/lit/ - Literature » Thread #7294417

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486KiB, 1024x1024, moby-dick.jpg

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 12:19:39 No.7294417 View Reply Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7294611 >>7294614 >>7294996 >>7295179 >>7295187 >>7295249 >>7295952 >>7296580 >>7299533 >>7299662 >>7301448

Post god-tier opening lines thread.

>Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 12:32:53 No.7294437 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7294957 >>7295185

>It is possible I already had some presentiment of my future.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 13:20:38 No.7294576 Report Delete

Quoted By:

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, damp hole with bits of worms sticking out, and not a dry, sandy hole with nothing to sit on or to eat. No, this was a hobbit hole, and that meant comfort.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 13:27:00 No.7294601 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7294628

>Lotila, light of my life, fire of my loins. Lo-lee-ta. A trip of the tounge down the gullet, stopping at three: Lo-til-la. My sin, my soul, my fire. She was Lo in pants, Tilla in her lil taco or whatever, and Dolores when her white-trash momma was around trying to suck me off.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 13:31:57 No.7294611 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7294939

>>7294417
ON APRIL 1st, 1924, I began to serve my sentence of detention in the Fortress of
Landsberg am Lech, following the verdict of the Munich People's Court of that time.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 13:32:13 No.7294614 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7294618 >>7294634

>>7294417
could i read moby dick with little reading background?

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 13:33:16 No.7294618 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7294627

>>7294614
Yes.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 13:35:40 No.7294627 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7294640 >>7294641 >>7295170 >>7295404 >>7299670

>>7294618
are any other works by Melville worth reading as well?

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 13:35:44 No.7294628 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7294601
hah

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 13:36:55 No.7294634 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7294614
All that's really necessary to get something out of Moby Dick is an appreciation of God-tier prose (skim the Stanford article for Camus if you want a superficial understanding of the philosophical implications but that's mostly just filler that takes away from the sections on ship maintenance and whale biology)

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 13:38:33 No.7294640 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7294655

>>7294627
Bartleby the Scrivener is often referenced (I've seen Zizek wear a shirt that referenced it) but those two works are all I've read. Bartleby is a short story.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 13:38:36 No.7294641 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7294655

>>7294627

Bartleby the Scrivener is a 10/10 masterpiece. Short too.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 13:39:43 No.7294645 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7295417

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 13:42:46 No.7294655 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7294641
>>7294640
Spooky as fuck

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 15:20:29 No.7294939 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7294611
Haha, I get that one.

>And thus, I decided to become a politician.

Truly, a greater man has never lived.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 15:23:13 No.7294951 Report Delete

Quoted By:

The woman pushed on the baby's stomach and sucked its penis into her mouth; it was thinner than the American menthols she smoked and a bit slimy, like raw fish.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 15:25:16 No.7294957 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7294996

>>7294437
what book is this?

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 15:37:52 No.7294996 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7295742

>>7294957
Book of the New Sun
>>7294417
"I am a sick man . . . I am a wicked man. An unattractive man, I think my liver hurts."

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 16:09:35 No.7295132 Report Delete

Quoted By:

« Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεὰ, Πηληιάδεω Ἀχιλῆος » _Homer

« On the 15th of May, 1796, General Bonaparte made his entry into Milan at the head of that young army which had shortly before crossed the Bridge of Lodi and taught the world that after all these centuries Caesar and Alexander had a successor. » _Stendhal

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 16:12:38 No.7295148 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7299016

"Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot
of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death"

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 16:17:26 No.7295170 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7294627
Bartleby
Billy Budd, Sailor
The Confidence Man

All are based.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 16:18:55 No.7295179 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7295234 >>7295847

>>7294417

>Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 16:20:27 No.7295185 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7295421

>>7294437

Probably the most underrated opening line in all of literature. Wolfe has already begun with his tricks before the unsuspecting reader even knows it. It's fucking based.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 16:20:37 No.7295187 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7295221

>>7294417
Is that actually a god tier opening line? Or do you just like that book?

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 16:30:11 No.7295221 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7295187
It's actually two lines, definitely two sentences, it's not especially noteworthy, just famous.

An author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman who gives a private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a public ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their money.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 16:34:57 No.7295234 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7295179
sound and the fury :)

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 16:41:46 No.7295249 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7294417
>All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 17:15:16 No.7295388 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Dear Diary,

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 17:18:53 No.7295404 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7294627
Pierre, benito cereno, I and my chimney, bartelby, clarel, the confidence man, billy budd

Don't read israel potter

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 17:25:06 No.7295417 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7294645
10/10.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 17:25:59 No.7295421 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7295694 >>7301418

>>7295185
what trick

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 18:37:00 No.7295683 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7295745

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 18:38:10 No.7295694 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7301418

>>7295421
Mixing up beginning and the end I believe, but I'm not sure if that's what he meant.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 18:41:31 No.7295709 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7295715

>He speaks in your voice, American, and there's a shine in his eye that's halfway hopeful.

