Favorite first line?
I just came across an interesting site called Opening Hooks, “a collection of literary beginningsâ€. The creator of the site explains:
Chip Kidd once said, “A good book cover makes you want to pick it up. End of story.†More often then not, however, a gripping first sentence or paragraph prevents you from putting it back down. The opening hook. It’s a simple concept, reading is linear, time is finite. What keeps a reader reading is the opening hook.
I don’t have any particular memories of special opening hooks, but browsing through the site’s data base I came across this one: “When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.†– Yup. I think this one qualifies as a good opening hook. Unfortunately, when I first read Kafka’s The Metamorphosis I attempted to do so in its original. Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt. Perhaps understandably, words such as “Ungeziefer†– or insect – are not part of one’s basic foreign language vocabulary lesson so I’m afraid I had a hard time fully appreciating some of the nuances – huh, some of the basics! – during my first attempt at the novel. Let’s just say I probably spent more time flipping through the dictionary than the book. But reading the sentence in English on that site brought it all back and I do think it qualifies as a good opening hook. I suspect others around here who are much bigger literature buffs than I am will think of candidates for their favorite opening lines without having to go to their book shelves (or browse an online data base).
Hat tip: Matt Read.
September 8th, 2004 at 11:09 pm
I love that first sentence of Metamorphosis too. And that Opening Hooks site is pretty cool.
Congrats on your lovely new site!
(The link above appears broken though: it leads to openhooks.us instead of openinghooks.us.)
September 9th, 2004 at 6:09 am
Opening Hooks is a fun site. Thanks for pointing it out. I just added an opening paragraph from a favorite book of mine by Bulgakov.
Although Opening Hooks might benefit greatly from the communal editing power of a wiki; the entry for (A Clockwork Orange) is so vastly different from any edition I’ve seen, I wonder what book the poster was reading.
September 9th, 2004 at 8:09 am
Bulgakov is one of my favorite authors. I love Master and Margarita. I saw it as a play this past year, but the performance did not live up to any expectations, I’m afraid.Then again, I suspected as much given how difficult and complex the book is.