Next week the Morning Book Group will meet to discuss The News of the World. After the
discussion the voting continues for next year's line up. We will vote in books from several
genres: mystery, classic, non fiction, biography. In today's posting I am sharing the first
sentences from the Classic Books under consideration. I am always drawn to that first sentence
and that last sentence in a book, the bookends in the structure of the book. Does the author
put more importance and emphasis on the beginning sentence, to pull you in; and, in that
last sentence to give closure, to set the ending? Let's look at the first 2 sentences from
the following books under consideration:
- Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway....."In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels."
- 1984 by George Orwell...."It was a bright cold day, in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him."
- Little Women by Louis May Alcott....Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents, grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. "it's so dreadful to be poor!" signed Meg, looking down at her old dress."
- Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier..."Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me."
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde....."The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink -flowering thorn. From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-colored blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flame-like as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion." (Remember this book was written in 1890.)
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding...."The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon. Though he had taken off his school sweater and trailed it now from one hand, his grey shirt stuck to him and his hair was plastered to his forehead."
- Do you have a recommendation for a Classic Book that would provoke a good discussion? If so, please share..........