Great First Lines of Books, 8magicdragon2July 22 2005, 18:10:13 UTC
222. Now, carefully avoiding the USA:
“I was not sorry when my brother died.” [Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions, Women’s Press in 1988] This first novel, abour AIDS, is by an author born in Mutoko in colonial Rhodesia, which became the independent state of Zimbabwe in 1980.
“I went down to the Piraeus yesterday.” [Plato, The Republic]
“The Beast destroyed my brief peace.” [Guy Vanderhaeghe, My Present Age] Canada
Back to Westerns:
“On the third day of their honeymoon, infamous environmental activist Stewie Woods and his new bride, Annabel Bellotti, were spiking trees in the Bighorn National Forest when a cow exploded and blew them up.” [C. J. Box, Savage Run]
“As full and frank a Portrayal as I am able of myself, Mary MacLane, for whom the world contains not a parallel.” [Mary MacLane, The Story of Mary MacLane, 1902] MacLane’s first book, The Story of Mary MacLane, sold nearly 100,000 copies in its first month, and was praised by H. L. Mencken and Hamlin Garland.
And Easterns:
“China is the European Middle Ages made visible.” [Edward Alworth Ross, The Changing Chinese: The Conflict of Oriental and Western Cultures in China, New York: Century, 1911, p. 3] 1st sentence, though p.3.
And, pardon the French:
“Take that fucking Walkman off, get your arse in here and show me how I do an all-staff e-mail.” [Matt Beaumont, “e"] British novel written in 2000 entirely in the form of e-mail communications.
Now, carefully avoiding the USA:
“I was not sorry when my brother died.”
[Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions, Women’s Press in 1988] This first novel, abour AIDS, is by an author born in Mutoko in colonial Rhodesia, which became the independent state of Zimbabwe in 1980.
“I went down to the Piraeus yesterday.”
[Plato, The Republic]
“The Beast destroyed my brief peace.”
[Guy Vanderhaeghe, My Present Age] Canada
Back to Westerns:
“On the third day of their honeymoon, infamous environmental activist Stewie Woods and his new bride, Annabel Bellotti, were spiking trees in the Bighorn National Forest when a cow exploded and blew them up.”
[C. J. Box, Savage Run]
“As full and frank a Portrayal as I am able of myself, Mary MacLane, for whom the world contains not a parallel.”
[Mary MacLane, The Story of Mary MacLane, 1902] MacLane’s first book, The Story of Mary MacLane, sold nearly 100,000 copies in its first month, and was praised by H. L. Mencken and Hamlin Garland.
And Easterns:
“China is the European Middle Ages made visible.”
[Edward Alworth Ross, The Changing Chinese: The Conflict of Oriental and Western Cultures in China, New York: Century, 1911, p. 3] 1st sentence, though p.3.
And, pardon the French:
“Take that fucking Walkman off, get your arse in here and show me how I do an all-staff e-mail.”
[Matt Beaumont, “e"] British novel written in 2000 entirely in the form of e-mail communications.
Posted by Jonathan Vos Post on 07/20 at 09:12 PM
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