Opening Lines from your Favourite Books

There is a lot online about Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice at the moment with 2013 being it's 200th anniversary. The first line from this book,
 “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
must be one of the most well known and quoted beginnings to any book. Consequently an article I found in the Telegraph, called 30 great opening lines in literature, including this and many other great classics caught my eye. It is great fun to read with many great book openers, from F Scott Fitzgerald to Franz Kafka included.
Anyway it got me thinking about my own favourites and I began a frenzy of ripping books off my shelves and taking a look, this blog post in mind. There were many smiles and reminiscences along the way, and a heap of rejections from books I love dearly, like American Pastoral by Philip Roth - 'The Swede.' That was it. From a writer who is famous for sentences that go on for days. Then there was East of Eden by John Steinback - 'The Salinas Valley is in Northern California.' Ok. Don't let these lines put you off however, these are great books and in context these first lines are crucial, but there were others more fascinating as an introduction that I wanted to share. Their front covers are pictured above.

So here are 10 opening lines from my favourite reads...

Precious Bane by Mary Webb
"It was at a love-spinning that I saw Kester first"

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
"There was no possibility of taking a walk that day."

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Bradley
"Even in high summer, Tintagel was a haunted place; Igraine, Lady of Duke Gorlois, looked out over the sea from the head-land."

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany."

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
"It was Napoleon who had such a passion for chicken that he kept his chefs working around the clock."

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers
"The town itself is dreary; not much is there except the cotton-mill, the two-room houses where the workers live, a few peach trees, a church with two coloured windows, and a miserable main street only a hundred yards long."

Germinal by Emile Zola
"Crossing the open plain, wading through the thick, dark ink of a starless night, a solitary figure followed the highway from Marchiennes to Montsou, which cut its paved pathway straight through ten kilometres of beet fields."

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
"When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun."

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
"Here is an account of a few years in the life of Quoyle, born in Brooklyn and raised in a shuffle of dreary upstate towns."  

The Blue Fox by Sjon
"Blue Foxes are so curiously like stones that it is a matter for wonder."  

Which ones would you choose?
I really enjoyed finding these and there were so many that I may do a sequal in a few months. It was refreshing to concentrate on the one sentence, some long forgotten, or even paid little attention to in the wake of the rest of the book. Some surprised me, others were like a microscopic insight on what is to come. Many made me smile. Retrospect enabled me to appreciate them in a particular way. Would any that are unfamiliar inspire you to look out for the book?

Its been ages since I have taken part in a good meme, so if this has inspired you to look out your own first-liners consider yourself memed, and let me know so I can share yours.

February Roundup

There is a suggestion of spring in the air, bulbs waking up, birdsong, brighter days, and an interminable need to get outside.

The end of the winter is in sight. What books have seen you through the dark days? Here is my reading life through February...

Read - One and a half books
Completed - The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Currently Reading -
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Literary Genius edited by Joseph Epstein
Adventures of a Waterboy by Mike Scott
The Natural Navigator by Tristan Gooley
The Last Elf by Silvana De Mari
TBR Pile - 128 according to GoodReads with 4 added this month...
Whiteout by Ken Follett
Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
Challenges - The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, which I am currently reading and enjoying, is part of #5 of my challenges to myself this year, to read 1 or 2 titles that came from our literary holidays. This one was my lucky dip prize from our Jane Austen holiday in Hampshire (2010) and a recommendation from that trip.
Wishlist Additions -
Sombrero Fallout by Richard Brautigan
Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner
Woods etc by Alice Oswald
Strands: A Year of Discoveries on the Beach by Jean Sprackland
Through the Woods: The English Woodland - April to April by H E Bates
Wild Hares and Hummingbirds: The Natural History of an English Village by Stephen Moss
Ethel and Ernest by Raymond Briggs
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
Discoveries -
Two interesting blogs have come my way...

• Me And My Big Mouth for book reviews and more
• On Friday where two writers take up the challenge to come up with a new short piece of writing every friday.

There have also been some really interesting articles about this February...

• Jane Austen Stamps - in pictures with all 6 novels represented. Royal Mail have released the stamps to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice.
• The Book Lovers Guide to New York - Part 1
• The Book Lovers Guide to New York - Part 2
• Decline in Independent Bookshops continues with 73 closures in 2012
• Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice at 200: looking afresh at a classic with well known writers and critics casting their eye over the characters in this well-loved book.
• eReader vs the book: What's best for me? Considering the ecological viewpoints of this argument.
• Awesome HARRY POTTER book sculptures and more

Events -
World Book Night is happening on the 23rd April (see the link on my sidebar) and I have been chosen as a giver again. This year I will be giving away copies of The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, an important novel that I enjoyed in 2009. Use the link to read my review.
The British Library in London is currently exhibiting Murder in the Library: An A-Z of Crime Fiction. It is in the Folio Society Gallery from 18th Jan to 12th May 2013 and free to attend, celebrating crime fiction from 'its origins in the early 19th century through to contemporary Nordic Noir, taking in the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the first appearance of Miss Marple and the fiendish plots of Dr Fu Manchu along the way.' Sounds thrilling, as well as good fun.

February was quite a full month, what is in store for March?...

Novel Holiday - Jane Austen in Hampshire

You may remember back in April I spoke about organising a holiday in Hampshire for some friends, our first Novel Holiday, with a set book in an area that included places to visit that celebrated either the book or the author. We got back just over a week ago.

We stayed in a lovely wood cabin in the New Forest. There were 4 of us altogether, myself L, and S, A and R. R stayed for 4 nights, and the rest of us had the cabin for a week.

Although Bath is heavily associated with Jane Austen, Hampshire is where she lived most of her life so it was perfect for this type of holiday.

Our set books were Emma by Austen, and also a contemporary novel, The Blue Fox by Sjon, which we were to discuss on holiday. I didn't know how that part of the holiday would go, but I needn't have worried because the discussions went really well.

We talked about Emma on the first morning after breakfast. Accompanied by a handout with some context, the conversation covered opinions about the book and the characters, and went on to include feminism and the rights of women, marriage, and also the historical contexts of the book. Not everyone had finished the book, but the discussion still went on for an hour and a half anyway. R, who had read all of Jane Austen's novels years ago, really enjoyed re-reading Emma so much, she said she wanted to read the others again. A had not read it but wanted to at the end of the discussion and started the book while on holiday. When we had finished talking, it seemed a good time to have our bookswap, where a number of books found new homes. I came away with 2...The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw, and The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.

The following day was our Jane Austen day. We visited Steventon first, where her father and brother had been rectors at the village church, and Jane lived her earlier years in a house that is no longer there. You can see her brothers grave in the church yard and the setting is really peaceful. We then drove to Chawton where her house in the village is now a Jane Austen museum. She moved here after living in Bath and there is a lot of memorabilia here, as well as information about her life. The table where she wrote her later novels, Emma and Persuasion, is still there. The gardens are also pretty, as is the village. We didn't have time to walk to the church but Jane's sister and mother are buried there. Lastly we drove to Winchester where Jane is buried in the cathedral. You can see her grave stone as well as the monument to her life and work. The cathedral has also exhibited a display about her life.

The following day we spoke about The Blue Fox. I had enjoyed it, as had R. S and A were more perplexed by it and A felt she hadn't understood it at all. Our discussion, which took about an hour, confirmed this to her. We examined the format of the book, the style, and also its 3 parts. As we did this, more meanings came to light. We also discussed whether the references to Icelandic legends enhanced or detracted from the book, with none of us knowing the background to them. Two of us thought that it added to the mysteriousness, but two of us felt they were missing out on some of it.

After talking we did our lucky dip book. I got Ines of my Soul by Isabelle Allende. We then talked about our recommendations and I compiled a list, as well as a list of all the other books that had come up during our discussions, to send on after the holiday.

Of course we did lots of other things that were not book related...walking in the New Forest, a visit to Salisbury, and also a day at Mottisfont Abbey (a National Trust property with beautiful gardens full of butterflies, including a Victorian walled garden). We also watched the excellent and very funny Lost in Austen series on DVD.

Everyone has said they really enjoyed the holiday and would be interested in doing another one next year. No one said that they were sick of Jane Austen at the end, mainly because we didn't overdo it and interspersed it with other things too. Hampshire and the New Forest were perfect for this. A beautiful part of the country. In fact A went back and immediately watched a film version of Emma while finishing the book, and wants to buy a copy of Lost in Austen.

I really enjoyed it. I thought the balance of stuff to do worked very well, the discussions went better than I could have hoped, and I loved the whole week. I also enjoyed putting the whole thing together.

I am currently researching our holiday for next year.

Emma by Jane Austen

The edition that I read of this classic was a lovely Hamish Hamilton Novel Library edition that was published in 1952. It was in a box of second hand books that a friend gave to me some time ago, and has a fresh green cover not unlike the one to your left.

As I have mentioned previously about my Jane Austen holiday coming up in August, this is one of the books set for the trip. It is my fourth Jane Austen (I have previously read Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey), and also completes my personal directional reading challenge for this year to 'read another Jane Austen'.

