Bookworms:What are the best first lines you've read?

[Boeing Guy]

Lord of the flies....now that takes me back.
loved it

[mobertol]

Last one , then i have to take the car to be MOT'd!
(Am supposed to have been working on my own writing but have been side-tracked and am in need of inspiration or a kick up...)!

"The woman walked round the corner of the house and saw a snake consuming a large Tuscan toad.
The victim was motionless, looking about it only slightly puzzled, blinking, whilst the snake attacked it's leg. The toad had the apearence of a fat busineesman being done some sexual service by a hard-faced girl on the make and doing his best not to notice. The snake, with it's sleek, shiny head and curled body, was long and smartly patterned in grey and black."
John Mortimer: Summer's Lease (from 1988)
(And summer's lease hath all too short a date Sonnet XVIII, Shakespeare is the epigraph)

[mobertol]

Originally Posted by Boeing Guy

Lord of the flies....now that takes me back.
loved it

Bit savage! Most of the books they make you read at school are hated by students - i was one of the luckier ones who liked most of them -hated Dickens though because the teacher (traditional Miss Bailey) wanted you to memorize passages and i was never good at that. Made it hard work but the stories are really good.
A lot of teachers kill Shakespeare but we were lucky to have a Mrs Bradshaw who was a fantastic teacher and brought it alive. :

[Eric]

Originally Posted by Boeing Guy

Lord of the flies....now that takes me back.
loved it

Takes me back to 5R, Accy Grammar. JAB trying to keep us under control. Always had problems with the book's ending though.

[susie123]

Originally Posted by mobertol

Bit savage! Most of the books they make you read at school are hated by students - i was one of the luckier ones who liked most of them -hated Dickens though because the teacher (traditional Miss Bailey) wanted you to memorize passages and i was never good at that. Made it hard work but the stories are really good.
A lot of teachers kill Shakespeare but we were lucky to have a Mrs Bradshaw who was a fantastic teacher and brought it alive. :

Hated books at school - loved plays and poetry. Books were mainly Dickens, Austen, Jane Eyre - still can't stand Dickens or Bronte. Nothing 20th century at all. Fortunately our O level text was Northanger Abbey - nice and short, managed to read that otherwise I wouldn't have passed. Got my lowest O level mark in Eng Lit, highest in Eng Lang! Love all Austen now though.

[Margaret Pilkington]

I can't stand Dickens, not fond of Jane Austen, Bronte sisters leave me cold...in fact all of the traditional writers I find hard to read....I think I must be a philistine.

[Michael1954]

During the 1970s and 80s I read nothing but the classics. During that period I think I must have bought everything published by Penguin English Library and Penguin Classics. For space reasons, and because the room they were kept in smelled like a musty old book shop, I have now given most away to charity; however, I have kept my Dickens books.

[Eric]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

I can't stand Dickens, not fond of Jane Austen, Bronte sisters leave me cold...in fact all of the traditional writers I find hard to read....I think I must be a philistine.

No ... not a philistine ... just born and raised in a different time. In terms of the novel .... it doesn't really come on the scene until 1740, with "Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded", which presented major problems for the reader, ones which were brilliantly ridiculed in "Shamela" (1741), probably written by Fielding, although he never admitted authorship. Like modern prose fiction, works from earlier periods follow certain "parochial rules", satisfy various expectations. Some, of course, like some works of pictoral art, or some musical works achieve a sort of timelessness, their popularity sometimes underlined by their survival. If we look at Chaucer, for example, his works survive because he somehow transcends the limitations of his age. One would think that the only guy writing in the late Middle Ages was Chaucer ... well, maybe Langland, and whoever it was who wrote "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" ... but this, of course, isn't true. I think it's time to stop this ramble before I get into a discussion of Cervantes and Aphra Behn

[susie123]

Originally Posted by Eric

No ... not a philistine ... just born and raised in a different time. In terms of the novel .... it doesn't really come on the scene until 1740, with "Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded", which presented major problems for the reader, ones which were brilliantly ridiculed in "Shamela" (1741), probably written by Fielding, although he never admitted authorship. Like modern prose fiction, works from earlier periods follow certain "parochial rules", satisfy various expectations. Some, of course, like some works of pictoral art, or some musical works achieve a sort of timelessness, their popularity sometimes underlined by their survival. If we look at Chaucer, for example, his works survive because he somehow transcends the limitations of his age. One would think that the only guy writing in the late Middle Ages was Chaucer ... well, maybe Langland, and whoever it was who wrote "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" ... but this, of course, isn't true. I think it's time to stop this ramble before I get into a discussion of Cervantes and Aphra Behn

Thank you Professor Slater! I liked the Green Knight...

I've got lots of unread books on my shelves, filed in with the ones I have read (I never get rid of books!). I've turned them upside down so I know where they are. One day I might get round to reading Chaucer, Malory etc etc. Trouble is I keep buying new books - well not new, usually secondhand, but you know what I mean...

