171–180 of 202 posts
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
This is poetic and all, but I fail to see why it’s so great. I’m am curious.
What makes a great opening line? A great rest-of-the-story. Nobody praises the opening line of a story that they otherwise think is rather boring.
"It was a dark and stormy night." A perfect opening line. Followed by a long paragraph beating the same topic to death. And who remembers the rest-of-the-story.
Unforgettable, brilliant. (Find the original large-format hardback, not the paperback re-issue that can't possibly recapture the exuberant pictures spread across the pages.)
(I guess you may have been thinking of a different book...?)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"It was a dark and stormy night." A perfect opening line. Followed by a long paragraph beating the same topic to death. And who remembers the rest-of-the-story.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/654419.It_Was_a_Dark_and... Unforgettable, brilliant. (Find the original large-format hardback, not the paperback re-issue that can't possibly recapture the exuberant pictures spread across the pages.) (I guess you may have been thinking of a different book...?)
The opening line and following run-on sentence has acquired a bit of a cult following and inspired a contest for best worst fictional opening: https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/
It's possible the author you linked was inspired by this as well.
My favorite opening line in a book is from Peace by Gene Wolfe: > The elm tree planted by Eleanor Bold, the judge’s daughter, fell last night. It's very plain. The kind of sentence your eye just passes over while looking for something more obviously relevant. But the book itself is a mystery hidden in plain sight, and this mystery is both declared and resolved in the very first line of the book. That level of subtle,…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/654419.It_Was_a_Dark_and... Unforgettable, brilliant. (Find the original large-format hardback, not the paperback re-issue that can't possibly recapture the exuberant pictures spread across the pages.) (I guess you may have been thinking of a different book...?)
He's talking about the opening of Paul Clifford by Edward Bulwer-Lytton: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/12/th... The opening line and following run-on sentence has acquired a bit of a cult following and inspired a contest for best worst fictional opening: https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ It's possible the author you linked was inspired by this as well.
More than possible; I'm pretty sure it's deliberate. They like to take well-known, even clichéd, elements and re-imagine them in new and creative ways.
“Call me Ishmael.”
(I also saw an amusing tweet once, something like: Moby Dick has one of the most iconic openings in literature: "I hope you motherfuckers like reading about whales")
"There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made."
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.Steel Beach - John Varley.
"They sent a slamhound on Turner's trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair."