# Identify the books from the opening lines **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 20, 2005, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695 "2005-01-20T08:17:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/41 "2005-01-21T01:50:18Z")
Ah, never mind, I’ve found my copy of _Mrs. Dalloway_ and I’m _pretty_ sure I got the other one right, so here goes: FP5: The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. FP6: The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/42 "2005-01-21T02:00:14Z")
PM1 - “When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere” PM2 - " riverrun, past Eve and Adams, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth, Castle and Environs." PM3 - “Hughs got it wrong in one important detail.” PM4 - “Mr [name] lived in 1872 at No 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814.” ---
**Author:** ![Hooleehootoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/eada6e/32.png) [@Hooleehootoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hooleehootoo)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/43 "2005-01-21T02:13:38Z")
H1: _The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel._ H2: \*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. \* (To see why I have written it this way, listen to [this clip](http://pages.ripco.net/~jps/Wessex.mp3) . In order to not hear the author and the work, start listening at 2:55 of the 3:10 clip.) ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/44 "2005-01-21T02:20:33Z")
Ril1: It was a pleasure to burn. Ril2: Right now I’m supposed to be all geeked up because I’m getting ready for a New Year’s Eve party that some guy named Lionel invited me to. Sheila, my baby sister, insisted on giving me his phone number because he lives here in Denver and her simple-ass husband played basketball with him eleven years ago at the University of Washington, and since I’m still single (which is downright pitiful to her, considering I’m the oldest of four kids and the only one who has yet to say “I do”), she’s worried about me. Ril3: Once on a dark winter’s day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the thoroughfares. Ril4: If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. Ril5: It was a bright cold day in April and all the clocks were striking thirteen. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/45 "2005-01-21T02:25:35Z")
F1: > [@Fretful Porpentine](#): > > Um… _From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler_? Yup! ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/46 "2005-01-21T02:28:24Z")
> [@Hooleehootoo](#): > > H1: _The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel._ Neuromancer–and as cool as an opening as that is, it’s now outdated. The color of a TV tuned to a dead channel is no longer grey-and-black-and-white, it’s now a happy, cheerful blue! 😛 **Rilch** Ril1 is “Faharenheit 451” Ril4 is the dreaded 😉 “Catcher in the Rye” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Mermaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@The\_Mermaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Mermaid)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/47 "2005-01-21T02:30:32Z")
My favorite opening sentence ever. _A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate._ ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/48 "2005-01-21T02:42:27Z")
Ril 3 is _Catcher in the Rye_ and Ril 4 is _1984_. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/49 "2005-01-21T02:51:38Z")
I may have posted this one before, but who cares? _At first, Potiphar Breen didn’t notice the girl taking her clothes off._ ---
**Author:** ![Paladud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Paladud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paladud)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/50 "2005-01-21T02:51:54Z")
Pal1: There were prodigies and portents enough, One-Eye says. We must blame ourselves for misinterpreting them. One-Eye’s handicap in no way impairs his marvelous hindsight. Pal2, for the truly masochistic: “Man,” said \, “is an endangered species.” ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/51 "2005-01-21T02:53:27Z")
> [@](#): > > Ril3: Once on a dark winter’s day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the thoroughfares. _A Little Princess_ > [@](#): > > PM2 - " riverrun, past Eve and Adams, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth, Castle and Environs." _Finnegan’s Wake_? ---
**Author:** ![emekthian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecae2f/32.png) [@emekthian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emekthian)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/52 "2005-01-21T02:53:33Z")
One winter morning in the long-ago, four year old days of my life I found myself standing before a fireplace, warming my hands over a mound of glowing coals, listening to the wind whistle past the house outside. 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. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/53 "2005-01-21T03:06:01Z")
