lyrical first pages

I almost always judge an old any book by its first page. If it draws me in with its creative phrasing, I'm almost sure I'll enjoy the whole thing.

I was adding this one to CK today:

"It all depends upon the manner of your entrance to the Castle of Adventure. One does not have to scale its beetling parapets or assault its scarps and frowning bastions; neither is one obliged to force with clamor and blaring trumpets and glittering gorgets the drawbridge and portcullis. Rather the pathway lies through one of those many little doors, obscure, yet easily accessible , latchless and boltless, to which the average person gives no particular attention, and yet which invariably lead to the very heart of this Castle Delectable. The whimsical chatelaine of this enchanted keep is a shy goddess. Circumspection has no part in her affairs, nor caution, nor practicality; nor does her eye linger upon the dullard and the blunderer. Imagination solves the secret riddle, and wit is the guide that leads the seeker through the winding, bewildering labyrinths."

from Hearts and Masks by Harold McGrath

"On a Friday in April, Penrod Schofield, having returned from school at noon promptly, on account of an earnest appetite, found lunch considerably delayed and himself (after a bit of simple technique) alone in the pantry with a large, open, metal receptacle containing about two-thirds of a peck of perfect doughnuts just come into the world.
The history of catastrophe is merely the history of irresistable juxtapositions. When Penrod left the pantry he walked slowly. In the large metal receptacle were left a small number of untouched doughnuts; while upon the shelf beside it were two further doughnuts, each with a small bite experimentally removed - and one of these bites, itself, lay, little mangled, beside the parent doughnut.
Nothing having been discovered, he seated himself gently at the lunch-table, and making no attempt to take part in the family conversation, avoided rather than sought attention. This decorum on his part was so unusual as to be the means of defeating its object..."

-Penrod Jashber by Booth Tarkington

I'm at work, and none of my books are handy, so let me get back to you with some thoughts....

I do the same! If a book's beginning is descriptive, especially if the phrasing is filled with very specific wording that leads to some kind of sensory imaging, then I almost always choose to read it. Sometimes, as in the case of this book, it takes a while to plow through...so, I figure it just takes longer....whats the rush?

From DRUMS by James Boyd & pictures by N.C.Wyeth

"A fire blazed in the deep, clay-plastered fireplace; logs of North Carolina pine dripped turpentine in the wave of flame and sent up scrolls of clotted smoke to join the night. The steady, golden light flooded the brick hearth, flooded broad, hand-dressed floor boards beyond, then softening, touched a wall of shaggy logs and gilded the barrel of a flintlock above a closed oak door. Against the ceiling it threw the shadow of a man who sat before it, a man rough-hewen, brown and rugged, so still, so like the room, that he might have been built there when it was built His short coat and his kilt were brown, his square beard was brown, only the twinkle of silver buttons and a touch of white stock at the throat showed him to be above the common rank."

"To say that one is born with a silver, or a golden spoon, in one's mouth, has been supposed to assert a rare good fortune. Has anyone ever questioned whether the human being so dowered, may not be most miserably strangled by that beautiful spoon? Even if the victim does not swallow the spoon himself, the nurse may strangle him with it, or some amiable enemy fill it with poison, or admiring friends may hold its shining bowl so near the heir's eyes that all that is good and grand in nature or in grace may be shut out; and the hopeless prey of a splendid fortune may see nothing but his own distorted image in it.
There are spoons and spoons - to be with the golden one, is not always to be happy, nor good, nor wise. We are moved to these reflections on spoons in general, by meditating on the history of a youth whose spoon was of the very goldenest."

- from A Million Too Much by Julia McNair Wright.

Lyz, I see you either right in front or just behind me when I'm adding these titles... great minds!

Ha! I see I haven't shared the first bit from Georgina of the Rainbows by Annie Fellows Johnston.

It's actually several pages long, but I've distilled it:

If old Jeremy Clapp had not sneezed his teeth into the fire that winter day this story might have had a more seemly beginning; but, being a true record, it must start with that sneeze, because it was the first happening in Georgina Huntingdon's life which she could remember distinctly….
If his eyes had suddenly dropped from their sockets upon the hearth, or his ears floated off from the sides of his head, she could not have been more terrified, for she had not yet learned that one’s teeth may be a separate part of one’s anatomy. It was such a terrible thing to see a man go to pieces in this un-dreamed of fashion, that she began to scream and writhe around in her high-chair until it nearly turned over….
It was the awful knowledge, vague though it was to her infant mind, that a human body could fly apart in that way….
It was several years before Georgina learned the truth, and the impression made by the accident grew into a lurking fear which often haunted her as time wore on. She never knew at what moment she might fly apart herself."

I was researching a title mentioned by StonyBrook, and found the digital book. It's really cool how you can actually page through the electronic copy, much as you would the physical book: http://archive.org/stream/blackbutterflies00stlu#page/n13/mode/2up

This first page is awesome!
The first sentence spins all the way onto the next page. And parsing it out as I typed it, it's so sensual, nearly lascivious.

