Great First Lines: The Answers, Part I
Congratulations to Heidi, who guessed First Line #3 of my Great First Lines Challenge a couple of weeks ago, and Liz, who guessed #3 and #5! Sorry for the delay in posting the answers—I wanted to give more people a chance to guess, if they were so inclined.
Here are the answers to First Lines #1 through 5:
1. Once upon a time, in a gloomy
castle on a lonely hill, where there were thirteen clocks that wouldn’t go,
there lived a cold, aggressive Duke, and his niece, the Princess Saralinda. --The
Thirteen Clocks, by James Thurber.
- Perfectly sets up the mood of the
book, which is fairy-tale-esque (without being twee), gothic, and just a tiny
bit arch. That word “aggressive” is the tip-off that we’re in the hands of a
master.
2. Walking back to camp through
the swamp, Sam wondered whether to tell his father what he had seen. --The
Trumpet of the Swan, by E.B. White .
- This isn’t one of the showier first lines out there—nothing dramatic happens, just a kid walking back from a swamp. But in a move that’s typical of EB White’s understated brilliance, it sets up all kinds of questions in the reader’s mind, like: what on earth did Sam see in that swamp? And why wouldn’t he want to tell his father? It’s a testament to White’s skill at bringing us into Sam’s world that when the answer—a Trumpeter Swan’s nest—is revealed, it doesn’t feel anticlimactic at all.
3. When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie
house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home. --The
Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton.
- Atmospheric, succinct, character-setting.
It really is hard to believe Hinton was only sixteen when she wrote this..
4. Linderwall was a large
kingdom, just east of the Mountains of Morning, where philosophers were highly
respected and the number five was fashionable. --Dealing
with Dragons, by Patricia Wrede.
- Like The Thirteen Clocks, Dealing
With Dragons draws on familiar fairy-tale fare: a kingdom, a princess, a
dragon. But the slightly wonky opening (“the number five was fashionable”??) is
a big hint that the usual fairy-tale plot is about to be set spinning crazily
across the room.
5. Mrs. Jane Tabby could not
explain why all four of her children had wings. --Catwings,
by Ursula LeGuin
- I can’t actually think of
anything clever or illuminating to say about this first line. It seems to me to
be utterly complete in itself, which is, I guess, enough of a testament.
I'll save the answers to first
lines #6 through 10 for my next post in a day or two. If anyone wants to try to
guess them, the
original post is here.