Here’s the ones still standing: LN5 - It is sad enough at any time for a man to be compelled to confess himself a failure, but I think it will be admitted that it is doubly so at that period of his career when he is still young enough to have some flickering sparks of ambition left, while he is old enough to be able to appreciate at their proper value the overwhelming odds against which he has been battling so long and unsuccessfully. Sh1 - Renowned [profession] [name] [died in a mysterious and symbolic manner] Sh2 - Originally Posted by whom? Two tires fly. Two wail. A bamboo grove, all chopped down From it, warring songs. CCL13. The river was silky in the late sun. On the shore the light pierced the live-oaks with golden spikes, and the wind in the long gray moss made a soft undertone to the shouts of the boatmen. CCL14. Dock’s shoes on the rocks up the hill and his heavy breathing had shut out all sound so it seemed a long while that she had heard nothing, and Amos lay too still, not clawing at the blanket as when they had started. CCL15. “Oh what a life, what worthless, lousy, dirty life,” one of them cursed beneath his breath, staring at the tick that was sucking the life from hoary grey ear of the donkey that pulled the cart. JN1 - My mother was the village whore and I loved her very much. Z7: Before she went to the launch site, Helena Lyakhov always went through the same ritual. MB1 - Some of the evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances. MPK 2: [Character name], who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasion when he stayed up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. FP4: 1801 – I have just returned from a visit to my landlord – the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with. FP5: The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. FP6: The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn. F2: One night after dinner when David was reading Doctor Dolittle in the Moon and his father was reading the newspaper, and his mother was darning socks, his father suddenly exclaimed; “Well, now, that’s very odd!” PM1 - “When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere” PM2 - " riverrun, past Eve and Adams, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth, Castle and Environs." PM3 - “Hughs got it wrong in one important detail.” PM4 - “Mr [name] lived in 1872 at No 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814.” H2: 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. Ril2: Right now I’m supposed to be all geeked up because I’m getting ready for a New Year’s Eve party that some guy named Lionel invited me to. Sheila, my baby sister, insisted on giving me his phone number because he lives here in Denver and her simple-ass husband played basketball with him eleven years ago at the University of Washington, and since I’m still single (which is downright pitiful to her, considering I’m the oldest of four kids and the only one who has yet to say “I do”), she’s worried about me. Ril3: Once on a dark winter’s day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the thoroughfares. Mm1 - A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate. And two guesses: PM2 - Ulysses - James Joyce PM3 - Flashman - George MacDonald Fraser ---
**Author:** ![Martha\_Medea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/54 "2005-01-21T03:08:33Z")
M1 “When I think of all the grey memorials erected in London to equestrian generals, the heroes of old colonial wars, and to frock-coated politicians who are even more deeply forgotten, I can find no reason to mock the modest stone that commemorates Jones on the far side of the international road that he failed to cross in a country far from home, though I am not to this day absolutely sure of where, geographically speaking, Jones’s home lay”. (I must remember to send this to the next editor who tells me my sentences are too long. Hemingway it isn’t.) M2 “You too will marry a boy I choose, said Mrs Rupa Mehra firmly to her younger daughter”. M3 “Mary-Ann Singleton was twenty-five years old when she saw San Francisco for the first time”. Easy peasy! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/55 "2005-01-21T03:09:23Z")
Hard to keep up: BC1 - At first, Potiphar Breen didn’t notice the girl taking her clothes off. Pal1: There were prodigies and portents enough, One-Eye says. We must blame ourselves for misinterpreting them. One-Eye’s handicap in no way impairs his marvelous hindsight. Pal2, for the truly masochistic: “Man,” said \, “is an endangered species.” e1 - One winter morning in the long-ago, four year old days of my life I found myself standing before a fireplace, warming my hands over a mound of glowing coals, listening to the wind whistle past the house outside. e2 - 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. BC1 was by Robert Heinlein but I don’t remember the title ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/56 "2005-01-21T03:14:12Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > _At first, Potiphar Breen didn’t notice the girl taking her clothes off._ Year of the Jackpot by Heinlein of course, an underrated masterpiece. I always like reading it with the story that starts F3: _I was watching the news, when the change came, like a flicker of motion at the corner of my eye_ ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/57 "2005-01-21T03:15:00Z")
Com1: Maybe I shouldn’t have given the guy who pumped my stomach my phone number, but who cares? Com2: [Character]'s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. Com3: Μηνιν αειδε θεα πηλιαδεω [character] ουλομενην ή μυρια αχαιοισ αλγε’ εθηκε… Com4: It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days. Com5: [Character], who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. Com6: It was love at first sight. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/58 "2005-01-21T03:19:22Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > And two guesses: > > PM2 - Ulysses - James Joyce No, **Fretful Porpentine** got the right answer. > [@](#): > > PM3 - Flashman - George MacDonald Fraser Yup. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/59 "2005-01-21T03:33:19Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > Com6: It was love at first sight. Catch-22. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695/60 "2005-01-21T03:34:36Z")
> [@Rilchiam](#): > > Catch-22. Yep. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-the-books-from-the-opening-lines/285695.md?page=4)