# Great Openers in Latter-Day Lit **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 28, 2009, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653 "2009-04-28T18:33:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Invisible\_Chimp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f05b48/32.png) [@Invisible\_Chimp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Invisible_Chimp)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/1 "2009-04-28T18:33:50Z")
Most readers are familar with the openings to _Lolita_,_Anna Karenina_, _Moby Dick_, _Gone With the Wind_, _The Stranger_, _A Tale of Two Cities_, etc. All those books’ openers are classic, but old. What are some great openers from books published in the last 30 years or so? Some of my favorites: “I read a book one day and my whole life was changed” from \*The New Life \*by Orhan Pamuk. Every reader can relate. “A white Pomerian named Fluffy flew out of a fifth story window in Panna, which was a brand new building with the painter’s scaffolding still around it.” from Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra. Not life changing, but I admire the audacity of killing a dog in the first sentence. What are yours and why? ---
**Author:** ![picker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/picker/32/13969_2.png) [@picker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picker)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/2 "2009-04-28T18:48:46Z")
Willie Nelson’s autobiography The Facts of Life and Other Dirty Jokes: “They say the first line is the hardest part of writing a book. I’m glad that’s out of the way.” ---
**Author:** ![Reverse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@Reverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reverse)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/3 "2009-04-28T18:52:39Z")
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” From the first The Dark Tower book by Stephen King. It just pulls you right in. ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/4 "2009-04-28T20:14:18Z")
Gravity’s Rainbow: _A screaming comes across the sky…_ The whole first chapter of Don DeLillo’s Underworld which describes the NY Giants-Brooklyn Dodgers playoff game that ended with the “Shot Heard Round the World”. It later got released as its own standalone novella Pafko at the Wall. ---
**Author:** ![Yodalicious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yodalicious/32/8195_2.png) [@Yodalicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yodalicious)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/5 "2009-04-28T20:20:10Z")
> [@Reverse](#): > > “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” > From the first The Dark Tower book by Stephen King. > > It just pulls you right in. That’s what immediately came to my mind when I read the thread title. ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/6 "2009-04-28T20:34:52Z")
_I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies_ - Infinite Jest by DFW. Always stayed with me for some reason. _The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallow subcategory_ - actually nothing special - but for first chapters as a whole Neal Stephenson is awesome - maybe the best author I’ve ever read for setting his stall out early doors. _It is possible I already had some presentiment of my future_ - Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. Maybe only see its greatness in hindsight, once the book has been read. Going back to the classics though, is there anything that can top _Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K_ ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/7 "2009-04-28T21:37:18Z")
“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” -_Neuromancer_, William Gibson ---
**Author:** ![DadWagonDriver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/edb3f5/32.png) [@DadWagonDriver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DadWagonDriver)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/8 "2009-04-28T21:44:55Z")
“They shot the white girl first.” _Paradise_, Toni Morrison ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/9 "2009-04-28T22:01:19Z")
I once knew a girl who thought she was God. She didn’t give sight to the blind or raise the dead. She didn’t teach anything, not really, and she never told me anything I probably didn’t already know. On the other hand, she didn’t expect to be worshiped, nor did she ask for money. Given her high opinion of herself, some might call that a miracle. I don’t know, maybe she was God. Her name was Sati and she had blond hair and blue eyes. _Sati Christopher Pike_ ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/10 "2009-04-28T22:07:55Z")
“At first, Potiphar Breen did not notice the girl taking her clothes off.” ---