[Margaret Pilkington]

I liked Henry Fielding's Tom Jones........and Miguel Cervantes Don Quixote.........so I don't quite know why I can't get into these other classics.

I hate parting with books too......although I have given quite a few away(most of my text books have now been passed on).

[Eric]

Originally Posted by susie123

Thank you Professor Slater! I liked the Green Knight...

I've got lots of unread books on my shelves, filed in with the ones I have read (I never get rid of books!). I've turned them upside down so I know where they are. One day I might get round to reading Chaucer, Malory etc etc. Trouble is I keep buying new books - well not new, usually secondhand, but you know what I mean...

I like the "Green Knight" too ... it reminds me of "Star Trek" ... but I won't get into that. Chaucer is fun ... well the "Tales" are ... always reminds me that we humans haven't changed much since the fourteenth century. Well, maybe they smelled worse ... but their football games were more fun Even Langland points to a world with which we are familiar, if one looks at it in a certain way (and, it gets me back on topic, with first lines).

A feir feld full of folk fond I ther bitwene,
Of alle maner of men, the mene and the riche,
Worchinge and wandringe, as the world asketh.

[Eric]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

I liked Henry Fielding's Tom Jones........and Miguel Cervantes Don Quixote.........so I don't quite know why I can't get into these other classics.

I hate parting with books too......although I have given quite a few away(most of my text books have now been passed on).

"Tom Jones" ... apart from "Pamela", maybe ... was the first great mega hit. Today they would be marketing t-shirts and stuff ... and the movie rights ... so, it's not a surprise that you would like it. It has that time-transcending quality. The first printing run was 10,000 copies! And there are some fascinating textual problems which arose from the high demand. (However, I doubt there is the same demand for a discourse on them). The reason you can't get into the "other classics" is because they were not written for someone living in the twenty-first century. It's not that you are a philistine (altho' Matthew Arnold might disagree), it's that the works are inaccessible, fit only for pedants and students.

[susie123]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

I liked Henry Fielding's Tom Jones........and Miguel Cervantes Don Quixote.........so I don't quite know why I can't get into these other classics.

I hate parting with books too......although I have given quite a few away(most of my text books have now been passed on).

Still got all my chemistry text books from uni! How sad is that - but a lot of the info will be out of date now so I doubt if anyone will want them.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by Eric

"Tom Jones" ... apart from "Pamela", maybe ... was the first great mega hit. Today they would be marketing t-shirts and stuff ... and the movie rights ... so, it's not a surprise that you would like it. It has that time-transcending quality. The first printing run was 10,000 copies! And there are some fascinating textual problems which arose from the high demand. (However, I doubt there is the same demand for a discourse on them). The reason you can't get into the "other classics" is because they were not written for someone living in the twenty-first century. It's not that you are a philistine (altho' Matthew Arnold might disagree), it's that the works are inaccessible, fit only for pedants and students.

I was born into the twentieth century...and I do like books set in the times of the tudors(maybe I lived back then and have been reincarnated).......and Tom Jones isn't set in the twenty first century.......I suppose it is set in the times that some of the traditional classics were set.(maybe I have got the wrong angle on what you are trying to point out to me)

Funnily enough, though I am not overkeen on dramatisations of books...I thought the film of Tom Jones(with Albert Finney and Sussanah Yorke)lived up to my own imaginings of the characters......Squire Allworthy was spot on for me too. It could have had something to do with the fact that I had a soft spot for Albert Finney(it was my bed )

[Eric]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

I was born into the twentieth century...and I do like books set in the times of the tudors(maybe I lived back then and have been reincarnated).......and Tom Jones isn't set in the twenty first century.......I suppose it is set in the times that some of the traditional classics were set.(maybe I have got the wrong angle on what you are trying to point out to me)

Funnily enough, though I am not overkeen on dramatisations of books...I thought the film of Tom Jones(with Albert Finney and Sussanah Yorke)lived up to my own imaginings of the characters......Squire Allworthy was spot on for me too. It could have had something to do with the fact that I had a soft spot for Albert Finney(it was my bed )

I don't think it is important where the story is set ... books, "Dark Fire" (2004) for example, can be set in one time and written today ... or, at least yesterday. "Tom Jones", written and set in the eighteenth century seems, for some reason (suggestions welcome) to transcend its age ... timeless. Things in it, resonate with us today. Or maybe it's just a rollicking good story. There are lots of books like that ... I think they call them "classics" ... you get the same thing with music ... listen to any classic rock station and you will hear Eagles, CCR, Three Dog Night, Elvis, Beatles, ... but not too much Bay City Rollers. But this is getting away from the topic. So here is an opening line: "Jeremiah was a bullfrog"