For those of you who are not familiar with the novel and have not seen any of the film or TV adaptations, this tells the story of the well-to-do families residing in the fictional town of Highbury in Surrey in the earlier part of the 19th century during the period of one year. The main character of the title, Emma Woodhouse, is 'handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition...and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.' So says the first sentence in the whole book. The trouble is, Emma has a high opinion of herself and fancies herself as a bit of a matchmaker for those around her.

For herself she claims she will never marry, but as we are introduced to the other members of this genteel society, Emma, with kindness in her heart, tries to predict matches and cajole them into reality. In doing so, she gets herself and others into pickle of dashed hopes and unpredictable preferences.

We accompany Emma on her journey from bright and intelligent young girl, oblivious to her own vanities, to a more mature and balanced young woman who retains all of her warmth and generocity but in a much more balanced and attractive way.

We are also introduced in detail to the other friends and residents of Highbury, not only by character, but their all important social standing within this close knit society. The many characters and their interactions are the bulk of this story. We rarely step outside the comforts of this. It is their subtleties of manner and interaction that drive this novel, centering around Emma.

Austen's style is known well enough for her books to be a surprise these days. Many love her enclosed worlds of the higher classes of early 19th century England, the measured behaviour, the concentration upon marrying the right man and bettering your position. You can read between the lines about gender roles and the essentials of health and securing your future, but rarely does anything more topical or gritty infiltrate her stories, and this is her strength for some, and her weakness for others.

Personally I welcome the little holiday from the harsh realities of life that her stories provide. I know that there are wars, poverty, prostitution and child cruelties all just beyond the covers of the novel, and widely covered by other great novelists, many of whom I also love reading. But sometimes Jane Austen provides an enjoyable alternative. Her books are not without talent or importance, and the concerns of her characters are very real.

I really enjoyed reading Emma. I found her suitably naive and slightly annoying at first and therefore enjoyed her development. I grew fond of many of the other characters too, the dependable Mr Knightley, the warmth of the Westons, the intrigue of Jane Fairfax, the ridiculous Eltons, the comedy and sadness of Miss Bates. As the preface of my edition says, 'Jane Austen's laughter is of the quiet and private kind, mocking but sympathetic, sometimes genteel, often sly, seldom unkind and never cruel. And of all her books Emma has the most of this gentle gaiety'.

I have certainly found it the lightest of Austen's novels that I have read.

Jane Austen herself said, 'I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.' I think many, including myself, have and will enjoy reading about her, as well as indulging their need to enter Emma's world for a while. I am looking forward to discussing this book with my friends on holiday to Hampshire in August.

A reading group guide to Emma can be found by clicking the link.

To read an essay written by the Australian Jane Austen society entitled Emma -Understanding Jane Austen's World click the link.

Jane Austen Holiday

I was looking for a different type of holiday earlier this year, a literary holiday. I wanted to see what was on offer so I took a look on the internet. I have seen a few in the past, but abroad. When I looked in January the ones that I found were really expensive for just a few days, so I decided to do my own.

I spoke to some of my friends who are avid readers to see what their response would be, and they were very enthusiastic and thought it was a lovely idea.

I started looking into locations. There are a lot to choose from in the British Isles, some very obvious like Haworth for the Brontes (which we have already visited), and others less obvious if you use your imagination. I wanted an area we were less familiar with or we hadn't visited extensively before, with some nice countryside, and a literary connection, either to an author or a novel, or both.

After scouting for accomodation, and also other things to do (we don't want to be literaried out!) Hampshire, the home of Jane Austen won for our first Novel Holiday.

Going for a week, later in the year, we have agreed to read 2 books to discuss while away, one a Jane Austen naturally, and another contemporary novel, just to mix it up a bit. I already had a copy of Emma to read and nobody else had read it, so that was easily settled. Emma it was.

The second novel was more tricky, and it felt quite a responsibility to pick, not necessarily a likeable book, not too heavy or too easy, but interesting enough for people to want to read it and provide discussion material on our holiday. I settled on The Blue Fox by Sjon. I have heard quite a bit about it on the blogs, lots of interesting reviews and recommendations, and it seemed to offer something for everyone, plus it is not too long.

There are four of us, and we have a lovely wooden chalet in the New Forest itself. There are lots of Jane Austen locations to visit nearby, where she lived, the areas that influenced her, and Winchester cathedral where she is buried. There is also the forest, the coast and lots of other things to do. It is a while off yet but I am really looking forward to it.

If it goes well this year there may well be scope for doing other locations in the future. Anyway, I am about a third the way through Emma, and really enjoying it, so I had better get back to it.