What's the best opening line of a novel ?

Answer 1

Has to be Dickens - Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times".

In fact the whole first paragraph can easily apply to the world today.

Answer 2

Well this is not exactly the first line in the book as a whole, but I think it should count because it is a novel divided up into books.

This is the first line from my favorite book in the novel.

"Experience, though noon auctoritee
Were in this world, is right ynough for me
To speke of wo that is in mariage:
For lordinges, sith I twelf yeer was of age--
Thanked be God that is eterne on lyve--
Housbondes at chirche dore I have had five
(If I so ofte mighte han wedded be),
And alle were worthy men in hir degree.
But me was told, certain, nat longe agoon is,
That sith that Crist ne wente nevere but ones
To wedding in the Cane of Galilee,
That by the same ensample taughte he me
That I ne sholde wedded be but ones.
Herke eek, lo, which a sharp word for the nones,
Biside a welle, Jesus, God and man,
Spak in repreve of the Samaritan . . . ."

The Wife of Bath's prologue. The Canterbury Tales By Chaucer.


My favorite ACTUAL first line, beyond a doubt

is this:

"Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo..."

James Joyce A portrait of the artist as a young man.

Answer 3

THIS is the saddest story I have ever heard.
The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford

I realize this breaks the first rule of fiction , show don't tell, but it is so simple and so heart breaking I love it.

My own first novel (unpublished) begins- I was 21 years old before I met a live poet.

Answer 4

I'm not sure there is a 'best' opening, but I did enjoy this one from 'The Glass Virgin' (Catherine Cookson):

'On the eve of her 7th birthday Annabella Lagrange learned that it was wrong for men to ask for a penny a day more for 12 hours' work down a coal mine, and also that because of such wrong-doing they were deprived of food and shelter. But she also learned on that day that it was right for her father to take all the clothes off a strange lady, bathe her, then feed her with strawberries.'

Interesting!

Answer 5

'A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.'

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

PS: Agree that 'Call me Ishmael' is a great opening line and considered by most lit crits as the all time best, but Pynchon's 'A screaming . . . ' is my personal choice.

Answer 6

I was awed by the opening line of E. E. "Doc" Smith's "Triplanetary" the first of the lensmanseries.

"Two thousand million or so years ago two galaxies were colliding: or rather passing through each other."

How's that for taking the long view?

Answer 7

The dark man fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed. (Which is, incidentally, also the last line of the same series)

The Dark Tower-Stephen King

Answer 8

"The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed"

Volume 1 The Gunslinger - The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King.

Answer 9

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.

The Catcher in the Rye. J.D. Salinger

Answer 10

Can I explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower-block? Of course I can explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower-block. I'm not a bloody idiot.

Nick Hornby - A Long Way Down.