**Author:** ![shecrab](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@shecrab](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shecrab)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/11 "2009-04-28T22:24:34Z")
I. **to wound the autumnal city. So howled out for the world to give him a name.** –From Samuel R. Delany’s novel “Dhalgren”, published in 1974. I remember reading those cryptic words and thinking that someone had forgotten to capitalize the first line. They hadn’t. But in order to make those words understandable, you must get through more than 800 pages of dense prose, about a post-apocalyptic world where the rules have all changed and symbols are upside down. And throughout the entire fascinating journey through this book, you realize that nothing has really changed at all. II. **"What’s it going to be then, eh?"** –From “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess, a novel which changed my entire way of thinking twice: once when I read the American version, and once again, when I read the original version. III. **On a certain day in June 19\_\_,a young man was making his way on foot northward from the great City to a town or place called Edgewood, that he had been told of but had never visited. His name was Smoky Barnable, and he was going to Edgewood to get married; the fact that he walked and didn’t ride was one of the conditions placed on his coming there at all.** –From “Little, Big” by John Crowley, one of the greatest writers alive today, and true to the nature of the events and places in this book, once you enter Edgewood it is doubtful that you will ever really be able to leave again, only find some new turning, some new corridor, some new door you hadn’t noticed before, but once entered, puts you right back where you began. I like them complicated, dense and detailed–and well-written. ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_Gaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ol\_Gaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_Gaffer)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/12 "2009-04-28T22:31:56Z")
“We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold.” - _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_, Hunter S. Thompson ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/13 "2009-04-28T22:48:52Z")
\*I want to be famous. Really famous. I want to be so famous that movie stars hang out with me and talk about what a bummer their lives are. I want to beat up photographers who catch me in hotel lobbies with Winona Ryder. I want to be implicated in vicious rumors about Drew Barrymore’s sex parties. And, finally, I want to be pronounced DOA in a small, tired LA hospital after doing speedballs with Matt Damon. I want it all. I want the American dream.\* -Max Barry, “Syrup” ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/14 "2009-04-28T22:55:52Z")
> [@](#): > > 'It was the day my grandmother exploded … " _The Crow Road_ by Iain Banks ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/15 "2009-04-28T23:17:12Z")
> [@shecrab](#): > > Samuel R. Delany’s novel “Dhalgren” > > “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess > > “Little, Big” by John Crowley WOW. Three of the most awesome books of all time. I admire your taste! > [@Ol\_Gaffer](#): > > “We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold.” That’s the one I wanted to post, but I don’t have the book handy to get the quote right. Rather than dig for it, I figured someone else would post it! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_Gaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ol\_Gaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_Gaffer)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2009, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/16 "2009-04-28T23:23:09Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > \ > That’s the one I wanted to post, but I don’t have the book handy to get the quote right. Rather than dig for it, I figured someone else would post it! 😃 Yeah, it usually shows up in the first 10 posts or so in these threads. Occasionally I’m the first but usually I’m too late. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/17 "2009-04-29T00:17:16Z")
“Maybe I shouldn’t have given the guy who pumped my stomach my phone number, but who cares, my life is over anyway.” Carrie Fisher, _The Best Awful_ (sequel to _Postcards from the Edge_; the line is actually based on something from Fisher’s life.) “I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I was overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster.” Jeannette Walls, _The Glass Castle_ “The fortune teller and her grandfather went to New York City on an Amtrak train, racketing along with their identical, peaky white faces set due north.” Anne Tyler, _Searching for Caleb_ ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/18 "2009-04-29T00:31:13Z")
_It wasn’t a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance._ \*\* Outlander\*\* by Diana Gabaldon. _He was dead. However, his nose throbbed painfully, which he thought odd in the circumstances_. **Voyager** by Diana Gabaldon. The opening of _The Gunslinger_ is probably King’s best one. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/19 "2009-04-29T00:36:32Z")
> [@wmulax93](#): > > “They shot the white girl first.” > > _Paradise_, Toni Morrison The second line is "Nancy Grace woke screaming saying “It’s only a dream, it’s only a dream.” ---
**Author:** ![Estilicon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2009, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653/20 "2009-04-29T02:25:33Z")
“Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo” **Cien Años de Soledad** by Gabriel García Marquez\*\*\*\* I don´t know how it sounds translated but that is one of the best lines ever… another one is the ending of the same book [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-openers-in-latter-day-lit/494653.md?page=2)