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Quote of the Day: By ‘A Lady’
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
Thus begins the best-known work by one of English literature’s best-known authors who was born 244 years ago, on December 16, 1775. Pride and Prejudice was Jane Austen’s second published novel, one of only three that were published during her short life, which ended prematurely at the age of 41 from what was probably Hodgkin’s lymphoma combined with long-term Addison’s disease.
As with Sense and Sensibility, and Emma, the novels were published only with the byline “By A Lady,” and Jane’s identity was not known until her brother published Persuasion and Northanger Abbey after her death. A sixth novel, Sanditon, was unfinished at the time of her death in 1817. It was published in its fragmentary form in 1925 and has been the basis of numerous continuations, completions, and adaptations, perhaps most interestingly in The Price of Butcher’s Meat, a detective novel in the ‘Dalziel and Pascoe’ series by Reginald Hill.
The opening lines of Pride and Prejudice are, without a doubt some of the most famous in the entire literary canon. But there are others just as famous, or just as beloved, even if only to ourselves.
Do you have a favorite opening line or paragraph from a work of fiction? What, and (if you care to share), why?
Published in Literature
Call me Ishmael.
I’m quite partial to the opening of Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons:
It signals, from the outset, that this is a no-nonsense novel about common sense. I like that. It’s also a magnificent and hilarious send-up of the self-involved, turgid and tumescent melodrama of books like Lady Chatterley’s Lover. What’s not to like about that, either?
Not to mention the delightful characters, such as Mr. Mybug (Meyerburg).
It’s actually the second sentence that I am quite partial to:
That is so evocative.
Leave the Gun, take the Cannoli…. Oh wait you said something I had to have read,
Never mind
It was a dark and stormy night.
In the beginning, Gd created the heavens and the earth.
Once upon a time…
For length, it would be Dickens in The Tale of Two Cities:
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A PBS Masterpiece version is coming soon:
I find it appealing and evocative, too.
But it wouldn’t be a candidate for favorite for me. There are too many sentences that are evocative and perfect, in my reading of them, and this one is not perfect.
Instead of moving through it frictionlessly and continuously, my mind hiccups once (leaves “gossiping with the wind”) and pauses once (“lower main terrace”).
“gossiping with the wind”: The wind makes them gossip with each other. They are not gossiping with the wind.
“lower main terrace”. My mind pauses to select between two parsings before moving on
I think that a more careful author would have seen, and taken the time to edit out, the potential hiccup and the pause.
When you have sold as many books as he did, feel free to go back in time and give him advice.
The first line from Rosy Is My Relative (by Gerald Durrell):
Not fiction, but a memorable opening line:
“Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.” — George Orwell, in his essay on Gandhi
For an opening line: “Last night I went to Manderley again.”
For an Austen line: Lady Caroline commented that balls would be much more rational if conversation, rather than dancing was the order of the day.
Mr. Bingley replied, “Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be near so much like a ball.”
C.S. Lewis quoted this line in an essay regarding ordaining women to the priesthood.
Ah. Gerald Durrell. One of my dearest childhood companions, from the moment I read “A Zoo In My Luggage” when I was about nine. I still have most of my well-thumbed, falling apart paperbacks, including my favorite of all time, My Family and Other Animals, which I probably enjoyed so much because it reminded me so much of my own folks.
I’ve not kept up with the current dramatizations on Masterpiece, because I find them too hard-edged and sometimes unpleasant, and not the whimsical, funny, charming memoirs I loved as a child. That may be just me.
Oh, yes.
Funny. Makes me think of the “calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one,” story, as well as Dr. Johnson’s comment that “Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”
“Once upon a time there were four little rabbits, and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter.”
I vaguely remember a line that went something like
It doesn’t count as a proper answer to your question
Hmm. Not wild about the soundtrack. Will be interested to see how woke this version is. IMHO, the last season of Poldark went a bit round the bend in that regard, not to its benefit. There is an “heiress from the West Indies,” Miss Lamb, in the original Sanditon, which has promise, if they don’t mess it up. Looks like lovely production values, as usual, though.
Louie,She, I think this could be the start of a beautiful Conversation.I’m not familiar with that one. Perhaps someone will know it. I find that O Henry story incredibly annoying, though. An example of bad comms in both directions. If only they’d been brave enough, and smart enough to talk to each other and sort things out, perhaps she could have cut off her hair, he could have sold his watch, and they could have pooled the proceeds and bought something sensible, like an icebox, to make their lives easier. Mind-reading, even when it comes to the giving of gifts, is, IMHO, almost always a bad idea.
Which is giving me another idea. Perhaps someone should write a follow-on, say twenty-five years later, to see what the now-good-and-middle-aged couple are doing, and if they learned anything in the intervening years.
Grump, grump.
I absolutely agree about Poldark. In fact, the last 2 or 3 seasons had a few improbable things added, such as Drake’s infatuation with Morwenna and their strange marriage.
Since the original Sanditon is unfinished, I’ll bet it will be woke.
The first two or three episodes were hard for me to follow. When I finally got hooked on the series, I really loved it. But the last season was impossible to follow and improbable. I found some hilarious reviews of the last season when I went looking around the Internet to see if it was just me.
I think the writer needed a good editor to work with. She kept introducing new story arcs that were elaborate and complicated, which the viewers, in that part of their minds in which they were keeping track of the story elements, were rejecting in relation to the little time left in the series.
My favorite actor and character in the series turned out to be George. :-)
In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.
This isn’t a particularly famous example, but I’ve always liked it. Scott Turow’s second novel, The Burden Of Proof, begins with this interesting sentence:
The novel (the follow-up to Presumed Innocent) focuses on a middle-aged attorney in the aftermath of his wife’s death. One subplot involves his meeting, and beginning a tentative relationship with, another woman, but that isn’t what the book is about. I always thought it was somewhat daring, but effective, that Turow reveals in the opening sentence — before both characters are even really introduced! — that yes, they are going to end up together. It serves to remove a potential distraction, and also to lighten what might otherwise seem like a depressing story.
Another example that has attracted a lot of commentary is the opening of William Gibson’s science-fiction novel Neuromancer:
Neuromancer is often cited as one of the most important examples of the “cyberpunk” genre, and that opening line — when it was written — effectively set the tone: it painted a gray, dreary picture, but did so in terms that were grounded in technology.
Unfortunately, the onward march of technology has undermined Gibson’s imagery. Today, a TV tuned to a dead channel won’t show you the gray “snow” Gibson was thinking of. In fact, it’s more likely to show you a pristine, clear blue, or maybe just an error message. One wonders if future editions of Gibson’s book will have to include annotations explaining some of its outdated references.
From The Towers of Trebizond. I suspect I am particularly drawn to barely disguised autobiographical memoirs of dysfunctional, yet relentlessly cheerful, carry-on-at-all-costs, British families because they remind me so much of my own. This is a lovely book. From the Wikipedia entry:
My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know. I received a telegram from the old people’s home: “Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Very sincerely yours.” That doesn’t mean anything. It might have been yesterday.
This is how “The Stranger,” written in 1942 by Albert Camus, begins.
When I read that book in late adolescence I thought it was profound. Today, those opening lines just seem so sad. The culture of the West was already in decline, although the story took place in North Africa, but the main character was French. This character later kills an Arab and is sentenced to death. The newspaper Le Monde rated this book #1 among the greatest books of the 20th century. You have to wonder why.
Gee, you might know a good editor here on Ricochet? ;-)
Please, please let me take a crack at this. :-)