How'd you do on the tests? I didn't have time to finish the Cornell one, but I found it to be a lot harder than the other.

What's your favorite first line (or first paragraph, whatever) of a novel?

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

Answers

I did fine on the first one, 80%, and one I missed was Jaws a book I am illogically prejudiced against and refuse to read for no good reason. I'm not afraid of sharks, I never saw the movie, I just couldn't care less about the book and the more people tell me to read it the less I want to because I am contrary.

The Cornell one was tougher and I did best on the children's and teens books.

Favorite first paragraph, from my favorite book, Madeleine's Ghost by Robert Girardi.

"Stones are falling from the ceiling of my apartment. First one, then two, then dozens. I take refuge beneath the kitchen table as they bounce and dance across every surface, denting the toaster, gouging into the old linoleum of the floor. The falling stones are like a rain of hail, but so absurd in this setting that I want to laugh."

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

I got 100% on the first one. I did okay on some of the Cornell tests, but my knowledge of some genres is less than encyclopedic.

I like this very much as a first paragraph:

Like a glowing jewel, the city lay upon the breast of the desert. Once it had known change and alteration, but now time passed it by. Night and day fled across the desert's face, but in Diaspar it was always afternoon, and darkness never came. (City and Stars, Arthur C. Clarke)

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

I got 60% right, which is pretty good considering I guessed on 80% of them.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

Got a 90 on the first and am delighted. I didn't need to know the first line of any Hawthorne book anyway. The cornell one is far too long to go into.

Great line: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

not to mention (might be misquoting slightly): "In ten years, gentlemen, the penis will be obsolete."

I've actually gotten people who don't like that genre to read the book - a favorite of mine - by making them read just that first line. Always works.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

This one came up Saturday night:

After I became a prostitute, I had to deal with penises of every imaginable shape and size.

Tama Janowitz, Slaves of New York.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

100% on the first quiz, not enough time at work to wade through twenty-two pages of the Cornell quiz.

I agree with Beth: Tama Janowitz wrote the most memorable first line of the past twenty years.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

I got 100% on the first test, although I arrived at a couple of the answers through the process of elimination; I haven't yet had time to check out the Cornell one.

I'm going to bend the rules and submit a first sonnet, from a novel composed entirely of hundreds of them:

To make a start more swift than weighty,
Hail Muse. Dear Reader, once upon
A time, say, circa 1980,
There lived a man. His name was John.
Successful in his field though only
Twenty-six, respected, lonely,
One evening as he walked across
Golden Gate Park, the ill-judged toss
Of a red frisbee almost brained him.
He thought, "If I died, who'd be sad?
Who'd weep? Who'd gloat? Who would be glad?
Would anybody?" As it pained him,
He turned from this dispiriting theme
To ruminations less extreme.

-- From The Golden Gate, by Vikram Seth.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

The Salon one was cake, and I did pretty well on the Cornell one (except the sf, mystery, and spy genres) once I got myself into GRE mode--frinstance, I haven't read Snow Falling on Cedars but hey, a '90s book with a Japanese name? Also here were giveaways, like about the third son of the family Karamazov. I am ashamed to say that while "barripity barripity" sounded familiar, I didn't guess it was Bridge to Terabithia. And gettng into GRE mode doesn't help when I don't know which decade the various Rabbit novels came out. I know their order, but I can't distinguish Rabbit is Rich from Rabbit at Rest by first line, man!

Also, I found the grouping of Lucy Maude Montgomery and William Faulkner by underuse of periods extremely diverting.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

I expect I might as well begin by telling you about Mrs. Piggle- Wiggle so that whenever I mention her name, which I do very often in this book, you will not interrupt and ask, "Who is Mrs. Piggle- Wiggle?"

And if you couldn't figure THIS out, shame on you.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

I scored 9/10 for the first quiz. Which just illustrates my ability to take multiple choice tests, as I've only read 3 of the 10 (Cujo, Catcher in the Rye, Farenheit 451). I don't have time to take the entire Cornell one while at work, but suffice it to say I did not fare as well. Boy, this makes me sound rather illiterate. Not the ideal first post ...

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

I went through question 5 on the first but found myslef guessing based on the oh too obvious hints in the questions so I stopped in the name of integrity. Had I finished, I bet I would've done worse than anyone. Had I not been born an idiot, I bet I wouldn't be proud of this fact.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

And I can't remember any first lines of any books, so I'll contribute the one line I do remember from a book I read this weekend...

