Best opening Paragraph... ever?
- Thread starter onemonkey
- Start date
Aye. Nicely put. I've not read that one yet.Dirty Martini said:
Think you're right. Best online translation I could muster without the book here. I did look at the German, but the best I could manage from my stock of mostly nouns was:Leica said:
One morning, Gregor Samsa stop sleep, he horizontal on his tank back and look up he see brown fatness, small over which arches. The bed blanket not cover and almost fall imminently. The many feet of he, small, greet everything as watch.
Winston Legthigh
Band
Second Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, unbridled speed from the start
I've also always liked the first line of Day of the Triffids:
"When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere"
I've also always liked the first line of Day of the Triffids:
"When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere"
Winston Legthigh
Band
"The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced by high gambling – a compost of greed and fear and nervous tension – becomes unbearable and the senses awake and revolt from it."
Ian Fleming, Casino Royale
Ian Fleming, Casino Royale
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
link doesn't work....
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Lima, Peru
October 1997
The naked parrot looked like a human fetus spliced onto a kosher chicken. It was so old it had lost every single one of its feathers, even its pinfeathers, and its bumpy, jaundiced skin was latticed by a network of rubbery blue veins.
"Pathological," muttered Switters, meaning not simply the parrot but the whole scene, including the shrunken old woman in whose footsteps the bird doggedly followed as she moved about the darkened villa. The parrot's scabrous claws made a dry, scraping noise as they fought for purchase on the terra-cotta floor tiles, and when, periodically, the creature lost its footing and skidded an inch or two, it issued a squawk so quavery and feeble that it sounded as if it were being petted by the Boston Strangler. Each time it squawked, the crone clucked, whether in sympathy or disapproval one could not tell, for she never turned to her devoted little companion but wandered aimlessly from one piece of ancient wooden furniture to another in her amorphous black dress.
Switters feigned appreciation, but he was secretly repulsed, all the more so because Juan Carlos, who stood beside him on the patio, also spying in the widow's windows, was beaming with pride and satisfaction. Switters slapped at the mosquitoes that perforated his torso and cursed every hair on that hand of Fate that had snatched him into South too-goddamn-vivid America.
Tom Robbins
October 1997
The naked parrot looked like a human fetus spliced onto a kosher chicken. It was so old it had lost every single one of its feathers, even its pinfeathers, and its bumpy, jaundiced skin was latticed by a network of rubbery blue veins.
"Pathological," muttered Switters, meaning not simply the parrot but the whole scene, including the shrunken old woman in whose footsteps the bird doggedly followed as she moved about the darkened villa. The parrot's scabrous claws made a dry, scraping noise as they fought for purchase on the terra-cotta floor tiles, and when, periodically, the creature lost its footing and skidded an inch or two, it issued a squawk so quavery and feeble that it sounded as if it were being petted by the Boston Strangler. Each time it squawked, the crone clucked, whether in sympathy or disapproval one could not tell, for she never turned to her devoted little companion but wandered aimlessly from one piece of ancient wooden furniture to another in her amorphous black dress.
Switters feigned appreciation, but he was secretly repulsed, all the more so because Juan Carlos, who stood beside him on the patio, also spying in the widow's windows, was beaming with pride and satisfaction. Switters slapped at the mosquitoes that perforated his torso and cursed every hair on that hand of Fate that had snatched him into South too-goddamn-vivid America.
Tom Robbins
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
I prefer the other Pynchon:
A SCREAMING COMES ACROSS THE SKY. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.
It is too late. The Evacuation still proceeds, but it's all theatre. There are no lights inside the cars. No light anywhere. Above him lift girders old as an iron queen, and glass somewhere far above that would let the light of day through. But it's night. He's afraid of the way the glass will fall-soon-it will be a spectacle: the fall of a crystal palace. But coming down in total blackout, without one glint of light, only great invisible crashing.
Inside the carriage, which is built on several levels, he sits in velveteen darkness, with nothing to smoke, feeling metal nearer and farther rub and connect, steam escaping in puffs, a vibration in the carriage's frame, a poising, an uneasiness, all the others pressed in around, feeble ones, second sheep, all out of luck and time: drunks, old veterans still in shock from ordnance 20 years obsolete, hustlers in city clothes, derelicts, exhausted women with more children than it seems could belong to anyone, stacked about among the rest of the things to be carried out to salvation. Only the nearer faces are visible at all, and at that only as half-silvered images in a view finder, green-stained VIP faces remembered behind bulletproof windows speeding through the city....
