# Yet another "Guess the book from the opening line"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [November 22, 2007, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408 "2007-11-22T06:32:41Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/1 "2007-11-22T06:32:41Z")
I’ve been feeling literary lately, so here goes. Answer if you can, then share your own:
“The amber light came on.”
“AUTHOR: Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, came to power in 1740.”
“Of bodies changed to other forms I tell; …”
“The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex.”
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” – there are of course two answers, of which I want the less obvious.
“One day Trurl the constructor put together a machine that could make anything starting with _n_.”
“I want a hero, an uncommon want…”
“Like many fathers, mine could occasionally be prevailed upon for a spot of ‘airplane.’”
“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.”
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### Author:  [@stucco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stucco)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/2 "2007-11-22T06:45:28Z")
“Like many fathers, mine could occasionally be prevailed upon for a spot of ‘airplane.’” is the first line of _Fun Home_ by Allison Bechdal. Great book.
Here’s mine:
“Five straight days she spent in front of the television, staring at crumbled banks and hospitals, whole blocks of stores in flames, severed rail lines and expressways”
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/3 "2007-11-22T07:01:08Z")
[QUOTE=matt\_mcl]
“Of bodies changed to other forms I tell; …”
[/QUOTE]
Ovid: _Metamorphisis_
> [@](#):
>
> “The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex.”
Austen: _Sense and Sensibility_.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/4 "2007-11-22T07:02:09Z")
[QUOTE=matt\_mcl]
“Of bodies changed to other forms I tell; …”
[/QUOTE]
Ovid: _Metamorphisis_
> [@](#):
>
> “The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex.”
Austen: _Sense and Sensibility_.
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/5 "2007-11-22T07:14:23Z")
> [@](#):
>
> “One day Trurl the constructor put together a machine that could make anything starting with n.”
_Cyberiad_, Stanislaw Lem.
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### Author:  [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/6 "2007-11-22T07:55:11Z")
[QUOTE=stucco]
“Five straight days she spent in front of the television, staring at crumbled banks and hospitals, whole blocks of stores in flames, severed rail lines and expressways”
[/QUOTE]
Haruki Murakami, _After the Quake_.
Here’s mine:
In 1913 the journey from Moscow to Charing Cross, changing at Warsaw, cost fourteen pounds, six shillings and threepence and took two and a half days.
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### Author:  [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/7 "2007-11-22T09:13:09Z")
[QUOTE=matt\_mcl]
“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.”
[/QUOTE]
That’s Jeffery Eugenides’ _Middlesex_.
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### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/8 "2007-11-22T16:29:55Z")
[QUOTE=matt\_mcl]
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” – there are of course two answers, of which I want the less obvious.
[/QUOTE]
Well, it’s obviously the book of John from the Bible.
But the other? It sounds like something quoted in Dune or something by Arthur C. Clarke.
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### Author:  [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/9 "2007-11-22T19:19:06Z")
[QUOTE=matt\_mcl]
“The amber light came on.”
[/QUOTE]
_Blindness_ by Jose Saramago. Great book. 🙂
“No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own…”
“Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse…”
“One thing was certain, that the _white_ kitten had had nothing to do with it:–it was the black kitten’s fault entirely.”
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### Author:  [@Helena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/10 "2007-11-22T19:47:43Z")
[QUOTE=Kythereia]
“One thing was certain, that the _white_ kitten had had nothing to do with it:–it was the black kitten’s fault entirely.”
[/QUOTE]
_Through the Looking Glass_
“Not so long ago, before she could even speak words, Trixie went on an errand with her daddy.”
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### Author:  [@RedRosesForMe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedRosesForMe)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/11 "2007-11-22T20:07:08Z")
[QUOTE=Helena]
_Through the Looking Glass_
“Not so long ago, before she could even speak words, Trixie went on an errand with her daddy.”
[/QUOTE]
Knuffle Bunny.
