Dear Readers,


I now consider this blog to be my Juvenelia. Have fun perusing the archives, and find me at my new haunt, here.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Okay, I've Thought of Some Other Good Openers

From my own memory and the thread at Shakesville.

  1. Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again.
  2. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.
  3. Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert Place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde's Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde's door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof.
  4. It was a dark and stormy night.
  5. 124 was spiteful. Full of a baby's venom.
  6. Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency at the foot of Kgale Hill.
  7. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta
  8. Two households, both alike in dignity/In fair Verona where we lay our scene.
  9. Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank-you very much
  10. When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
  11. We slept in what used to be the gymnasium.
  12. There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.
  13. No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her.
Match em up! They're pretty obvious.

a) Fellowship of the Ring b) No. 1 Ladies detective agency c) beloved d) R+J e) Harry Potter f) Ulysses g) Northanger Abbey h) Lolita i) A Wrinkle in Time j) Rebecca k) Jane Eyre l) Anne of Green Gables m) The Handmaid's Tale

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:44 PM

    My favorite opening line has to be: "You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler."

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  2. This was fun! Really took me back, too. Some of these are old favorites, and I think now I'll have to reread them. Thanks!

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  3. Oh, the Anne of Green Gables one is great too!

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  4. I like Rose Macaulay's line: “`Take my camel, dear', said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.” (from Staying with Relations - but the Calvino line that Zach quoted haunts me. Once I started reading that book, I couldn't stop until I finished it.

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  5. Anonymous12:51 PM

    That whole first chapter of Lolita is just absolutely gorgeous. It gives me goosebumps. The whole book is like that--Nabokov is such a stylist that you keep reading because the writing is so beautiful even while your brain is screaming "DUBBAYOOOOO TEEEEEEE EEEEFFFFFFFFF??????"

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