Best first paragraphs
Among first sentences in novels, the beginning of Pride and Prejudice is hard to beat.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
Seeking to cheer myself up after the Obamacare debacle, I began thinking about first lines and paragraphs in books. Some of my favorite novels have unremarkable beginnings. In fact, one of my absolute favorites, J. R. R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring, starts with a sentence that positively repelled me at first:
When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
Oh no, I thought, "Bilbo Baggins of Bag End"? "Eleventy-first birthday"? What is this, baby talk? What's next, Lollipop Lane?
Fortunately, I stuck with it. For those who haven't read it yet, it gets better in the second chapter and goes up from there.
But a good beginning can really sell the book--quite literally in my case a couple of days ago when I chanced upon the beginning of C.J. Box's thriller, Savage Run:
On the third day of their honeymoon, infamous environmental activist Stevie Woods and his new bride, Annabel Bellotti, were spiking trees in the forest when a cow exploded and blew them up. Until then, their marriage had been happy.
What about you? What are your favorite first lines or paragraphs in books?
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Comments:
Jun '10
Re: Best first paragraphs
1984 is a grim book, but it has a great opening line:
I also love the first line to One Hundred Years of Solitude:
One of the funniest is from P. G. Wodehouse's Luck of the Bodkins:
Edited on July 2, 2012 at 3:24amNov '11
Re: Best first paragraphs
I take it you hadn't read The Hobbit before starting Lord of the Rings, or you'd have welcomed Bilbo as an old, dear friend.
Actually, it has its own good opening line: short, sweet, and to the point -- except that you don't have the slightest clue what it's talking about:
Edited on July 2, 2012 at 3:29amMay '10
Re: Best first paragraphs
I don't know if it's my favorite opening line, but I really like this one from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy:
"When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread, til they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to mere chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun."
May '11
Re: Best first paragraphs
The last line of Sphere by Crichton. Sorry, can't find it. While not much of a line, it meant a lot to the story. They left it out in the movie adaptation. Maybe someone here has the book.
Sep '10
Re: Best first paragraphs
Leigh: I take it you hadn't read The Hobbit before starting Lord of the Rings, or you'd have welcomed Bilbo as an old, dear friend.
9 minutes ago
Right. I started with The Lord of the Rings and only afterwards read The Hobbit. This was decades ago, when I was in high school. I've lost count of how many times I've read The Lord of the Rings since then--I gave up after 11.
Edited on July 2, 2012 at 3:46amDec '10
Re: Best first paragraphs
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons: The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living.
Jun '12
Re: Best first paragraphs
I'd have to go with Moby Dick.
"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."
Nov '11
Re: Best first paragraphs
"Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde's Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde's door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof. "
Nov '11
Re: Best first paragraphs
" I am an American, Chicago born—Chicago, that somber city—and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man's character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles."
"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
Apr '11
Re: Best first paragraphs
Jay Nordlinger covered this in Impromptus way back. Lots of good suggestions there: http://old.nationalreview.com/impromptus/impromptus110102.asp
Sep '10
Re: Best first paragraphs
He seems to have a few (I count five) but I'm more interested in what our members have to say themselves. It seems to me that a lot of Ricocheters love books.
Edited on July 2, 2012 at 5:30amApr '11
Re: Best first paragraphs
dogsbody
He seems to have a few (I count five) but I'm more interested in what our members have to say themselves. It seems to me that a lot of Ricocheters love books. · 4 minutes ago
Edited 2 minutes ago
Actually, Jay had several Impromptus in a row in which he published dozens of great reader suggestions. I just couldn't find a good link. I know you're looking for Ricocheteer suggestions, but trust me, Jay's thread on this is worth a look if you can find it. It was good enough that I remember it--a blog thread!--from ten years ago!
I can contribute a couple: "My family is American, and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral." --Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant
"There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks." --Raymond Chandler, "Red Wind"
Apr '11
Re: Best first paragraphs
And my favorite:
"People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward named Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band. Here is what happened."
-Charles Portis, True Grit
Apr '11
Re: Best first paragraphs
"The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning." Ian Fleming, Casino Royale.
Feb '12
Re: Best first paragraphs
It's a dedication, so I suppose it doesn't really count, but I've always loved C.S. Lewis' note to Lucy Barfield in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
"My Dear Lucy,
I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand, a word you say, but I shall still be
your affectionate Godfather,
C.S. Lewis"
Edited on July 2, 2012 at 6:06amApr '11
Re: Best first paragraphs
radicalbiochemist: It's a dedication, so I suppose it doesn't really count, but I've always loved C.S. Lewis' note to Lucy Barfield in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
"My Dear Lucy,
I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand, a word you say, but I shall still be
your affectionate Godfather,
C.S. Lewis" · 5 minutes ago
Edited 1 minute ago
Ha! I just read this tonight to my five year old daughter. I've always loved that dedication.
Feb '12
Re: Best first paragraphs
Matt Blankenship
Ha! I just read this tonight to my five year old daughter. I've always loved that dedication. · 1 minute ago
I think my kids aren't quite to the attention span for Narnia yet, but I can't wait to read those stories to them. I think the best opening in the series has to be the Voyage of the Dawn Treader
"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence and his schoolmasters called him Scrubb. I can't tell you how his friends spoke to him for he had none."
Feb '12
Re: Best first paragraphs
Sorry for the repeat, Adrian, didn't catch it in your post.
May '12
Re: Best first paragraphs
As much as I hate to self promote <ahem>, I did grace these pages recently with my best first paragraph.
As for those other writers, I loved Neal Stephenson's
Although he saved it to open chapter 89.
Nov '10
Re: Best first paragraphs
dogsbody
Leigh: I take it you hadn't readThe Hobbitbefore startingLord of the Rings, or you'd have welcomed Bilbo as an old, dear friend.
9 minutes ago
Right. I started with The Lord of the Rings and only afterwards read The Hobbit. This was decades ago, when I was in high school. I've lost count of how many times I've read The Lord of the Rings since then--I gave up after 11. · 6 hours ago
Edited 6 hours ago
If you had read the Hobbit first, you'd have realised that these books were written with children in mind ... but of course, they took on a life of their own and began to emit the most mature themes.