100 Best First Lines from Novels

[malignd at aol.com]

Not a bad list, although pretty predictable.  Pleased to see Stanley Elkin on it.  The Old Man and the Sea opener is lovely enough, but the book's awful, which should have disqualified it.  And if you're going to pick from Joe Heller, the Catch-22 line is the obvious choice, but "I get the wilies [sp.] when I see closed doors" from Something Happened is better.












Also, re Nabokov, "I was the shadow of the waxwing slain," isn't the first line of Pale Fire or even close; and "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," is, I think (I don't have it here with me), also the first sentence of Ada (that clever VN).
















-----Original Message-----




From: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>




To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>




Sent: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:14 am




Subject: 100 Best First Lines from Novels




















http://americanbookreview.org/100BestLines.asp







 







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