The best opening sentence in literature is?

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Anonymous Sat Dec 12 13:27:15 2015 No.7454145 [Reply] [Original]

The best opening sentence in literature is?

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 13:29:07 2015 No.7454149 The self sucking opening scene from Huckleberry Finn

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 13:35:59 2015 No.7454165 >>7454145 "Humanity… All of my suffering on this world has been at the hands of humanity, particularly women"

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 13:39:33 2015 No.7454175 >>7454145 "Even Camilla had enjoyed masquerades, of the safe sort where the mask may be dropped at that critical moment it presumes itself as reality."

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 13:53:34 2015 No.7454214 >>7454145 The one from Mason&Dixon

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 13:57:08 2015 No.7454222 >>7454145 Call me Ishmael.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 13:59:14 2015 No.7454230 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.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 14:03:54 2015 No.7454244 >>7454145 Well, I'm fucked.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 14:08:12 2015 No.7454253 "A meme-ing came across the sky."

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 14:09:21 2015 No.7454256 Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 14:17:19 2015 No.7454276 Aujour'hui maman est morte.

Anonymous Sat Dec 12 14:20:00 2015 No.7454281

i'm not sure i have an opinion on the matter but here are a few famous one that i expect would have shown up in this thread soon anyway:

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.

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

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 14:32:36 2015 No.7454320 >>7454230 chick detected read real books, whore get raped

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 14:33:24 2015 No.7454323 >>7454145 "The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed." "Call me Ishmael" one of those

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 14:42:06 2015 No.7454353 >>7454320 >I only read books my whiskey club recommends tips fedora

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 14:49:42 2015 No.7454375 >>7454276 Is that the original french version? Shouldn't the English translation of it be "Today, Maman died" instead of "Maman died today"?

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 14:52:11 2015 No.7454383 Welcome, Prince Arthas. The men and I are honored by your presence.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 14:52:50 2015 No.7454390 "thanks for purchasing my diary to be honest"

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 14:56:19 2015 No.7454400 >>7454145 My whole life I've been a fraud. It's so great it even makes me in a way sad that even if I become canon no work of mine will have an open this decent.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 15:02:39 2015 No.7454421 >>7454375 Well if we're going for a direct translation from French to English, it would probably be more accurate as "Today mother is dead." It sounds better as "Mom died today," in my opinion.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 15:08:45 2015 No.7454438 >>7454421 http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/lost-in-translation-what-the-first-line-of-the-stranger-should-be Ryan Bloom disagrees with you

>>	͏ Sat Dec 12 15:10:03 2015 No.7454443 "bib bib bicu bicu big man jeans apron velhi chest machine poopy diarrhea smell stinky xd dog eat my poopoo"

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 15:13:37 2015 No.7454452 >>7454230 Marquez says "snow" here; if it was translated as ice, you read a shitty version. Should've learned Spanish, pleb.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 15:15:30 2015 No.7454463 >>7454375 The comma is ruining this heavy/monolithic assertion. Besides, "Today Maman died" seems grammatically incorrect (does it?), while "Aujourd'hui maman est morte" is acceptable to a native speaker. I guess I prefer the second translation.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 15:42:48 2015 No.7454574 >>7454452 Even the Greeks enjoyed their stories with minor variations.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 15:48:34 2015 No.7454599 File: 2.15 MB, 1632x922, hielo.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7454452 que?

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 15:49:37 2015 No.7454603 >>7454452 the whole point was that ice resembles crystals

Anonymous Sat Dec 12 16:20:32 2015 No.7454714

>>7454452
>>7454599
>>7454603

ICE
Cooler than the coldest cube, dude
And when I'm micin' boy I'm known to get rude
Criminal background
it's time to get down
I use a silencer, don't like the loud sound
Off my mic blast
you better run fast
The last punk that popped junk
passed
Spit on his grave,
laughed
jumped in my stretch
Signed his bitch an autograph

20 years later I still remember nigga.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 17:59:09 2015 No.7454978 >>7454145 "TOSHINO KYOKO!"