God that whole fucking prologue is amazing.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 18:42:32 No.7295715 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7295724

>>7295709
Liked this so much I looked it up, happy to realize it's already on my shelf (I've read 4 books by him but somehow not that one yet.)

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 18:43:50 No.7295724 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7295715
>Then we came to the end of another dull and lurid year.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 18:47:58 No.7295742 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7295749

>>7294996
I've always liked that kafka line. I don't know why, it just reads really good.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 18:48:36 No.7295745 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7295683
Fucking hell, I remember trying to get through that book in my high school spanish class

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 18:49:37 No.7295749 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7295742
If I had to pick one line to show people who've never heard of Kafka, that's the line I'd use.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 18:51:49 No.7295756 Report Delete

Quoted By:

This is not for you.

I don't even know if this is the first line but I like it.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 18:56:39 No.7295775 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Maman died today. Or was it yesterday. It doesn't matter.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 19:14:17 No.7295847 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7299429

>>7295179
Underappreciated, which is surprising since it is such a famous novel.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 19:17:40 No.7295859 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7299101

It began as a mistake.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 19:21:07 No.7295872 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>Two farts for fun fell faintly upon Frank's ears.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 19:24:32 No.7295881 Report Delete

Quoted By:

I think Ecclesiastes is immensely beautiful.

1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

3 What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?

4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 19:26:08 No.7295890 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7299570 >>7299576

A screaming comes across the porch, from the stairhead, Tommy bearing a bowl of lather on which a pinecone and a toy rocket lay crossed—he sits on the steps surrounded by heads and bodies of characters never to be created, Wallace having quit and thrown himself upon his belt, ha-ha o my, Tommy thinx, don't throw rocks at the thrown, ha-ha.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 19:34:29 No.7295925 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.

Always loved that line, it's how I feel most days I wake up

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 19:40:34 No.7295952 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7296641

>>7294417
I really enjoyed this bit just for the mention of how suicidal it was back then to go knocking hats off of random 19th century mens' heads.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 19:44:22 No.7295982 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7296023 >>7298021 >>7300267

See the child.

>chills, man.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 19:53:55 No.7296023 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7295982
>God how the stars did fall. I looked for blackness, holes in the Heavens.
That gives me chills every time.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 22:30:31 No.7296580 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7296594

>>7294417
>“FUCK YOU AND YOUR GOAT-LOVING ANALSAUSAGE FUCK FACTORY!” Lucifer Niggerbastard screamed, giving the shape in the window a double-handed flip-off. Mr. Moneyballs could go fuck himself.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 22:38:00 No.7296594 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7296580
Oh man, I remember that book

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 22:53:20 No.7296641 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7295952
>how suicidal it was back then to go knocking hats off of random 19th century mens' heads.

>Go into a dapper part of town with some of my chums
>A few young scallywags up to mischief
>Most people around here are dastardly scoundrels
>"Lo! there goes our man now"
>Samuel must've been raised in bedlam! He actually knocked someone's hat off!
>"COME BACK HERE"
>"twas only in jest my good man!"
>"I'LL TEAR YOU LIMB FROM BLOODY LIMB"
>"Please don't hurt me, it was only a jape!"
>...
>"Samuel, I think our jolly caper has rustled the feathers of this man, but no worry it was all worth it. I caught it all on my photoplate. The Times will surely publish our escapades"

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 10:31:46 No.7298021 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7295982
this tbh

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 10:37:11 No.7298033 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 10:47:15 No.7298066 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>Yo, holmes; moms died today. Or maybe it was yestahday. Shit, fam, I don't remember -- nearly caught a drive-by.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 15:41:03 No.7298954 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7299039

riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of hore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 15:42:25 No.7298965 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Ça a débuté comme ça.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 15:45:45 No.7298982 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Dans la plaine rase, sous la nuit sans étoiles, d’une obscurité et d’une épaisseur d’encre, un homme suivait seul la grande route de Marchiennes à Montsou dix kilomètres de pavé coupant tout droit, à travers les champs de
betteraves.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 15:55:00 No.7299016 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7295148
leave forever

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 16:00:10 No.7299039 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7298954
Shortly after reading this, I was diagnosed as being on the spectrum of autism.
When will conservicucks admit that literature without censorship is degenerate and harmful to our yutes?

