It Was a Dark and Stormy Night...

Thanks to Tbogg for pointing me towards this list of the 100 Best Opening Lines From Novels. Predictably, #1 is "Call me Ishmael," from Moby Dick, but there's lots of unexpected surprises. One of my favorite novels, and the inspiration for the title of this blog, Notes from Underground clocks in at #31:

31. I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground (1864; trans. Michael R. Katz)

Here are some of my other favorites that showed up on the list:

5. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. —Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)

My friend Dave has the first several passages to this novel memorized, and will recite them for you while intoxicated.

17. 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 (1916)

This line horrified me as a high school student. "Oh Lord," I thought, "is this entire book going to be gobbledegook like this?"

30. The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. —William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)

38. All this happened, more or less. —Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

59. It was love at first sight. —Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (1961)

64. In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)

If they were doing all time best Closing Lines from Novels, Gatsby would be #1. Or possibly Tale of Two Cities. But more likely, Gatsby. If I was better-read, I might try to make up that list myself.

Reading this sort of thing always makes me feel like a dunce. I've read barely any of the books on the list's second half. I suppose it would be a good way to find out recommendations of classic novels that maybe aren't the most famous books. If, unlike me, you had time for novels amidst all the film-viewing and blogging.