There was a poll that stated—Rowling’s opening line in the HP series is one of best in the world. Someone posted about how there are a bunch of other opening statements that are better.
Here’s one of my personal favorites, from Gabriel Garcia Marquez (English translated):
“It is inevitable. The scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.”
"If this typewriter can't do it, then fuck it, it can't be done." -Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker
spoiler: it CAN'T be done so he finished the book off by hand, and gave us one of the best closing lines. "It's never too late to have a happy childhood."
@DocCarms@bookstodon 'Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.' - Viriginia Woolf. (Seeing as someone's already suggested I Capture the Castle!)
@DocCarms@bookstodon
Call me Ishmael (I found Moby Dick at my grandmother's house when I was 11 years old. I started reading it, because I thought it was a story about pirates and as a kid I loved pirate stories. I was impressed by that first line, because I didn't know you could jump into as story like this.)
@DocCarms@bookstodon it's been brought up a few times, but I didn't see it posted. The opening to The Gunslinger has always stuck with me. It piques the interest immediately. Who is the gunslinger? Who is the Man In Black? Why do they not have names? A desert, you say? Why the chase?
"The Man In Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed."
@mikebaarda@DocCarms@bookstodon I think you have a point, but it's kind of context-dependent. Personally, when I read that line, sure my interest is piqued a little, but I'm also immediately primed to be looking for an explanation of the things you mentioned, and I'm not likely to have a good time reading the story until I start getting that explanation (or at least some justification for why I need to wait for it, like if the POV character is trying to find out). So it's kind of a high-risk high-reward maneuver: an opening line that introduces mysterious terms for story elements (such as, but not limited to, characters) can backfire badly if the rest of the story doesn't deliver details at the right pace.
It's also definitely possible to overdo it by throwing so many unfamiliar terms at the reader so fast that they get turned off. Not the case here, of course, but other books definitely do it.
@diazona@DocCarms@bookstodon totally get ya, but I think this one works out well. You learn quickly enough why, and then spend the rest of the 7.5 book series learning the true why...
@mikebaarda@DocCarms@bookstodon Gotcha. Yeah I think that's the best way to do it, when that mystery drives the book (or series, in this case). It was just on my mind because of a recent discussion with a friend about a different book - I forget which one, some fantasy thing - that had used like nine made-up terms by the end of the first sentence 😂 and we were both thinking how that's almost enough to stop a person from reading right there.
I'll have to add The Gunslinger to my reading list 👍
@diazona@mikebaarda@DocCarms@bookstodon It can definitely work though. ‘The Hobbit’ basically does the same thing: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit” immediately raises the question, what the hell is a hobbit? Tolkien then spends the next several paragraphs telling you about the hole instead. The curiosity drives you forward as you’re trying to glean information about what a hobbit is from the details of the hole.
@smitty@mikebaarda@DocCarms@bookstodon Yeah but I would say the difference is that one is much less mysterious. It doesn't grab your attention by alluding to a significant plot point that needs to be resolved. In fact it's kind of the opposite: yes it introduces one unknown term from the story, but aside from that it's actually very non-mysterious. It conveys stability and comfort and familiarity, at least to an audience used to reading European fairy tales.
honestly, The Gunslinger is the only fantasy opening line that I actually remember. Although I'm not really into fantasy that much. But it's the only one out of any book that grabbed me enough to be remembered. Maybe cause I first read it as a teenager still in high school and my mind was freshly opening?
@diazona@mikebaarda@DocCarms@bookstodon Personally I think the difference is the reader’s ability to form a mental image. Even if it’s inaccurate, it gives them a kernel to start building the story around. They don’t know what a hobbit is but they can picture the sorts of things that live in holes… and then quickly discover a hobbit isn’t any of those!
That’s why I think the Gunslinger opening works too.
@diazona@mikebaarda@DocCarms@bookstodon We don’t know why the gunslinger or Man in Black are, or where the desert is; but we can picture that kind of thing generally because it taps into some established genre concepts. If it instead said “Flagg fled across the desert, and Roland followed,” that would be harder for us to picture and thus less successful.
@DocCarms@bookstodon
"The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."
Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the end of the Universe
Come to think of it... even though #TheMuppetChristmasCarol doesn't exactly have an opening line, the first few sentences of actual narration are a strong start:
(Gonzo) "Hello! Welcome to The Muppet Christmas Carol! I am here to tell the story."
(Rizzo) "And I am here for the food."
@DocCarms@bookstodon “In Munich there are men that look like weasels.” From Mark Helprin’s memorable short story “The Schreuderspitze”, originally published in the New Yorker, 1977.
The first line from One Hundred Years of Solitude will not be topped:
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
As a runner up, there was an otherwise disappointing short story that began, "None of them knew the color of the sky." But the Garcia Marquez is good all the way through.
@DocCarms@bookstodon "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad." - Rafael Sabatini, Scaramouche. It perfectly sets up both the madcap protagonist and the social satire in the book.
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