Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
This first line does a great job of helping the reader to see what the novel is all about. And Pride and Prejudice really is about getting a husband and the troubles related to that quest. There is also a bit of that Victorian, gentile sass in this opening line. I mean, "It is a truth universally acknowledged," is sassy. Oh my, a rich, single man...then he must need a wife. This works well with the characters who the reader will be introduced too quickly after.
Song of Solomon
by Toni Morrison
"The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance agent promised to fly from Mercy to the other side of Lake Superior at three o'clock."
This isn't a very interesting opening line until your continue reading and understand that by "fly" Morrison doesn't mean by airplane.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde
"The studio was filled with the rich ordour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn."
A beautiful opening image of a summer wind bringing in the scents of the garden. Sigh. What a peaceful and tranquil setting for the beginning of this novel. By studio one infers art studio. Seems like a perfect day.
Catcher in the Rye
by J. D. Salinger
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and that my lousy childhood was lie, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."
Until I find something that can top this, the opening line from Catcher in the Rye is the winner. Best opening line yet. Salinger does this incredible job of capturing the voice to Holden immediately in this opening line. The reader instantly knows things about Holden. He knows that he is a cynic, he is a pessimist, he is well-read, and that he isn't too interested in sharing everything with his audience. You get the voice of Holden which is one of those literary voices that will stick in your head forever. Plus, there is that reversal in the opening line. Holden prepares us to receive the story of his "lousy childhood" because it seems like that is going to be very important to the story (which it actually turns out to be), but then at the last moment Holden switches it on us and doesn't share any of that information because he doesn't feel like it. A brilliant, brilliant opening line.
I really enjoyed analyzing those first lines last time, so I decided to do it again. Perhaps we will make it a regular thing. Maybe we will look at first lines from books that are terrible. Who knows.
Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe
"Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond."
This is not my favorite first line. It establishes the main character of Okonkwo and shows the reader how important he is, but that is pretty much it. It isn't flashy; it gets the job done. But that was how I felt about the whole of Things Fall Apart. It was simply okay, an average novel. There are some interesting things to discuss, but we aren't going to spend a lot of time looking at Achebe's writing. I wouldn't be able to find a good place in that novel to conduct a close reading exercise. Ultimately forgettable as a first line.
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Bronte
"There was not the possibility of taking a walk that day."
I love Jane Eyre and I love teaching Jane Eyre to my AP Lit student, but this first line isn't terribly interesting either. It is better than Things Fall Apart, but just a bit. The language is different here. The phrasing and the use of the word "possibility" show us that this writer is from a different time period, different country, and different caste than your normal joe writer these days. There is an elegance to the phrasing "There was not the possibility..." They could have easily have said that it was raining out, or the weather was bad. But Bronte doesn't do that.
The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
"When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him."
Ah, good old Cormac. Getting us back on track. Now, this is a first line. Lots of details in this sentence. "In the woods," "in the dark and the cold," "of the night." He could have added in those details later or in a different way, but McCarthy has that famous style. He likes to say a lot in one sentence.
As I Lay Dying
by William Faulkner
"Jewel and I come up from the field, following the path in single file."
No fair, you can't do another Faulkner novel! I certainly can! Whose blog is this anyway? And this is a good one. From this first line, we get our first taste of the dialect. Daryl is speaking and the reader can already tell the region of the country that we are dealing with; the type of people we are dealing with. The other thing that I think is really special in this line is the second half of it, "following the path in single file." That part is interesting because it is curious. The reader begins to wonder and then, you can see, Faulkner already has you hooked. People don't normally walk in single file unless you have been instructed to. The fact that they are walking this way actually becomes very important in the next sentence or two. This establishes Daryl and Jewel's relationship, which isn't the best. But Faulkner does that all without telling us. This is pure showing and it is marvelous.
in life as well as in literature. An author has only so much space to really grab a reader's attention and those first lines are prime real estate. In today's blog I wanted to spend some time discussing the first lines from notable classical novels. Many of these I teach in my AP Lit class and have taught for years--true classics.
The Sound and the Fury
by William Faulkner
"Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting."
So, we'll start off with a novel that I don't actually teach, but this is what inspired me to do this particular blog post. As far as first lines go this one is pretty good. Faulkner is a master with these sorts of things. We can see in this line one of his traits as an author, the lack of names. He starts us off with the pronoun "I" and then leaves us to figure out who that "I" is later on in the first chapter. In this case, it is answered pretty quickly, but sometimes author's can leave us hanging for quite a while. I'm looking at your Octavia Butler!
The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind every since."
I have to be honest with this one, I am not the biggest fan of the opening line of Gatsby. I think the first little bit of this book is pretty rough too. It isn't until we get to the part about Gatsby being alright in the end that I feel that this novel really starts to be interesting. The opening of this novel is all Nick's reflection and doesn't really make sense to the reader until after they have finished with the book. I doubt many readers go back and re-read that section when they finish The Great Gatsby either.
Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad
"The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was a rest."
My students complain about Heart of Darkness every single year and I can see where they are coming from. It is an extremely difficult text and Conrad's prose is dense. You really have to concentrate on what he is saying in those long, drawn out sentences. But if you look at Conrad from a structure point of view, his prose is near perfection. The dude knows his stuff. Even though this is not the longest first sentence we will be discussing, there is a lot going on. We have the appositive phrase, "a cruising yawl," helping the reader to understand what the Nellie is. The yawl then swings her anchor; the action of swinging is interesting because it isn't a human that is performing the action, it is as if the boat itself is doing it. And Conrad doesn't call the boat in it either, he uses the proper pronoun "her" to identify the ship. All boats are girls, don't you know.