Now, here’s mine, but it’s from a short story rather than a book. Just such a wonderful sentence.
“One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for 6 days and 6 nights when I was 12 or whether it snowed for 12 days and 12 nights when I was 6.”
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### Author:  [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/12 "2007-11-22T20:16:28Z")
[QUOTE=Kythereia]
“No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own…”
[/QUOTE]
**War Of The Worlds** , H.G. Wells.
My favourite, and an easy one: “I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighbourhoods”.
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/13 "2007-11-22T20:24:19Z")
[QUOTE=Mahaloth]
Well, it’s obviously the book of John from the Bible.
But the other? It sounds like something quoted in Dune or something by Arthur C. Clarke.
[/QUOTE]
Nope. It’s not science fiction, if that helps.
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/14 "2007-11-22T20:26:20Z")
[QUOTE=Kythereia]
_Blindness_ by Jose Saramago. Great book. 🙂
[/QUOTE]
Wow, nice; I didn’t expect anyone to get that one (or _Fun Home_ either). Good show. I read it translated into Spanish on the way from Cuenca to Madrid in 2005; creeped me the fuck out. And I just finished _Seeing_ yesterday.
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### Author:  [@Intelligently\_Designed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intelligently_Designed)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/15 "2007-11-22T20:51:15Z")
As to **matt\_mcl** ’s “In the beginning was the Word…”, I’ll venture **The Name of the Rose** by Umberto Eco.
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/16 "2007-11-22T20:55:24Z")
[QUOTE=Intelligently Designed]
As to **matt\_mcl** ’s “In the beginning was the Word…”, I’ll venture **The Name of the Rose** by Umberto Eco.
[/QUOTE]
Bing!
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### Author:  [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/17 "2007-11-22T21:10:43Z")
[QUOTE=Kythereia]
“Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse…”
[/QUOTE]
That’s definitely Dickens. Most probably Oliver Twist. (Which I’ve never read - this is straight deduction. So I reserve the right to be extra-smug if I’m right, and not too crushed if I’m wrong.)
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/18 "2007-11-22T21:11:02Z")
To summarize:
“The amber light…”: _Blindness_, by José Saramago.
“Of bodies changed…”: _Metamorphoses_, by Ovid.
“The family of Dashwood…”: _Sense and Sensibility_, by Jane Austen.
“In the beginning…”: _The Name of the Rose_, by Umberto Eco…
“One day Trurl…”: _Cyberiad_, by Stanislaw Lem.
“Like many fathers…”: _Fun Home_, by Alison Bechdel.
“I was born twice…”: _Middlesex_, by Jeffrey Eugenides.
“No one would have believed…”: _War of the Worlds_, by H.G. Wells.
“Not so long ago…”: _Knuffle Bunny_, by Mo Willems.
“One thing was certain…” _Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Saw There_, by Lewis Carroll.
“Five straight days…”: _After the Quake_, by Haruki Murakami.
“Among other public buildings…”: _Oliver Twist_, by Charles Dickens.
And here are the ones that have **not yet been guessed:**
“AUTHOR: Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, came to power in 1740.”
“I want a hero, an uncommon want…”
“One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for 6 days and 6 nights when I was 12 or whether it snowed for 12 days and 12 nights when I was 6.”
“I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighbourhoods.”
---
### Author:  [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2007, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/19 "2007-11-23T03:26:27Z")
Hmph…the three I knew have already been answered. Ah well…
But, I’ll still throw in my own:
“Death was driving an emerald green Lexus.”
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### Author:  [@Savannah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savannah)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2007, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yet-another-guess-the-book-from-the-opening-line/427408/20 "2007-11-23T03:40:04Z")
[QUOTE=matt\_mcl]
To summarize:
“One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for 6 days and 6 nights when I was 12 or whether it snowed for 12 days and 12 nights when I was 6.”
[/QUOTE]
A Child’s Christmas in Wales, Dylan Thomas.
TellmeIgotit, tellmeIgotit!
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