The first lines of novels set the tone for the story to
come. And when the story becomes a classic, the first line can sometimes become
as famous as the novel itself, as the quotes below demonstrate.
FIRST-PERSON
INTRODUCTIONS
Some of the greatest
novelists set the stage by having their protagonists describe themselves in
pithy but powerful sentences.
"Call me Ishmael." - Herman Melville, Moby Dick (1851)
"I am an invisible man.
No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie
ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids --
and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply
because people refuse to see me." - Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)
"You don't know about me
without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter."
- Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)
Some novelists start by
describing their protagonists in the third person, but they do it in such a
telling way, that the story grips you and makes you want to read further to see
what happens to the hero.
"He was an old
man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone
eighty-four days now without taking a fish." - Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
"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." - Gabriel Garcia
Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
"Somewhere in la Mancha,
in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long
ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a
skinny nag and a greyhound for racing." - Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
"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." - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955)
STARTING
WITH "IT"
Some novels start out with
such original wording, that you feel compelled to read on, though you remember
that first line until you finish the book and long thereafter.
"It was a bright cold day
in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." - George Orwell, 1984
(1949)
"It was a dark and stormy
night ... ." - Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)
"It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of
foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it
was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of
hope, it was the winter of despair." - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
UNUSUAL
SETTINGS
And, some novelists open their
works with brief, but memorable, descriptions of the setting for their stories.
"The sun shone, having no
alternative." - Samuel Beckett, Murphy
(1938),
"There is a lovely road
that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling,
and they are lovely beyond any singing of it." - Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)
"The sky above the port
was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." - William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)
No comments:
Post a Comment