Calis Beach and Fethiye Turkey Discussion Forum
General Topics => Books => Topic started by: Colwyn on December 22, 2014, 12:05:05 PM
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Just to keep our little grey cells alert at this religious/hedonistic time of year I thought we could have a little quiz. It is about opening lines of novels: the first sentence; a few sentences; the first paragraph. Keywords that would give away the name of the book can be blanked out. The book should be reasonable well-known and the opening memorable in some way. The person who gets the book first can set the next question. If no-one gets the first answer I'll set another tomorrow. If you don't know, just guess - it is Christmas.
Let's get started.
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#1
Call me Ishmael.
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Moby Dick
"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show"
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Good old Google ;)
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Nah not Google - just one of my top 10 favourite books, the book that my opening line comes from is also in my top 10 :)
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SteveJ and Kevin
I posted a reply to both of you some time ago but it appears to have disappeared into that cyber-canyon that orphaned postings go.
Yes, it is the opening line of that intricate and intriguing novel by Herman Melville. So we are now onto SteveJ's poser:
#2 Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.
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As a guess, my namesake ... Tom Jones?
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Sorry Colwyn - not even close
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OK let's crank up the old analytic machine (as the hero of Zen and Motorcycle Maintenance might say). It is first person narrative and seems to about the narrator's life. The title could well be the name of the "hero". From the use of the term "that station" - for a position in society/life - suggests to me 19th century language. So, a 19C eponymous novel. Still quite a lot of choices. Let's go for Dickens and David Copperfield.
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yep - that's the one.
Are we the only two playing? ;)
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That was a lucky hit; I haven't read the book. I think I'll tweak things a bit. The next poser takes many people's votes as the best opening paragraph in English-language novels. Since it is so well known I ask people to PM me with your answers so it can stay open for longer. I'll reply on here.
[Placename] is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. [It] is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, [industrial works] of corrugated iron, honky-tonks, restaurants and whore-houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flop-houses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peep-hole he might have said: "Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men," and he would have meant the same thing.
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Seems that way! ;D