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 18:05:55 2015 No.7455006 Anger be now your song immortal one

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 18:15:39 2015 No.7455037 File: 58 KB, 600x450, CWD7J_NWEAEcCds.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7454452 kill yourself, you monoglot pseudo

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 18:15:47 2015 No.7455039 He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 18:20:05 2015 No.7455060 >>7454452 But I did read it in Spanish, faggot. It said "hielo", which means ice, not snow, it would be "nieve". Get a better translation next time.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 18:20:35 2015 No.7455063 >>7454214 The one that made me put the book back because it made zero sense to me?

Anonymous Sat Dec 12 18:26:14 2015 No.7455079

I would venture to say, since it's "literature" and not "novels", probably the first three lines of Song of Myself.

>>7454175

that sentence like the rest of the book is highly flawed but fun nonetheless. But hardly the "greatest", because it IS flawed as fuck

>>7454222

on its own? nah

>>7454230

fucking no, Marquez is mediocre

>>7454256

it's pretty good

>>7454276

fucking no

>>7454281

flawed but great

>>7454323

neither of those, and the first one is actually fucking awful

>>7454400

bad

>>7454214

nah

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 18:30:11 2015 No.7455098 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 18:31:35 2015 No.7455103 " Aujourd’hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas." I fucking love it.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 18:35:56 2015 No.7455113 >>7455079 I value and appreciate all your opinions

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 18:37:30 2015 No.7455117 >>7454165 well memed

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 18:46:11 2015 No.7455140 Not the best by any means (because that type of superlative is silly), but I really like the start of Dhalgren: >to wound the autumnal city. So howled out for the world to give him a name. The in-dark answered with wind.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 18:55:36 2015 No.7455165 >>7455079 Yes, Call me Ishmael is great on its own. It already has you asking questions. Who is this person? Does this mean Ishmael isn't his name? If not, why Ishmael? Why might he be using a fake name?

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 21:19:02 2015 No.7455699 >>7454222 This t b h.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 21:26:36 2015 No.7455733 So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 21:31:29 2015 No.7455756 “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 21:38:31 2015 No.7455780 >>7454276 this

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 22:06:52 2015 No.7455865 I like the one from Catch 22, it's considered a classic I know: "It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain, he fell madly in love with him."

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 22:09:30 2015 No.7455874 >>7455865 >posts 3 sentences Are you in the right thread?

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 22:32:49 2015 No.7455945 >>7454145 Don't know about sentence, bit the opening of Lolita is pretty based.

Anonymous Sat Dec 12 22:36:49 2015 No.7455961
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In my younger years or maybe in the beginning, I can't remember - I saw the child awake to find he'd become a television tuned to a dead channel as he faced the firing squad halfway through the journey of life in a hole in the ground surrounded by heads and bodies when a grand Buck Mulligan came screaming across the sky
-Call me Lo-li-ta

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 23:14:36 2015 No.7456103 >>7454320 >get raped Do you also listen to The Biggest Problem In The Universe?

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 23:16:58 2015 No.7456113 OY FUCKING CUMSWAPPER

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 23:23:02 2015 No.7456131 The sky was the color of a Yotsuba imageboard set to its default theme.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 23:23:28 2015 No.7456132 >>7454320 go back to /b/ "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 23:24:38 2015 No.7456136 >>7455079 Someone this terrible at spacing must surely be retarded. And I was right.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 23:26:28 2015 No.7456146 >>7456132 Not a particularly good opening sentence. Still, probably one of the greatest books of all time.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 23:26:58 2015 No.7456147 >>7454320 you are supposed to maintain that rape, like patriarchy and the Holocaust, is a hoax. You should say, "have sex the normal way nature intended for you' Have fun at your active shooter incident, psycho.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 23:30:16 2015 No.7456160 File: 6 KB, 206x245, download (1).jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] "They're out there. Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them."

