Author Topic: Opening Lines: A Quiz  (Read 5304 times)

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Offline Colwyn

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Opening Lines: A Quiz
« on: December 22, 2014, 12:05:05 PM »
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.



Offline Colwyn

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Re: Opening Lines: A Quiz
« Reply #1 on: December 22, 2014, 12:06:16 PM »
#1

Call me Ishmael.

Offline SteveJ

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Re: Opening Lines: A Quiz
« Reply #2 on: December 22, 2014, 12:20:09 PM »
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"

Offline Kevin Sowten

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Re: Opening Lines: A Quiz
« Reply #3 on: December 22, 2014, 14:12:04 PM »
Good old Google   ;)

Offline SteveJ

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Re: Opening Lines: A Quiz
« Reply #4 on: December 22, 2014, 15:14:25 PM »
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   :)

Offline Colwyn

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Re: Opening Lines: A Quiz
« Reply #5 on: December 22, 2014, 15:30:52 PM »
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.

Offline Colwyn

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Re: Opening Lines: A Quiz
« Reply #6 on: December 22, 2014, 15:33:13 PM »
As a guess, my namesake  ...  Tom Jones?

Offline SteveJ

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Re: Opening Lines: A Quiz
« Reply #7 on: December 22, 2014, 15:51:31 PM »
Sorry Colwyn - not even close

Offline Colwyn

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Re: Opening Lines: A Quiz
« Reply #8 on: December 22, 2014, 18:07:40 PM »
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.

Offline SteveJ

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Re: Opening Lines: A Quiz
« Reply #9 on: December 22, 2014, 22:18:20 PM »
yep - that's the one.

Are we the only two playing?   ;)




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