This is the same grown man that calls his father and says, "Motherfucker, it's been so long since I've seen pussy, I'd throw stones at it."

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

70% of the ivillage one.
And here's another: short, modern, and hard

http://www.constantreader.org/sentence.html
answers are here:
http://www.constantreader.org/sentence2.html

You might get a few if you've seen some cornell answers.

Its hard not to like the start of a book you loved, even if its not necessarily a notable starting sentence. But I do like the way Jane Austen starts her books. I usually have to laugh.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

Yes: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." I knew that line long before I got around to reading the novel (same as with "It was the best of times...," same as with "Kokkyo no nagai tonneru o nukeru to, yukiguni de atta").

While it's more likely that non-Japanese readers will most likely identify the Dickens but not the other, this first line from Kawabata's "Snow Country" is, to my admittedly limited knowledge, probably the most well-known first line in Japanese literature (to see it written in Japanese, try http://www.iijnet.or.jp/ yuzawa/english/image/yukiguni.jpg).

As far as my personal, very favorite opening line, goes, there's no doubt but that it has to be

"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."

Once I was able to convince one of the interns working in the office that it was not, in fact, a "dirty" book, it became one of his favorites, as well.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

Man, Jen, those were hard. I only knew eight of the 20.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

I knew nine, but I never would have recognized one if I hadn't seen it in the Cornell test this morning. I didn't even recognize the titles of most that I didn't get--I know Maxine Hong Kingston, and I've heard of the River Why, but Keith Mallard? Armed Response?
Call me Ignorant.

I bought a copy of Independence Day when I saw it for cheap, not that I have much chance of finishing it, but does anyone know if that Haddam of the first sentence is, say, Haddam, Connecticut? Because in that case I'll definitely read it. (Trivia: Haddam is the only town in the country on two sides of a river whose two sides are not connected by a bridge--the bridge runs between the two halves of East Haddam.)

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

MaharisheJen: What book is that line FROM?

Sei: I quoted Lolita in one of my last journal entries, asked people to guess which book it was from, and apparently either no one figured it out or no one bothered to say. Geeeeez.

My favorite opening line is from a story, not a novel. It has a weird mantra effect on me; I'll start typing it to get going on something else I'm writing: "Attention! We are now beginning. When we get to the end we shall know a great deal more than we do now."

(I just looked this quote up on the web to verify it and realized ... duh, it's a translation and none of the translations on the web treat that line the same way and with the same sense of rhythm. Which is a real shame. I'll have to look up the exact quote when I get home, assuming I even have it there. Can you see me calling my mom and asking her to read it to me? hee.)

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

Oooh! And I completely forgot about the opening line of When Sisterhood Was In Flower:

"Call me Isobel."

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

Lisa, "Independence Day" takes place in Haddam, New Jersey, which is a stand-in for Princeton. I read "The Sportswriter" and it also took place there. Would not recommend the book.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

"You must have been an English major!" the iVillage test results told me. Yes, that's true. "You’ve read a lot of the classics, and probably loved several of them enough to reread them once or twice." Well, no...I just have mad deductive reasoning skillz, I guess. That test was kinda cheesy.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

I think the most memorable opening line of the 20th century was John Varley's STEEL BEACH:

"'In five years, the penis will be obsolete,' said the salesman."

TRY to stop reading after that.

Al of NOVA NOTES.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

80 percent on the ivillage one. I was able to guess even at a couple I haven't read just by recognizing a theme or a name. I didn't try the Cornell one, too much there.

I actually have a pretty shameful record on reading classics, in that I haven't read many of them.



-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

100% on the ivillage one, but I guessed the Stephen King one.

I also love the first paragraph of Lolita.

Call me a schlmiel.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

I hate these tests. I feel like I have to send my B.A. back every time I get an obvious one wrong.

My favorite first lines are from a book I have long since fallen out of love with, but here they are anyway:

"I woke up in bed with a man and a cat. The man was a stranger; the cat was not." -- Robert A. Heinlein, _To Sail Beyond the Sunset_

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

100% in the ivillage one, haven't taken the cornell one yet. (now i know why - 22 pages??) and...um...four on the constant reader one. ooh am i embarrassed! i didn't get confederacy of dunces, and i read it! my favorite first line ever, also coincidentally the only first line i can ever remember (except for "call me ishmael...") - "the sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." william gibson, neuromancer.

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001