/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2343081]

What's your favourite first sentence?

>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 various 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 Advent, to a comfortable Room at the rear of the House, years since given over to their carefree Assaults.

[Anonymous No.2343084]

Mother died today.

[Anonymous No.2343082]

It was a rainy day in Pizzaville

[Anonymous No.2343087]

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.

[Anonymous No.2343095]

I am a sick man.... I am a spiteful man.

I was kinda underwhelmed with Notes, reading it straight after Karamazov, but DAT OPENING LINE.

[Anonymous No.2343096]

>>2343087
What's that from?

[Anonymous No.2343100]

>ignores your entire post, just watches Emmy Cicierega

[Anonymous No.2343110]

>>2343096
Earthly Powers - Anthony "Clockwork Orange" Burgess

[Anonymous No.2343119]

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

[Anonymous No.2343122]

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

[Anonymous No.2343125]

>>2343110
Intriguing opening sentence. Not a big fan of A Clockwork Orange as a novel (though from what I understand neither is Burgess himself) but I might add that to my list.

[Anonymous No.2343130]

Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression.

Anyone else keep a list?

[Anonymous No.2343131]

>>2343130
"sufficient bread for three minutes chewing".

That's disgusting.

[Anonymous No.2343133]

“When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets,” Papa would say, “she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing.”

- Geek Love (1983), Katherine Dunn

[Anonymous No.2343139]

In the mists before THE BEGINNING, Fate and Chance cast lots to decide whose the Game should be; and he that won strode through the mists to MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI and said: "Now make gods for Me, for I have won the cast and the Game is to be Mine."

[Anonymous No.2343559]

>>2343100
what, is she related to taht annoying harry potter guy on youtube

[hakas !u/t2Vf0FFs No.2343569]

>>2343130
is that from a beckett work?

[Anonymous No.2343572]

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

[Anonymous No.2343574]

>>2343569
I also thought it was form Beckett for a second, but then I'm like, I've already read all of Beckett's books, so wtf?

[Anonymous No.2343575]

>Stately

[Anonymous No.2343578]

>>2343569
No way. It has to be some shitty work of New Autism.

[hakas !u/t2Vf0FFs No.2343583]

>>2343578
it was just very reminiscent of the sucking stone in molloy. and if you want autism, later beckett plays are exactly that.

[Anonymous No.2343586]

>>2343569
>>2343574
"At Swim-Two-Birds" by Flann O'Brien.

[hakas !u/t2Vf0FFs No.2343592]

>>2343586
sweet. ive been meaning to read that. was thinking of starting with the third policeman though.

[Anonymous No.2343594]

>>2343586

I've been tempted to read it because of the comparisons to modernist style, but the whole homosexual part kind of puts me off.

No disrespect, but that's how I am.

[Fergus !hxTvuAIpXU No.2343597]

Not everybody knows how I killed old Phillip Mathers, smashing his jaw in with a spade; but first it is better to speak of my friendship with John Divney because it was he who first knocked old Mathers down by giving him a great blow in the neck with a special bicycle-pump which he manufactured himself out of a hollow iron bar.

[Anonymous No.2343605]

This thread shows just how teenaged /lit/ is. You'd all be embarrassed if you read these "wowing" openers 5 years from now.

[Anonymous No.2343615]

>A screaming comes across the sky

AWWWW HERE IT GOES

[Anonymous No.2343616]

>>2343605
Yep, but they like to show off.

[Anonymous No.2343622]

>>2343605
I agree.. enjoying good writing is REALLY immature. Grow up, kiddies

[Anonymous No.2343640]

>Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.

>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

>Midway on our life's journey, I found myself. In dark woods

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

>It was a pleasure to burn.

>All this happened, more or less.

>Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.

Entry level as fuck, I know.

[Anonymous No.2343656]

Call me Jonah.

[Anonymous No.2343658]

>>2343622
>good writing

[Anonymous No.2343663]

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

[Anonymous No.2343674]

>>2343663

[Anonymous No.2343697]

>>2343663
What, blue?

[Anonymous No.2343713]

>It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

[Anonymous No.2343730]

"The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up."
- The Napoleon Of Notting Hill, G K Chesterton

[Anonymous No.2343731]

>>2343713
beautiful. dickens?

[Anonymous No.2343741]

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.

[Anonymous No.2343746]

"I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in space."
- Flatland: A Romance Of Many Dimensions, Edwin A. Abbott

[Anonymous No.2343753]

>>2343731
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulwer-Lytton_Fiction_Contest

[Anonymous No.2343756]

Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.

[Anonymous No.2343773]

>>2343756
Bad first line thread? Bad first line thread.

"An old blue Ford pulled into the guarded parking lot that morning, looking like a small, tired dog after a hard run."
--Stephen King, "The Long Walk"

[Anonymous No.2343782]

>>2343741

...more like BEST first LINE. or is it the last?

[Anonymous No.2343791]

I bet, even with cheating, that nobody will get all four of these correct:

>1: 'They made a silly mistake, though,' the Professor of History said, and his smile, as Dixon watched, gradually sank beneath the surface of his features at the memory.

>2: Lying in bed, I abandoned the facts again and was back in Ambrosia.

>3: I'm smoking and looking out of my office window while I listen to some guy, some manager, crapping away on the speakerphone.

>4: It was a fine summer morning and the air above the concrete expanse of the Jacksonville Commercial Airfield was already beginning to shimmer in the growing heat.

