Comments on: First lines and all that

By: Yahzi

Yahzi — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 02:30:16 +0000

“We’ll never know if they were intelligent.”

The Puppet Masters by Heinlein. Not the greatest novel, but certainly one of the most intriguing opening sentences ever.

By: Kristin Laughtin

Kristin Laughtin — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:42:24 +0000

I’m a sucker for the opening lines of classics like PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and MOBY-DICK, but for more recent novels, SPIN by Robert Charles Wilson has one of my favorites: “Everybody falls, and we all land somewhere.”

And both the openings of SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE amaze me. Probably why these last two books are my favorites.

And if nothing else hammers home the importance of a great first line, go read the first paragraph contest entries Nathan Bransford hosted on his blog a week or two ago. It helps you understand what stands out in the flood.

By: Rowenna

Rowenna — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 21:27:45 +0000

I admit, The Bears of Blue River by Charles Major has a ridiculously verbose opening line that’s a bit of an info dump (not to mention a core storyline about, um, hunting bears that would make steam come out the communal ears of the ASPCA). But it still whispers “adventure” and “history” to me from its place in my childhood:

Away back in the “twenties,” when Indiana was a baby state, and great forests of tall trees and tangled underbrush darkened what are now her bright plains and sunny hills, there stood upon the east bank of Big Blue River, a mile or two north of the point where that stream crosses the Michigan road, a cozy log cabin of two rooms—one front and one back.

By: Nan

Nan — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 20:41:54 +0000

Most recently, “Sometimes a mayfly skates across a pond, leaving a brief wake as thin as spider silk, and by staying low avoids those birds and bats that feed in flight.” – The Good Guy, Dean Koontz

Thanks for the link.

By: Elizabeth Lynd

Elizabeth Lynd — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 20:39:11 +0000

I read One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez over twenty years ago, and its opening line haunts me still:

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

Another favorite, though far less well known, is from A House of Many Rooms, by Rodello Hunter (the first book I ever stayed up all night reading):

The house told the story of the family.

And though you didn’t mention it, perhaps the best closing line(s) in the history of fiction are from Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White:

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.

By: Ara Burklund

Ara Burklund — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 20:26:34 +0000

“Garp’s mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater.”
–The World According to Garp, John Irving

By: Eric Christopherson

Eric Christopherson — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 20:15:47 +0000

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

By: Miriam

Miriam — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 19:00:11 +0000

Definitely. All of these first lines are making me want to read or re-read all these books. They make you want to dive right in.

By: Jennifer Pickrell

Jennifer Pickrell — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:53:41 +0000

I’m with Ciara – I haven’t read The Bell Jar in 15 years, but the first line still sticks in my head.

By: Ciara

Ciara — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:21:24 +0000

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.

The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath. (Also my favourite book!)