How important is a first line in a book? I’ve been enjoying the delicious exercise of trawling through my library, opening books and rereading first lines. I’ve imagined the writers sitting with their blank page, working out how to start their story. It must be such an emotional effort to get those first few words on the page. Immense and so important.
So, I’ve included here some first lines I love and I hope that they might inspire you to read on. I wonder if you can guess which books they are from. They are not as easy as the well-known lines from books like Dickins’ A Tale of Two Cities, ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’
Try this one on for size …
‘In 18th-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in the era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages.’
Such an odd first line but intriguing all the same. It comes from Perfume by Patrick Süskind. This is a book that polarised people. There seems to be no in-between with this book, as people either love it or hate it. I fall on the love it side.
You might be able to guess this one if you think about bringing back extinct animals.
‘The late 20th century has witnessed a scientific gold rush of astonishing proportions: the headlong and furious haste to commercialise genetic engineering.’
Of course, it’s from the science fiction novel Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton.
I love this one that is from Niccolo Ammaniti’s I’m Not Scared, a favourite book of mine.
‘I was just about to overtake Salvatore when I heard my sister scream.’ Mmm, a bit creepy isn’t it? How could you not read on after absorbing those words?
This one is from a book I read so long ago, penned by a such clever Australian writer.
‘Streaking through the jungle on a gaudy leopard, cape billowing out behind me as if I were a flame, I have on my head (my greying pate) – and this is vital – a hat, a black, gargantuan fedora with a drooping brim, and streaming from one side of it is a cassowary feather (of all things).’
Wow, what a sentence. It is from Night Letters by Robert Dessaix. After I read this, I sat and thought about this line. How long did it take him to craft this single sentence. Maybe it just popped out of him and there it was on the page as a surprise or, is it just that he can write like this off the bat, so just how he is as a writer. Read it again. You learn to appreciate it more and more.
How about this one too.
‘There was a rock that since the creation of the world had been worked upon by the pure essences of heaven and the fine savours of Earth, the vigour of sunshine and the grace of moonlight, till at last it became magically pregnant and one day split open, giving birth to a stone egg, about as big as a playing ball.’
That sentence is from the beginning of Monkey by Wu Cheng’en. As a child I was a devotee of the TV series, Monkey Magic.
I loved Monkey and how he could conjure up his pink cloud and zoom around on it. There were his companions Pigsy, Sandy and, of course the monk, Tripitaka. I was delighted later on in life when I discovered the book.
‘At the age of 15 my grandmother became the concubine of a warlord general, the police chief of a tenuous national government
of China.’ This is from another favourite, Wild Swans by Jung Chang.
This is one you could probably guess as well. It is the opening poem and line from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, from the first story, ‘Mowgli’s Brothers’.
Now Chil the Kite brings home the night
That Mang the Bat sets free –
The herds are shut in byre and hut
For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,
Talon and rush and claw.
Oh hear and call! – Good hunting all
That keep the Jungle Law!
Night-Song in the Jungle
‘It was seven o’clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day’s rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips.’
And this following line is from our first monthly Book Post selection for our subscribers.
‘One morning Andes, a white man, woke up to find he had turned a deep undeniable brown.’
The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid is a very thought-provoking book, one that will give you a view from the other side
of the fence, so to speak.
This next one is a really fun book for kids. Would this make you want to read more?
‘It was a curious thing for a boy to be stuck on a train in an Alpine snowstorm, in a bathroom with six homesick Lions and a huge unidentified sabre-toothed creature.’
This is from Lionboy: The Chase by Zizou Corder. This is a racing read as the chase carries on, and on.
I could keep going here. I am enjoying myself immensely as I pull out more books from my shelves. Some lines are so short, such as from Alan Bennett’s The Lady in the Van. ‘I ran into a snake this afternoon,’ Miss Shepherd said.
‘The hotel receptionist held my reservation card in his hand.’ Mr Geraldine Brooks, he read. ‘But you are a woman.’ I know this is technically three lines. I cheated. This is from Nine Parts of Desire by Geraldine Brooks.
So, what first lines do you find inspire to read on? I would love you to share them with me so I can share them with all our readers.
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