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 16:18:39 No.7299101 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7295859
Damn that book was good, felt like I woke up for a drunken, wild daze.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 16:35:59 No.7299167 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7300267

"Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians, hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished since that time when first there stood in division of conflict Atreus's son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus."

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 17:22:46 No.7299343 Report Delete

Quoted By:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 17:40:33 No.7299429 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7295847

It's not really a significant line though, honestly most of the opening lines aren't that important. Now his final lines on the other hand...

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 18:06:48 No.7299533 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7294417
FUCKING DAMMIT
I was asked where this line came from and it was on the tip of my tounge. I didn't answer it when I thought it was right and the other team got it.
I pretend like I just didn't say anything on purpose so other people on the team would get it, but I didn't believe in them, so that doesn't count at all. Also, I don't want to lie to myself, but I can't help but get the feeling that it is true to some degree. Like when you think you have it but you don't, yaknow. I can't stand the fact that I am not as good as other people, so sometimes I just keep my mouth shut and wonder if what I am doing is for the better of myself. Sometimes I feel it is, sometimes I think I am leaving myself exposed to somebody else getting that hot asian ass or whatever. I just want to get out of the cycle of dishonest critique, but I don't know the truth.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 18:17:54 No.7299570 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7295890
This tbh.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 18:19:56 No.7299576 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7295890
kek

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 18:20:06 No.7299577 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>That branch of the lake of Como which extends southwards between two unbroken chains of mountains, and is all gulfs and bays as the mountains advance and recede, narrows down at one point, between a promontory on one side and a wide shore on the other, into the form of a river; and the bridge which links the two banks seems to emphasize this transformation even more, and to mark the point at which the lake ends and the Adda begins, only to become a lake once more where the banks draw farther apart again, letting the water broaden out and expand into new creeks and bays.
From "The Betrothed" by Alessandro Manzoni.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 18:41:10 No.7299661 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 18:42:53 No.7299662 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7294417
>I was only 9 years old
>I loved Shrek so much, I had all the merchandise and movies

How could it go wrong ?

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 18:45:48 No.7299670 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7294627
just read his bibliography, faget

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 19:51:54 No.7299924 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Arma gravi numero violentaque bella parabam
Edere, materia conveniente modis.
Par erat inferior versus: risisse Cupido
Dicitur atque unum surripuisse pedem.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 19:56:28 No.7299947 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 21:34:38 No.7300267 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7295982
I love BM but it isn't that great of an opening.
>>7299167
Is the best

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 22:08:36 No.7300364 Report Delete

Quoted By:

"Aujourd'hui Maman est morte"
Albert Camus

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 22:18:55 No.7300410 Report Delete

Quoted By:

We knew him in those unprotected days when we were content to hold in our hands our lives and our property. None of us, I believe, has any property now, and I hear that many, negligently, have lost their lives; but I am sure that the few who survive are not yet so dim-eyed as to miss in the befogged respectability of their newspapers the intelligence of various native risings in the Eastern Archipelago. Sunshine gleams between the lines of those short paragraphs--sunshine and the glitter of the sea. A strange name wakes up memories; the printed words scent the smoky atmosphere of to-day faintly, with the subtle and penetrating perfume as of land breezes breathing through the starlight of bygone nights; a signal fire gleams like a jewel on the high brow of a sombre cliff; great trees, the advanced sentries of immense forests, stand watchful and still over sleeping stretches of open water; a line of white surf thunders on an empty beach, the shallow water foams on the reefs; and green islets scattered through the calm of noonday lie upon the level of a polished sea, like a handful of emeralds on a buckler of steel.
Conrad

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 30 Oct 2015 04:25:34 No.7301418 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7295421
>>7295694

The trick is that Severian is writing the Book of the New Sun at a later date, after he has a much better idea (but still not a complete idea) that he is essentially a puppet being played by the Hierodules. What he's saying is entirely true--he has seen both his future and his past, all of which are inside of his memory. The irony comes from the fact that Severian is simply too arrogant/dumb to recognize that he has already died and resurrected multiple times and has been shown what will happen to him in the future on multiple occasions.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Fri 30 Oct 2015 04:39:48 No.7301448 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7301457

>>7294417
Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas. J'ai reçu un télégramme de l'asile : « Mère décédée. Enterrement demain. Sentiments distingués. » Cela ne veut rien dire. C'était peut-être hier.

All of the English translations of this book suck. None of them really capture the feeling very well.

But, regardless, the English would be along the lines of:

My mom died today. Maybe yesterday, I don't know. I received a telegram saying: "Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Deepest regards." This tells me nothing. It could've been yesterday.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 30 Oct 2015 04:46:15 No.7301457 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7301448
Damn, that French is fucking beautiful.

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