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siouxiequeue posting the first line of a particular favorite that pulled me in.) First lines of favorite books, to be updated as people guess them. This list is almost as significant for its ommissions as anything -- I have a number of favorites leant out at the moment, and a few others that have appearred elsewhere. Where applicable, I decided to have everything in English. I'm a little loose about what counts as the first line -- some of these are from prefaces or introductions, other times I skipped the introductions. In one case I have elided the name of the main character, as it would make the lines too easily recognizable.
1. Raise a tripod of three stout poles about twelve feet off the ground, with a rope and pulley at the crown.
Catch a well-fleshed steer, about eight-hundred-pound weight.canyonwren
2. She scowled at her glass of orange juice.gramina
3. Jiro shook his hair out of his eyes and bent once more over the worktable. He dipped the brush into the glue and began to apply it to the inside of the puppet head that lay in two halves before him.
4. It was from the air that the rawness of the land showed most: vast tracts where humanity had as yet made no difference, deserts unclaimed, start as moons, scrag and woolwood thickets unexplored except by orbiting radar.
5. In the collection of the Vatican Museums is a mosaic signed by one Heraclitus. Across a white background is an even scattering of debris: a wish-bone, a claw, some fruit, various discarded limbs of sea creatures, the remains of a fish.
6. When I was young I, too, had many dreams. Most of them I later forgot, but I see nothing in this to regret. For although recalling the past my bring happiness, at times it cannot but bring loneliness, and what is the point of clinging in spirit to lonely bygone days? However, my trouble is that I cannot forget completely, and these stories stem from those things which I have been unable to forget.
7. -- -- sat at her writing-table and stared out into Mecklenburg Square. The late tulips made a brave show in the Square garden, and a quartet of early tennis-players were energetically calling the score of a rather erratic and unpracticed game.gramina
8. In spite of all the talk and study about out next years, and all the silent ponderings about what lies within them for our sons [Why only sons? Since I wrote this, I have acquired two daughters, and they too shape the pattern's pieces, and the texture of my belief!] it seems plain to us that many things are wrong in the present ones that can be, must be, changed. Our texture of belief has great holes in it. Our pattern lacks pieces.canyonwren
9. Bring home what looks like a wild onion for dinner, and no one gives it a second thought -- despite the fact it might be a death camas you have, especially if you didn't bother to smell it. But bring home a wild mushroom for dinner, and watch the faces of your friends crawl with various combinations of fear, anxiety, loathing and distrust!plantae
10. Nolan was nearly an hour late by the time her arrived at the Central Government Activities Complex, and even here his way was blocked. Throngs of tourists, lines of determined security guards, and pockets of news reporters clustered in front of every entrance to the huge red granite building that dominated the city skyline.
siouxiequeue posting the first line of a particular favorite that pulled me in.) First lines of favorite books, to be updated as people guess them. This list is almost as significant for its ommissions as anything -- I have a number of favorites leant out at the moment, and a few others that have appearred elsewhere. Where applicable, I decided to have everything in English. I'm a little loose about what counts as the first line -- some of these are from prefaces or introductions, other times I skipped the introductions. In one case I have elided the name of the main character, as it would make the lines too easily recognizable. 1. Raise a tripod of three stout poles about twelve feet off the ground, with a rope and pulley at the crown.
Catch a well-fleshed steer, about eight-hundred-pound weight.
canyonwren2. She scowled at her glass of orange juice.
gramina3. Jiro shook his hair out of his eyes and bent once more over the worktable. He dipped the brush into the glue and began to apply it to the inside of the puppet head that lay in two halves before him.
4. It was from the air that the rawness of the land showed most: vast tracts where humanity had as yet made no difference, deserts unclaimed, start as moons, scrag and woolwood thickets unexplored except by orbiting radar.
5. In the collection of the Vatican Museums is a mosaic signed by one Heraclitus. Across a white background is an even scattering of debris: a wish-bone, a claw, some fruit, various discarded limbs of sea creatures, the remains of a fish.
6. When I was young I, too, had many dreams. Most of them I later forgot, but I see nothing in this to regret. For although recalling the past my bring happiness, at times it cannot but bring loneliness, and what is the point of clinging in spirit to lonely bygone days? However, my trouble is that I cannot forget completely, and these stories stem from those things which I have been unable to forget.
7. -- -- sat at her writing-table and stared out into Mecklenburg Square. The late tulips made a brave show in the Square garden, and a quartet of early tennis-players were energetically calling the score of a rather erratic and unpracticed game.
gramina8. In spite of all the talk and study about out next years, and all the silent ponderings about what lies within them for our sons [Why only sons? Since I wrote this, I have acquired two daughters, and they too shape the pattern's pieces, and the texture of my belief!] it seems plain to us that many things are wrong in the present ones that can be, must be, changed. Our texture of belief has great holes in it. Our pattern lacks pieces.
canyonwren9. Bring home what looks like a wild onion for dinner, and no one gives it a second thought -- despite the fact it might be a death camas you have, especially if you didn't bother to smell it. But bring home a wild mushroom for dinner, and watch the faces of your friends crawl with various combinations of fear, anxiety, loathing and distrust!
plantae10. Nolan was nearly an hour late by the time her arrived at the Central Government Activities Complex, and even here his way was blocked. Throngs of tourists, lines of determined security guards, and pockets of news reporters clustered in front of every entrance to the huge red granite building that dominated the city skyline.