[Anonymous No.2343792]

Charon, the Ferryman of renown, was cruising slowly along the Styx one pleasant Friday morning not long ago, and as he paddled idly on he chuckled mildly to himself as he thought of the monopoly in ferriage which in the course of years he had managed to build up.

[Anonymous No.2343795]

>>2343791
Probably because they're not memorable nor impressive.

[Anonymous No.2343798]

>>2343795
Also because /lit/ is not well-read though.

[Anonymous No.2343831]

>>2343798
Because /lit/ doesn't read every mediocre British booK? OK.

[Anonymous No.2343835]

>>2343831
No, you only read pseudo-intellectual pretentious American shit and pretend to read books that are touted as classics but in reality aren't worth the paper they're written on.

[Anonymous No.2343840]

>>2343835
If you're trying to convince us with those dazzlers you've posted, you've failed.

Post something good and maybe someone else on the board could be bothered to look it up and read it.

Just because the books you read are obscure doesn't mean you're less plebeian for reading them.

[Anonymous No.2343845]

there is only one truly serious philosophical problem

[Anonymous No.2343846]

"It began as a mistake." - Post Office, Charles Bukowski

[Anonymous No.2343858]

>>2343840
I've read at least three hundred books a year for the last ten years. I can't be too discriminating in my taste, you proletarian pleb.

[Anonymous No.2343859]

The Man In Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.

[Anonymous No.2343861]

>>2343084
I'm guessing that's Alan Bennett?

[Anonymous No.2343862]

>>2343858

You sound like a fat person defending himself whilst munching on Twinkies.

How about reading less and improving your taste?

[Anonymous No.2343865]

>>2343858
>I can't be too discriminating in my taste, you proletarian pleb.

Hahahahahaha.

[Anonymous No.2343869]

>We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.

[Anonymous No.2343876]

In hte middle of the night I woke from a dream full of whips and lariats as long as serpents, and runaway coaches on mountain passes, and wide, windy gallops over cactus fields, and I heard the man in the next room crying, 'Gee-up!' and 'Whoa!' and trotting his tongue n the rood of his mouth

[Anonymous No.2343880]

For a long time I would go to bed early

All this happened, more or less

The story so far: in the beginning the universe was created.

The problem with every story is you tell it after the fact

Something has happened to me: I can't doubt that anymore.

"Yes, of course, if it's fine tomorrow"

For thirty five years now I've been in waste paper and it is my love story.

Mr and Mrs Dursley at number 4 privat drive....

[Anonymous No.2343887]

>>2343861
Yeah, that Talking Heads about the 45 year old cardigan-donning library assistant who cared for his mother but secretly wanted to go cottaging.

On the off-chance you're not taking the piss it's The Outsider, Albert Camus

[Anonymous No.2343888]

>>2343095
I'll have to agree with this one. I was also a bit underwhelmed with Notes at first but dat second half of the book man, god damn.

[Anonymous No.2343896]

This is a pretty cool site for that kind of shit

http://www.alternativereel.com/includes/top-ten/display_review.php?id=00117

[Anonymous No.2343900]

People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles.

[Anonymous No.2343948]

$5 says /lit/ doesn't get this:

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

[Anonymous No.2343951]

>>2343948
Infinite Jest, no?

That was easymodo.

[Anonymous No.2343954]

>>2343951
/lit/ hasn't read IJ.

[Anonymous No.2343955]

>>2343948
I would post my pic of IJ in your thread, cracked spine and all, but I don't have it with me.

[Anonymous No.2343995]

The girl in that picture is called Riana.

[Ryan !mHBuh/tvfE No.2344012]

>I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies. My posture is consciously congruent to the shape of my hard chair. This is a cold room in University Administration, wood-walled, Remington-hung, double-windowed against the November heat, insulated from Administrative sounds by the reception area outside, at which Uncle Charles, Mr. deLint and I were received. I am in here.

Can't get any better than that

[Anonymous No.2344023]

>>2344012
haha

[Anonymous No.2344026]

A wind sprang high in the west, like a wave of unreasonable happiness, and tore eastward across England, trailing with it the frosty scent of forests and the cold intoxication of the sea.

[Anonymous No.2346126]

The following day no one died.

[Anonymous No.2346132]

>The night was as black as the inside of a cat.

also ITT: retards that don't know what a sentence is

[kris No.2346144]

In eigtheenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era which knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages.

[Anonymous No.2346183]

And then I woke up, it was all a dream.

Oh wait, it was supposed to be first not last

[Anonymous No.2346186]

>This is not for you.

[Anonymous No.2346276]

My uncle - high ideals inspire him;
but when past joking he fell sick,
he really forced one to admire him -
and never played a shrewder trick.

[Anonymous No.2346280]

Sam woke around 3:30 p.m. and saw no emails from Sheila; he made a smoothie, he lay on his bed and stared at his computer screen … about an hour later it was dark outside; Sam ate cereal with soymilk; he put things on eBay then tried to guess the password to Sheila’s email account, not thinking he would be successful, and not being successful.

[Anonymous No.2346429]

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

[Anonymous No.2346480]

First Sentences that impressed me enough that I recall being impressed:

1.Swann's Way.
2. Adventures of Augie March

[Anonymous No.2346487]

“I am an American, Chicago born—Chicago, that somber city—and go at things as I have taught myself, freestyle, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent.”

[Anonymous No.2346588]

>Sometimes a man grows tired of carrying everything the world heaps upon his head.

[Anonymous No.2346590]

>>2346480
was that recollection voluntary?