophe on the Fields of Eleneöt lay motionless in their beds. The Grand Vizier, his golden robes stained bloody by his bowel, lay sprawled across his sorcerous texts. Ganrelka’s uncle, who’d led the heartbreaking assault on Golgotterath’s gates in the early days of the Apocalypse, hung from a rope in his chambers, slowly twisting in a draft. The Queen stared endlessly across festering sheets."

[Anonymous No.19964017]

A screaming comes across the sky.

[Anonymous No.19964041]

>>19955765
learn TeX already

[Anonymous No.19964195]

>>19957904
>So, if my liver hurts, let it hurt even more
this sounds way more comparable to the Slavic original
sorry your gay anglo sensibility doesnt let you appreciate art properly

[Anonymous No.19964348]

>>19955281

[Anonymous No.19964407]

>>19962921
I've read BM. This is amazing and went 100% over my head. How tf do people know stuff like this to appreciate the book?

[Anonymous No.19964450]

>>19955294
This lacks humility.

[Anonymous No.19964657]

>>19964195
Only if you don't understand both English and Russian

[Anonymous No.19964688]

>>19956085
I prefer the “let it get worse!” translation but yes I came to post this.

[Anonymous No.19964916]

>>19956003
Murakami?

[Anonymous No.19964941]

>>19955281

What's the source? Looks interesting

[Anonymous No.19964960]

A beginning is a very delicate time….
And
Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el Coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo.

[Anonymous No.19965015]

>>19964941
Jazz by Toni Morrison I think
>>19964960
The intro to 100 years is a classic

[Anonymous No.19965164]

>>19964657
There is no "sense of progression" in the Russian, you cretin. In Russian it is a sense of *spiteful* reiteration more so than progression, so that's a poor example to complain about. I don't think bad/worse is a bad translation either, I just wouldn't complain about the P&V version

[Anonymous No.19965272]

>>19965164
What more is there to say? You don't understand either English or Russian, despite purporting to.

[Anonymous No.19965298]

>>19965272
In actuality I read both at an academic level for work and pleasure, but keep coping.
I should really just be able to shoot you unqualified retard aestheticians to death, what a joke of incredibly bad taste, it's noxious. It's not that I hold a strong opinion, it's that you hold one, which is incidentally terrible

[Anonymous No.19965299]

Ulysses's famed opener is jolly good. Sets the irreverent tone of the book perfectly. Love the phrase "fearful jesuit!"

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
—Introibo ad altare Dei. ("go to the altar of god")
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:
—Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!

[Anonymous No.19965321]

>>19965164
Not that anon but it's obviously not simple reiteration since Dosto qualifies the original statement with an adverb, there's clear escalation, or better yet intensification which is probably the best translation possible for the word.
>I don't think bad/worse is a bad translation either, I just wouldn't complain about the P&V version
I have no idea what you are trying to say here.

[Anonymous No.19965345]

>>19965321
Don't bother. It's like taking a really bad Turing test, just because one has an 'opinion' doesn't make one a person.

[Anonymous No.19965357]

>>19965298
That's a lot commas just to say "I have shit taste" lol

[Anonymous No.19965369]

>>19965321
>>19965345
>>19965357

[Anonymous No.19965441]

[Anonymous No.19965545]