Friday, July 25, 2008

Booking Through Thursday: Beginnings

Today's Yesterday's question:
What are your favourite first sentences from books? Is there a book that you liked specially because of its first sentence? Or a book, perhaps that you didn’t like but still remember simply because of the first line?
I generally don't pay much attention to first lines - it usually takes me more than a few lines to get into a story, so even if the opening doesn't grab me, I'll still give it a few pages before I put it aside. So I don't have any books that I liked (or disliked) specifically because of their opening lines. I do have a few opening lines that I enjoy, though:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a large fortune, must be in want of a wife." - Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." - Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." - 1984, George Orwell

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." - The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka

BoingBoing has a link to an article about great first lines in sci-fi novels. It's very interesting, and well worth a look.

1 comment:

smariek said...

I don't usually remember first lines. I used the P&P line too. Can't believe I forgot the Anna Karenina line.

Here's my BTT post