First lines meme
Apr. 15th, 2005 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarielFrom ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chazzbanner:
1. Choose 10 of your all time favourite books.
2. Take the first sentence of the first chapter and make a list in your journal.
3. Don't reveal the author or the title of the book.
4. Now everyone try and guess.
With #10, I skipped the first line of the book (from the prologue, and completely unguessable) and went for a considerably easier first line of the actual chapter 1.
Edited to add: Wow, you were all fast. katlinel is getting closer and closer on #1 and #3; no offers for #5?
Edited again to add: Just #5 to get, and communicator has the author...
Edited again again: All done!
***
1. The wind is howling through the trees outside, a cold, hateful wind. (The Far Side of Evil by Sylvia Engdahl, guessed bykatlinel.)
2. The truth is, if old Major Dover hadn't dropped dead at Taunton races Jim would never have come to Thursgood's at all. (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre, guessed bygehayi.)
3. Randy was certain that this was going to be the worst winter of her life. (Spiderweb for Two by Elizabeth Enright,katlinel got the author, chazzbanner got author and book.)
4. Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed - this was the page at which the favourite volume always opened: ELLIOT OF KELLYNCH HALL. (Persuasion by Jane Austen, guessed bycommunicator.)
5. There was a wall. (The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin;forodwaith nailed this right away; up-thread communicator got the author, katlinel got the book.)
6. My Dear Honoria - so Peter is really married: I have ordered willow-wreaths for half my acquaintance. (Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers, guessed byslemslempike.)
7. Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you home: Is this a holiday? (Julius Caesar, guessed bykalypso_v.)
8. The big groundcar jerked to a stop centimeters from the vehicle ahead of it, and Armsman Pym, driving, swore under his breath. (A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold, guessed bykatlinel; trixieleitz got Bujold.)
9. Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares. (A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, guessed bygehayi.)
10. Hapscomb's Texaco sat on Number 93 just north of Arnette, a pissant four-street burg about 100 miles from Houston. (The Stand by Stephen King, guessed bygehayi.)
chazzbanner:1. Choose 10 of your all time favourite books.
2. Take the first sentence of the first chapter and make a list in your journal.
3. Don't reveal the author or the title of the book.
4. Now everyone try and guess.
With #10, I skipped the first line of the book (from the prologue, and completely unguessable) and went for a considerably easier first line of the actual chapter 1.
katlinel is getting closer and closer on #1 and #3; no offers for #5? communicator has the author... Edited again again: All done!
***
1. The wind is howling through the trees outside, a cold, hateful wind. (The Far Side of Evil by Sylvia Engdahl, guessed by
katlinel.)2. The truth is, if old Major Dover hadn't dropped dead at Taunton races Jim would never have come to Thursgood's at all. (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre, guessed by
gehayi.)3. Randy was certain that this was going to be the worst winter of her life. (Spiderweb for Two by Elizabeth Enright,
katlinel got the author, chazzbanner got author and book.)4. Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed - this was the page at which the favourite volume always opened: ELLIOT OF KELLYNCH HALL. (Persuasion by Jane Austen, guessed by
communicator.)5. There was a wall. (The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin;
forodwaith nailed this right away; up-thread communicator got the author, katlinel got the book.)6. My Dear Honoria - so Peter is really married: I have ordered willow-wreaths for half my acquaintance. (Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers, guessed by
slemslempike.)7. Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you home: Is this a holiday? (Julius Caesar, guessed by
kalypso_v.)8. The big groundcar jerked to a stop centimeters from the vehicle ahead of it, and Armsman Pym, driving, swore under his breath. (A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold, guessed by
katlinel; trixieleitz got Bujold.)9. Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares. (A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, guessed by
gehayi.)10. Hapscomb's Texaco sat on Number 93 just north of Arnette, a pissant four-street burg about 100 miles from Houston. (The Stand by Stephen King, guessed by
gehayi.)
no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 04:34 am (UTC)Is number 8 "A Civil Campaign" by Bujold?
I also knew 4 and 6, but that was all because I am rubbish at this kind of thing. I'm only marginally better than I am at music ones.
Would one of them be "Riddley Walker"?
no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 04:35 am (UTC)I did know 9 too. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 04:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 04:40 am (UTC)It is indeed!
Would one of them be "Riddley Walker"?
D'oh, no, and I meant to include that one!
no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 05:09 am (UTC)Ooh, I'm glad I was the first to get one of them right!
I'm curious about the first line of "Riddley Walker" now. :-) Incidentally, I had to check it on Amazon, as I remembered the author (Hoban), but remembered the title as "Riddley Scott", which didn't seem quite right. :-)
no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 05:22 am (UTC)"On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen."
Yes, the rest of the book is just like that (!), and it's worth every second invested in it.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 05:33 am (UTC)It's been on my mental list of books to read since you've been so enthusiastic about it.
That line makes me think of Garner.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 06:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 06:34 am (UTC)I'd love to borrow it, but it might be gone for some time if you do lend it to me. I suspect it will take me quite a while.
Telling me it's Garner-esque also increases my enthusiasm. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 07:51 am (UTC)One of it's themes is... craft, I suppose, which is very like The Stone Book Quartet (hm, that was one I should have included). It's also iceberg prose, i.e. a good 90% of what's going on is beneath the surface, which is like Garner too.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 09:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 09:25 am (UTC)