"A long, broad column of crimson and golden sunlight stretches far across the polished rug-strewn floor, flecking with radiant dots the blood-red roses drooping dejectedly from their thorny stems, crushed tightly within the wide mouth of a huge brass jar; glinting boldly about the pictured face upon the wall, dappling the dusty, gilt-lettered volumes arranged so methodically along the shelves, taking unwonted liberties with the nude charms of a marble, vine-wreathed Bacchante, anon dipping roguishly into Daphne’s daintily-carved bosom in a vain endeavor to further explore her hidden loveliness; dancing prankishly, with audacious disregard for either reverence or dignity, about a hideous, bronze, snub-nosed, scowling image of Buddha flanked by a pair of squat, sardonic-looking idols, then prowling, searches the dim space and purpling shadows to reach, touch Lalage’s head, entangling itself within the mazy, loose abundance of hair, tipping each wayward tress into an irradiant blaze of glory, as she stands aghast at the silent atmosphere of gloom. For after the recent stealthy tread and low, muffled voices of the mourners – the place seems unearthly quiet, solemn, empty."

Black Butterflies by Berthe St. Luz

I added the second sentence to give context.

Is this trying to best Nathaniel Hawthorne?

Here's another attempt at filling the entire first page with one sentence:

"When my cousin Hortensia asked me one evening in the middle of the winter to go with her the following week to look at a "summer place" for her on the Maine coast, it crossed my mind for a moment that she was slightly mad; but the glance that I gave her as she sat in her rocking-chair, just out of the tempered light of the reading-lamp, with her dainty gray skirts spread about her and the firelight flickering on her calm features and white hands as she plied her needlework, showed nothing to warrant my suspicion."

from the first story in Under the Crust. Not nearly as good as any of the others above.

1> Hearts and Masks does indeed sound intriguing.

I, too, usually finish a book if the opening is fantastic--but that's probably because it's usually indicative of a well-written book worth finishing. And some novels just grab me from the get-go because I know I will like them. Even if the opener isn't particularly memorable in the literary cannon, it becomes memorable because of this: Persuasion's opening is in this vein for me: "Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall . . ."

Hands down, my favorite opening paragraph is from John Collier's His Monkey Wife, or Married to a Chimp:

"If thou be'st born to strange sights and if you don't mind picking your way through the untidy tropics of this, the globe, and this, the heart, in order to behold them, come with me into the highly colored Bargain Basement Toy Bazaar of the Upper Congo*. You shall return to England very shortly."

*It should be noted that the author, here, is making fun of colonialists, although he certainly exhibits his own prejudice, too, later in the book.

A first line that grabbed me, but did not induce me to read the novel, is from L. P. Hartley's The Go-Between: "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." But I first read it at a time when I was exploring resurrecting a spark best left alone, so it struck a chord with me. The book itself has never seemed like my kind of read.

Argh!
Two more to toss onto Mount TBR!

I may not continue with it this month, but I started reading Wise and Otherwise and I was enchanted by the first pages description.

"She stood with head bent a little on one side and a look of pleased eagerness on her face, surveying her handiwork. It was a beautiful room, a green and mossy carpet on the floor, a green tint to the paper on the wall, green borders to the white linen shades, heavy walnut furniture, cushioned in green, two dainty sofas in corresponding corners, another corner occupied with one of those delightful arrangements whose delightful name suggests its pleasant use – a what-not!"

It goes on to describe all the green and gold book bindings and all of the other pretty what-nots to be found around the room.

This seems to be a continuation of characters from other books. It's a good'un.

MDGentlereader is collecting "gentle reader" quotations, which got me to googling the phrase. I discovered a 1903 book of that title, which starts out:

What has become of the Gentle Reader? One does not like to think that he
has passed away with the stagecoach and the weekly news-letter; and that
henceforth we are to be confronted only by the stony glare of the
Intelligent Reading Public. Once upon a time, that is to say a
generation or two ago, he was very highly esteemed. To him books were
dedicated, with long rambling prefaces and with episodes which were
their own excuse for being. In the very middle of the story the writer
would stop with a word of apology or explanation addressed to the Gentle
Reader, or at the very least with a nod or a wink. No matter if the fate
of the hero be in suspense or the plot be inextricably involved.

"Hang the plot!" says the author. "I must have a chat with the Gentle
Reader, and find out what he thinks about it."

And so confidences were interchanged, and there was gossip about the
Universe and suggestions in regard to the queerness of human nature,
until, at last, the author would jump up with, "Enough of this, Gentle
Reader; perhaps it's time to go back to the story."

The Gentle Reader by Samuel McChord Crothers

I found the online edition of the book and added the link on the work page.
Then I checked out the author's Wikipedia page. Great guy!

He coined the term "bibliotherapy"

In Meditations on Votes for Women, he asks women to be "as modest and unobtrusive as men in expressing their opinions."

I think I love him.

>12 2wonderY: "as modest and unobtrusive as men in expressing their opinions." Hmmm. I don't think that will cause us any difficulty.

I like this first line.

"Far away on the almost bare line of the prairie horizon group of trees used to show. There was a tall one, and a short one, and then a tallish crooked one and another short one. And to my childish eyes they spelled l-i-f-e, as plainly as any word in my reader was spelled."

A Stepdaughter of the Prairie

>14 2wonderY: I like it...