Well no shit, I honestly didn't remember it. What does that tell you? Maybe nothing. Just that it was a very long time ago. I hope I can write another one that good someday.
Just picked up At Swim-Two-Birds and found my new favorite first sentence: 'Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression.' Now that's a sentence that calls the reader to the next.
That's a good idea . . . it's been done a lot, including by Nancy Pearl [Seattle Librarian who has done many NPR segments--and written BOOK LUST and MORE BOOK LUST]. But, yeah, I could dig out new ones.
I touched on this in an essay a while ago:
A screaming comes across the sky.
[Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow]
On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide—it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills, like Therese—-the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope.
[Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides]
In the dry places, men begin to dream.
[Wright Morris, Works of Love]
Anyway, thanks for paying attention and commenting, Scott!
Yes, of course, overdone really. And honestly - too much pressure for a sentence. It's more of a trick to gather eyeballs, like a Top 10 list. So maybe, instead, any sentence. Or first paragraph. Or second, third, fourth, pick your number sentence. Any solid sentence in an opening paragraph.
I just checked a few books I have and noticed one sentence a few sentences into an opening paragraph: 'In love with nothing else just then, she loved the sensation of skating, the swift cuts, the sweat like a cool metal comb delving into her hair.'
Of course, there's the one we all memorized in grad school: "Many years later as he stood before the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
Of course, I may have only half-remembered it. I'm not good at committing things to memory but sometimes things adhere even when you'd rather they didn't. Case in point: "Crest has been shown to be an effective decay-preventive dentifrice that can be of significant value in reducing cavities when used in a conscientiously applied program of oral hygiene and regular professional care." Sheesh. Anyway, I'll try to find some good 'uns for you.
By strange coincidence (I'm actually thinking of them as visible hints that we're being spun in a much larger, more dynamic algorithm than that of Amazoogle) I have been just today recommending Down and Out in Paris and London to a cousin. I loved it.
I tried Independent People but couldn't keep up the momentum so it fell by the wayside. It's interesting the degree to which some people will go out of their way to insist you read it.
Finally, a bit of Le Petit Prince (because it is a kind of wisdom relevant to any discussion of books and writing): 'It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.'
There are people who adore INDEPENDENT PEOPLE but as I said in my note, I found it less user-friendly than I wished. I mean to get to the new edition of SALKA VALKA but there are so many in the queue. Thanks for taking the time to comment. As for J R in one of your other posts, I'm really happy you got off on it--I loved it, and I kept telling people to imagine it as a radio drama but it never occurred to me to actually listen to it. Bravo for figuring that out. I gotta try it.
Thanks for the fascinating list, David. I've read a few of these but now wish I'd read more during the early drafting of my novel (set partially in the mid-'30s). Better late than never, though.
The book that would top my list from this time period is "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" by James Agee and Walker Evans. Published in 1941 but quintessentially a work of the 1930s. I found it to be a very affecting, intimate portrait of sharecroppers during the Depression.
4th sentence from the first story (Attraction) in a collection called ‘Blue Spruce’ by this guy I know. Good writer. Forgot his name.
Well no shit, I honestly didn't remember it. What does that tell you? Maybe nothing. Just that it was a very long time ago. I hope I can write another one that good someday.
Just picked up At Swim-Two-Birds and found my new favorite first sentence: 'Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression.' Now that's a sentence that calls the reader to the next.
Perhaps a David's List of Best First Sentences?
That's a good idea . . . it's been done a lot, including by Nancy Pearl [Seattle Librarian who has done many NPR segments--and written BOOK LUST and MORE BOOK LUST]. But, yeah, I could dig out new ones.
I touched on this in an essay a while ago:
A screaming comes across the sky.
[Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow]
On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide—it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills, like Therese—-the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope.
[Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides]
In the dry places, men begin to dream.
[Wright Morris, Works of Love]
Anyway, thanks for paying attention and commenting, Scott!
Yes, of course, overdone really. And honestly - too much pressure for a sentence. It's more of a trick to gather eyeballs, like a Top 10 list. So maybe, instead, any sentence. Or first paragraph. Or second, third, fourth, pick your number sentence. Any solid sentence in an opening paragraph.
I just checked a few books I have and noticed one sentence a few sentences into an opening paragraph: 'In love with nothing else just then, she loved the sensation of skating, the swift cuts, the sweat like a cool metal comb delving into her hair.'
Remember that one?
It's familiar--where from??
Of course, there's the one we all memorized in grad school: "Many years later as he stood before the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
Of course, I may have only half-remembered it. I'm not good at committing things to memory but sometimes things adhere even when you'd rather they didn't. Case in point: "Crest has been shown to be an effective decay-preventive dentifrice that can be of significant value in reducing cavities when used in a conscientiously applied program of oral hygiene and regular professional care." Sheesh. Anyway, I'll try to find some good 'uns for you.
By strange coincidence (I'm actually thinking of them as visible hints that we're being spun in a much larger, more dynamic algorithm than that of Amazoogle) I have been just today recommending Down and Out in Paris and London to a cousin. I loved it.
I tried Independent People but couldn't keep up the momentum so it fell by the wayside. It's interesting the degree to which some people will go out of their way to insist you read it.
Finally, a bit of Le Petit Prince (because it is a kind of wisdom relevant to any discussion of books and writing): 'It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.'
There are people who adore INDEPENDENT PEOPLE but as I said in my note, I found it less user-friendly than I wished. I mean to get to the new edition of SALKA VALKA but there are so many in the queue. Thanks for taking the time to comment. As for J R in one of your other posts, I'm really happy you got off on it--I loved it, and I kept telling people to imagine it as a radio drama but it never occurred to me to actually listen to it. Bravo for figuring that out. I gotta try it.
Thanks for the fascinating list, David. I've read a few of these but now wish I'd read more during the early drafting of my novel (set partially in the mid-'30s). Better late than never, though.
The book that would top my list from this time period is "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" by James Agee and Walker Evans. Published in 1941 but quintessentially a work of the 1930s. I found it to be a very affecting, intimate portrait of sharecroppers during the Depression.