The best opening sentence in literature is?

The self sucking opening scene from Huckleberry Finn

>>7454145
"Humanity… All of my suffering on this world has been at the hands of humanity, particularly women"

>>7454145
"Even Camilla had enjoyed masquerades, of the safe sort where the mask may be dropped at that critical moment it presumes itself as reality."

>>7454145
The one from Mason&Dixon

>>7454145
Call me Ishmael.

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

>>7454145
Well, I'm fucked.

"A meme-ing came across the sky."

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street.

Aujour'hui maman est morte.

i'm not sure i have an opinion on the matter but here are a few famous one that i expect would have shown up in this thread soon anyway:

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.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

>>7454145
"The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed."

"Call me Ishmael"

one of those

>>7454320
>I only read books my whiskey club recommends
*tips fedora*

>>7454276
Is that the original french version?

Shouldn't the English translation of it be "Today, Maman died" instead of "Maman died today"?

Welcome, Prince Arthas. The men and I are honored by your presence.

"thanks for purchasing my diary to be honest"

>>7454145
My whole life I've been a fraud.

It's so great it even makes me in a way sad that even if I become canon no work of mine will have an open this decent.

>>7454375
Well if we're going for a direct translation from French to English, it would probably be more accurate as "Today mother is dead."
It sounds better as "Mom died today," in my opinion.

>>7454421
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/lost-in-translation-what-the-first-line-of-the-stranger-should-be

Ryan Bloom disagrees with you

"bib bib bicu bicu big man jeans apron velhi chest machine poopy diarrhea smell stinky xd dog eat my poopoo"

>>7454230
Marquez says "snow" here; if it was translated as ice, you read a shitty version. Should've learned Spanish, pleb.

>>7454375
The comma is ruining this heavy/monolithic assertion.
Besides, "Today Maman died" seems grammatically incorrect (does it?), while "Aujourd'hui maman est morte" is acceptable to a native speaker.
I guess I prefer the second translation.

>>7454452
Even the Greeks enjoyed their stories with minor variations.

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>>7454452
que?

>>7454452
the whole point was that ice resembles crystals

>>7454452
>>7454599
>>7454603

ICE
Cooler than the coldest cube, dude
And when I'm micin' boy I'm known to get rude
Criminal background
it's time to get down
I use a silencer, don't like the loud sound
Off my mic blast
you better run fast
The last punk that popped junk
passed
Spit on his grave,
laughed
jumped in my stretch
Signed his bitch an autograph

20 years later I still remember nigga.

>>7454145
"TOSHINO KYOKO!"

Anger be now your song immortal one

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>>7454452
kill yourself, you monoglot pseudo

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

>>7454452
But I did read it in Spanish, faggot.
It said "hielo", which means ice, not snow, it would be "nieve".

Get a better translation next time.

>>7454214
The one that made me put the book back because it made zero sense to me?

I would venture to say, since it's "literature" and not "novels", probably the first three lines of Song of Myself.

>>7454175

that sentence like the rest of the book is highly flawed but fun nonetheless. But hardly the "greatest", because it IS flawed as fuck

>>7454222

on its own? nah

>>7454230

fucking no, Marquez is mediocre

>>7454256

it's pretty good

>>7454276

fucking no

>>7454281

flawed but great

>>7454323

neither of those, and the first one is actually fucking awful

>>7454400

bad

>>7454214

nah

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

" Aujourd’hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas." I fucking love it.

>>7455079
I value and appreciate all your opinions

>>7454165
well memed

Not the best by any means (because that type of superlative is silly), but I really like the start of Dhalgren:

>to wound the autumnal city. So howled out for the world to give him a name. The in-dark answered with wind.

>>7455079
Yes, Call me Ishmael is great on its own. It already has you asking questions.

Who is this person?
Does this mean Ishmael isn't his name?
If not, why Ishmael?
Why might he be using a fake name?

>>7454222
This t b h.

So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

>>7454276
this

I like the one from Catch 22, it's considered a classic I know:
"It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain, he fell madly in love with him."

>>7455865
>posts 3 sentences
Are you in the right thread?

>>7454145
Don't know about sentence, bit the opening of Lolita is pretty based.

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In my younger years or maybe in the beginning, I can't remember - I saw the child awake to find he'd become a television tuned to a dead channel as he faced the firing squad halfway through the journey of life in a hole in the ground surrounded by heads and bodies when a grand Buck Mulligan came screaming across the sky
-Call me Lo-li-ta

>>7454320
>get raped

Do you also listen to The Biggest Problem In The Universe?

OY FUCKING CUMSWAPPER

The sky was the color of a Yotsuba imageboard set to its default theme.

>>7454320
go back to /b/

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

>>7455079
Someone this terrible at spacing must surely be retarded.

And I was right.

>>7456132
Not a particularly good opening sentence. Still, probably one of the greatest books of all time.

>>7454320
you are supposed to maintain that rape, like patriarchy and the Holocaust, is a hoax.
You should say, "have sex the normal way nature intended for you'
Have fun at your active shooter incident, psycho.

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"They're out there. Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them."

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned :
- Introibo ad altare Dei.

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

>>7455079
Your opinions are whats bad

>>7454145
A memeing comes across the sky

>>7454222
Fucking right

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’ son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus. . . .

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>>7456487
Not a sentence.

>>7454145
Who's there?

"It was a pleasure to burn."

Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure.

>>7456597
Not as good as the part when he senses Clarisse's presence shortly after.

>>7456456
>Miss Lonelyhearts on there

YES

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

>>7455165

come on, you know that's not what Melville was trying to do. And don't go "le author is dead", because it's very obvious to anyone who isn't poorly reading it that he was just trying to start a novel in a quick, open manner.

>Does this mean Ishmael isn't his name?
>If not, why Ishmael?
>Why might he be using a fake name?

Yeah and if you read the rest of the fucking book you'll understand that it's never developed along those lines, so none of those questions matter

>>7454375
>>7454421
>>7454463
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/lost-in-translation-what-the-first-line-of-the-stranger-should-be

>>7458199
This is bait, right? Right?

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Jemand musste Josef K. verleumdet haben…

Because it's the only sentence in the whole book told as a third-person.

>>7455079
>The Recognitions
>flawed
Care to explain? Or are you just pulling that from your ass?

All happy families are more or less dissimilar; all unhappy ones are more or less alike,' says a great Russian writer in the beginning of a famous novel (Anna Arkadievitch Karenina, transfigured into English by R.G. Stonelower, Mount Tabor Ltd., 1880)

>>7454145
>My suffering left me sad and gloomy.
>Academic study and the steady, mindful practice of religion slowly brought me back to life.

En un lugar de la Mancha de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme... etc

>>7458238
Use some critical thinking skills and figure it out yourself. Im not going to spoonfeed you

>>7458229
What? The only one? How?

Is it different in german or something?

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.
popped a stiffy

>>7455079
holy, you typed the exact opposite to everything but Anna Karenina.

What a turbo pleb I don't even

>>7458411
>Im not going to spoonfeed you

If you have a legitimate criticism, there should be no good reason to hide it. Since you don't seem to, we can only assume your'e a delusional idiot.

>>7458423
die

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>>7458835

>>7454978
MATOI RYUKO

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>>7454165
When did /r9k/ write a book?

>>7458411
Translation: I'm just spouting shit about a book I've never read. Please rape my face.