Friday OT #1 - All That David Copperfield Kind of Crap

[Angie]

Thanks so much to @cyclones500 for another great OT idea! He had read this article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/entertainment/books/best-last-lines/

What are your favorite last and first lines in all of literature?

The first paragraph of Catcher In the Rye is iconic, and pretty hard to beat, IMO:

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

As much as it's too well-known, Tale of Two Cities is pretty timeless. Not sure it's even in my top 5, but good.

Some of my other favorites - combined with Catcher, they also round out some of my favorite books:

Pride & Prejudice:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Fahrenheit 451:
"It was a pleasure to burn."

Slaughterhouse-Five:
"All this happened, more or less."

The Great Gatsby:
"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 'Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,' he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.'"


What are yours?

 

[3TrueFans]

I thought this was going to be about magic.

 

[3GenClone]

I thought this was going to be about magic.

 

[intrepid27]

Dear Penthouse, I'm a freshman at a small Midwestern college.....

 

[coolerifyoudid]

The most recognizable would be "Call me Ishmael" from Moby D!ck, but one of my favorites is:

The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. —Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

I also like "The great sea of yellow corn stretches from horizon to horizon under an angry sky" from Preston and Child's "Still Life With Crows"

 

[cycloneG]

I've always liked the opening to every Wheel of Time book.

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountain of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning off the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning."

 

[JP4CY]

 

[madguy30]

Pretty sure it's how the novel ends and I'm not crying you're crying.

 

[throwittoblythe]

I’ve always liked the opening of A Christmas Carol:

“Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergymen, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was dead as a door nail.”

 

[Doc]

When Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself transformed into a monstrous vermin.

This is from Kafka’s Metamorphisis and it’s just nice and to the point. You don’t even need to finish the book, you can already guess what happens after this.

 

[HFCS]

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (1937)

Probably the first really great book I read, I think I was in fourth grade. I guess experts say he isn't a great writer but that line always made me feel comfortable like I wanted to be in a real hobbit hole and have tea...even though as I kid I didn't drink tea. In all I've read since it's the only opening line I can remember without looking up. For example OP's Fahrenheit 451 opening line is incredible but I had completely forgotten it haha.

 

[oldman]

When Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself transformed into a monstrous vermin.

This is from Kafka’s Metamorphisis and it’s just nice and to the point. You don’t even need to finish the book, you can already guess what happens after this.

Nothing like waking up to find you're a giant cockroach.

 

[jcyclonee]

This is from Ayn Rand's Anthem and I remember it being really thought-provoking when I read it and sets the stage for the distopian plot of the book.

It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. And we know well that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws. The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!

 

[oldman]

This one always struck me...thought I'd add the whole paragraph.

"Notes From the Underground" by Dostoevsky

I am a sick man. ... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I
believe my liver is diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my
disease, and do not know for certain what ails me. I don't consult a doctor
for it, and never have, though I have a respect for medicine and doctors.
Besides, I am extremely superstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine,
anyway (I am well-educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am
superstitious). No, I refuse to consult a doctor from spite. That you
probably will not understand. Well, I understand it, though. Of course, I
can't explain who it is precisely that I am mortifying in this case by my
spite: I am perfectly well aware that I cannot "pay out" the doctors by not
consulting them; I know better than anyone that by all this I am only
injuring myself and no one else. But still, if I don't consult a doctor it is
from spite. My liver is bad, well--let it get worse!

 

[cyhiphopp]

I've always liked the opening to every Wheel of Time book.

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountain of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning off the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning."

You got my favorite.

 

[cyclones500]

I'm on the road this weekend but plan to add to the mix eventually... some great ones posted so far.

 

[clonedude]

How about the final line in "A Christmas Story"....

"Next to me in the blackness lay my oiled blue steel beauty. The greatest Christmas gift I had ever received, or would ever receive. Gradually, I drifted off to sleep, pringing ducks on the wing and getting off spectacular hip shots."

 

[Sigmapolis]

A beginning is a very delicate time.

 

[Sousaclone]

Not a great literary classic, but it does set the tone for the rest of the book:

"I'm pretty much ******. That's my considered opinion. ******. Six days into what should be the greatest..." The Martian - Andy Weir.

 

[Sigmapolis]

The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory. He's got esprit up to here. Right now, he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night. His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air. A bullet will bounce off its arachnofiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest, Where his body has bony extremities, the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello, protects like a stack of telephone books.

When they gave him the job, they gave him a gun. The Deliverator never deals in cash, but someone might come after him anyway -- might want his car, or his cargo. The gun is tiny, acm-styled, lightweight, the kind of gun a fashion designer would carry; it fires teensy darts that fly at five times the velocity of an SR-71 spy plane, and when you get done using it, you have to plug it into the cigarette lighter, because it runs on electricity.

The Deliverator never pulled that gun in anger, or in fear. He pulled it once in Gila Highlands. Some punks in Gila Highlands, a fancy Burbclave, wanted themselves a delivery, and they didn't want to pay for it. Thought they would impress the Deliverator with a baseball bat. The Deliverator took out his gun, centered its laser doohickey on that poised Louisville Slugger, fired it. The recoil was immense, as though the weapon had blown up in his hand. The middle third of the baseball bat turned into a column of burning sawdust accelerating in all directions like a bursting star. Punk ended up holding this bat handle with milky smoke pouring out the end. Stupid look on his face. Didn't get nothing but trouble from the Deliverator.