Famous First Words

When I was in high school English we were subjected to a film starring, IIRC, Clifton Fadiman, telling us what a wonderful novel we were going to study. He emphasized this by comparing its first sentence with the first sentences of other famous works. To this day these first sentences are locked in my memory. So I thought I’d play a little game. I’ll list the first words, you identify the work.

First, Mr. Fadiman’s examples. (No. P3 is the one we were going to study.)

P1. “Call me Ishmael.”

P2. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife.”

P3. “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. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.”

That was easy, wasn’t it?

If you know an answer, post it. (Quick! Before someone else does!) If you’d like to play just post the first sentence of a favorite book, poem, story, etc., and let us guess. There are no rules. You can be obscure as you like, but give us a sporting chance.

Due to the likelihood of simulposts I suggest you don’t use simple numbers to identify your submittals. I used P1, P2, P3, etc., because P is the first letter of my username.

Some of my favorite novels (after P2, which is my all-time favorite):

P4. “A throng of bearded men, in sad-coloured garments and grey steeple-crowned hats, inter-mixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.” (Actually this is the first sentence following a loooong introductory chapter. This seemed fairer.)

P5. “A Chancery judge once had the kindness to inform me, as one of a company of some hundred and fifty men and women not labouring under any suspicions of lunacy, that the Court of Chancery, though the shining subject of much popular prejudice (at which point I thought the judge’s eye had a cast in my direction), was almost immaculate.” (This is from the preface. The actual first sentence is simply, “London.”)

P6. “A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment.”

Two more – one is a gimme, the other is, I think, pretty tough:

P7. “Marley was dead: to begin with.”

P8. “As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep: and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream.”

Have fun!


“pluto … a seriously demented but oddly addictive presence here.” – TVeblen

P3 is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Guess I haven’t read the others.

Try this one:

“I am too young to die. Just eighteen years old – and now I’m as good as dead. My grip is weakening, my fingers slipping, and the elevator shaft below me is a kilometer deep. I can’t hold on any longer. I’m going to fall…”


“You can observe a lot just by watching.” – Yogi Berra

Okay P1 is obviously Moby Dick, I think P2 is Pride and Prejudice (maybe) and P3 is Huckleberry Finn

I believe p7 is A Christmas Carol… but I’m not sure


John Larrigan

“82.35% of all statistics are made up on the spot”–Vic Reeves

Okay I think P4 is the Scarlet Letter, P5 might be Bleak House, dunno P6 or P8 but P7 of course is A Christmas Carol

P1. Moby Dick

P2. Pride and Prejudice :smiley: - Austen is my favorite and this is one of my all time favorite books

P3. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
P4. Got me there

P5. Something Dickens perhaps…only Dickens is that wordy :smiley:

P6. Nope

P7. Now that is Dickens - A Christmas Carol

P8. Very familiar, but I just can’t place it :smiley:


When are you going to realize being normal isn’t necessarily a good thing?

And try this one on for size - another of my all time favorites

“I will begin the story of my adventures with a certain morning early in the month of June, the year of Grace 1751, when I took the key for the last time out of the door of my father’s house.”


When are you going to realize being normal isn’t necessarily a good thing?

P5 is Bleak House by Charles Dickens.
(“London” is the giveaway clue)

P6 is Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy.
(“Egdon Heath” is the clue)

P8 is Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan.

TaleraRis’s example is almost certainly R. L. Stevenson. It’s not Treasure Island, so I’ll hazard a guess at Kidnapped.

I think the others have all been answered so let me throw out a couple of my favourites:

“It was a cold, bright day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

“The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy to follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again under circumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether the other was worthy. I have still to be broth to a Prince, though I once came near to kinship with what might have been a veritable King, and was promised the reversion of a Kingdom - army, law-courts, revenue, and policy all complete. But, today, I greatly fear that my King is dead, and if I want a crown I must go hunt it for myself.”

“Someone had been telling lies about Joseph K.”

Sorry, I hit return too soon.

I should have said that the second one is a short story, rather than a novel; the first two are by English writers but the third was not originally written in English; and all three have been made into films.

TomH:

(Sorry; haven’t figured out the quote thing.)

The first is ‘1984’.

No clue on the second.

The third: ‘The Trial’?

First words, huh?

“Whaaaa!” – Jesus Christ
“Whaaaa!” – Adolph Hitler

Coincidence?


Smilies, smilies, in a post
Which one do I hate the most?
Smirks and frowns and evil grins
Rolling eyes that really spin
They stick their tongues out if you please
Who the hell first thought of these?
Smilies, smilies, in a post
Which one do I hate the most? – Neuro-trash grrrl

shantih:

Right about 1 and 3.

T1: ‘The primroses were over.’

T2: ‘It was the start of the Summer of the Late Rose.’


Eschew Obfuscation

T1 = Watership Down. I can’t for the life of me remember the author’s name - I keep thinking “Douglas Adams” but I know that’s wrong.

T2: No idea.

Robinson Crusoe, by William Dafoe.

How 'bout this one?

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”

or

“My father is a mad scientist, and I am his daughter”


VB

Tempus is fugiting all over the place! Carpe that diem!

Richard Adams. I keep calling him ‘Douglas Adams’ too. Heheh…weird how that happens.

Such a great opening sentence. :slight_smile:

::Wonders if anyone will get the other…::

Eschew Obfuscation

A Tale of Two Cities.

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut?


“pluto … a seriously demented but oddly addictive presence here.” – TVeblen

Time for some harder ones…

  1. “1801 – I have just returned from a visit to my landlord – the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with.”

  2. “MASON CITY. To get there you follow Highway 58, going northeast out of the city, and it is a good highway and new.”

  3. “Brother Francis Gerard of Utah might never have discovered the blessed documents, had it not been for the pilgrim with girded loins who appeared during that young novice’s Lenten fast in the desert.”

  4. “One may as well begin with Helen’s letters to her sister.”

  5. “On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays it was Court Hand and Summulae Logicales, while the rest of the week it was the Organon, Repetition, and Astrology.”

If anybody gets all of these, I shall be very, very impressed.


I think apathy, depression, irony, and confusion are damned fine ways to view a world going to hell.
– Cynthia Heimel

This should be easy:

I can see by my watch, without taking my hand from the left grip of the cycle, that it is eight-thirty in the morning.