Anonymous Sat Dec 12 23:31:47 2015 No.7456166

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.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 23:34:35 2015 No.7456182 The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 00:02:24 2015 No.7456270 >>7455079 Your opinions are whats bad

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 00:20:25 2015 No.7456314 >>7454145 A memeing comes across the sky

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 00:26:29 2015 No.7456336 >>7454222 Fucking right

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 01:09:33 2015 No.7456456 File: 82 KB, 555x959, 2015-12-13_00-09-25.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 01:14:36 2015 No.7456463 File: 100 KB, 579x986, 2015-12-13_00-14-28.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

Anonymous Sun Dec 13 01:28:24 2015 No.7456487

Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus
and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians,
hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls
of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting
of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished
since that time when first there stood in division of conflict
Atreus’ son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus. . . .

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 01:29:50 2015 No.7456492 File: 160 KB, 688x850, 1448872647753.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7456487 Not a sentence.

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 01:31:13 2015 No.7456496 >>7454145 Who's there?

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 02:08:04 2015 No.7456597 "It was a pleasure to burn."

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 02:17:35 2015 No.7456630 Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure.

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 13:37:48 2015 No.7458041 >>7456597 Not as good as the part when he senses Clarisse's presence shortly after.

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 13:59:43 2015 No.7458104 >>7456456 >Miss Lonelyhearts on there YES

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 14:32:53 2015 No.7458182 riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

Anonymous Sun Dec 13 14:36:50 2015 No.7458199

>>7455165

come on, you know that's not what Melville was trying to do. And don't go "le author is dead", because it's very obvious to anyone who isn't poorly reading it that he was just trying to start a novel in a quick, open manner.

>Does this mean Ishmael isn't his name?
>If not, why Ishmael?
>Why might he be using a fake name?

Yeah and if you read the rest of the fucking book you'll understand that it's never developed along those lines, so none of those questions matter

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 14:39:34 2015 No.7458205 >>7454375 >>7454421 >>7454463 http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/lost-in-translation-what-the-first-line-of-the-stranger-should-be

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 14:45:18 2015 No.7458223 >>7458199 This is bait, right? Right?

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 14:47:11 2015 No.7458229 File: 41 KB, 220x277, process.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Jemand musste Josef K. verleumdet haben… Because it's the only sentence in the whole book told as a third-person.

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 14:49:48 2015 No.7458238 >>7455079 >The Recognitions >flawed Care to explain? Or are you just pulling that from your ass?

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 15:23:45 2015 No.7458347 All happy families are more or less dissimilar; all unhappy ones are more or less alike,' says a great Russian writer in the beginning of a famous novel (Anna Arkadievitch Karenina, transfigured into English by R.G. Stonelower, Mount Tabor Ltd., 1880)

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 15:39:32 2015 No.7458399 >>7454145 >My suffering left me sad and gloomy. >Academic study and the steady, mindful practice of religion slowly brought me back to life.

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 15:42:49 2015 No.7458408 En un lugar de la Mancha de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme... etc

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 15:43:25 2015 No.7458411 >>7458238 Use some critical thinking skills and figure it out yourself. Im not going to spoonfeed you

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 15:43:58 2015 No.7458414 >>7458229 What? The only one? How? Is it different in german or something?

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 15:45:32 2015 No.7458423 Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. popped a stiffy

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 15:50:16 2015 No.7458440 >>7455079 holy, you typed the exact opposite to everything but Anna Karenina. What a turbo pleb I don't even

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 17:24:47 2015 No.7458808 >>7458411 >Im not going to spoonfeed you If you have a legitimate criticism, there should be no good reason to hide it. Since you don't seem to, we can only assume your'e a delusional idiot.

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 17:29:11 2015 No.7458835 >>7458423 die

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 21:43:21 2015 No.7459752 File: 99 KB, 883x904, wahhh.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7458835

>>	Anonymous Mon Dec 14 00:48:02 2015 No.7460384 >>7454978 MATOI RYUKO

>>	Anonymous Mon Dec 14 08:21:23 2015 No.7461067 File: 80 KB, 329x306, 1426530456105.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7454165 When did /r9k/ write a book?

>>	Anonymous Mon Dec 14 08:23:03 2015 No.7461072 >>7458411 Translation: I'm just spouting shit about a book I've never read. Please rape my face.

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/lit/ - Literature