A SCREAMING COMES ACROSS THE SKY. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.
It is too late. The Evacuation still proceeds, but it's all theatre. There are no lights inside the cars. No light anywhere. Above him lift girders old as an iron queen, and glass somewhere far above that would let the light of day through. But it's night. He's afraid of the way the glass will fall-soon-it will be a spectacle: the fall of a crystal palace. But coming down in total blackout, without one glint of light, only great invisible crashing.
Inside the carriage, which is built on several levels, he sits in velveteen darkness, with nothing to smoke, feeling metal nearer and farther rub and connect, steam escaping in puffs, a vibration in the carriage's frame, a poising, an uneasiness, all the others pressed in around, feeble ones, second sheep, all out of luck and time: drunks, old veterans still in shock from ordnance 20 years obsolete, hustlers in city clothes, derelicts, exhausted women with more children than it seems could belong to anyone, stacked about among the rest of the things to be carried out to salvation. Only the nearer faces are visible at all, and at that only as half-silvered images in a view finder, green-stained VIP faces remembered behind bulletproof windows speeding through the city....
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
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.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
Shippou-Sensei
4:1:2.5
that paragraph does give me the shivers ... you can almost feel the presence of the guy
Bit of a cheat, opening to the 4th episode of Ulysses, Joyce.
The main protaganist of Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds maintains that "A good book may have three openings entirely dissimilar and inter-related only in the prescience of the author, or for that matter one hundred times as many endings" and gives three on the first page ...there's value!
siarc said:
Beetle (or insect) would be even better than cockroach. The german word is Ungeziefer but my point is that vermin in english is a general term and not descriptive enough. The perfect word would have to be both repellent and descriptive. I've not read the book in english and my first impression of the opening paragraph is an image of Gregor as a human-sized beetle lying on his back and helplessly moving his many legs like beetles do when they find themselves inverted and try to grasp at something to turn around. I don't think vermin would convey this picture.
Donna Ferentes said:
beat me to it. you HAVE to keep reading then
Reno
The In Kraut
Leica said:
In all fairness, Kafka is difficult to adequately translate from the German and I have yet to read a translation that does the original justice. He plays with the German language and uses very specific words for which it is difficult to find the English equivalents. The wit and humor of his writing generally gets lost.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
I bought a copy of The Trial in Czech, in Marianske Lazne recently, before realising that just because Kafka lived in Prague didn't mean he wrote in Czech....
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
I wouldn't call this the best opening paragraph, but it sure as hell gets your attention...
"The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed sub-category. He's got esprit up to here. Right now he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night. His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air. A bullet will bounce off its arachno-fiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. Where his body has bony extremities, the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello, protects like a stack of telephone books."
"The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed sub-category. He's got esprit up to here. Right now he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night. His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air. A bullet will bounce off its arachno-fiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. Where his body has bony extremities, the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello, protects like a stack of telephone books."
You'll know this one, onemonkey:
"The day didn’t begin well. I woke up at first light with a throbbing brain-core headache, fever and chills, dull pains in all bodily tissues, gagging flashes of nausea, a taste in my mouth like I’d eaten a pound of potato-bugs, aching eye sockets, and a general feeling of basic despair."
It tickled me
Not Fade Away - Jim Dodge
"The day didn’t begin well. I woke up at first light with a throbbing brain-core headache, fever and chills, dull pains in all bodily tissues, gagging flashes of nausea, a taste in my mouth like I’d eaten a pound of potato-bugs, aching eye sockets, and a general feeling of basic despair."
It tickled me
Not Fade Away - Jim Dodge
that's a good'un, for sure
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
As so often with these threads, most of the entries aren't remotely good enough to be considered as "best ever".
is that the 'Franny & Zooey' Zooey? it's bloody years since i read it.
BadlyDrawnGirl
Piano Tuna
The opening paragraph of 'From A Great Height' by Jonathan Hale.
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