(no subject)

[fajrdrako]

From widget_alley:

1. Choose five of your all time favorite books
2. Take the first sentence of the first chapter and make a list in your journal.
3. Don't reveal the author or the title of the book.
4. Now everyone try and guess.

I love these 'first sentence' things. Just for fun, I'm going to do it with books I don't have to look up, so forgive me if I misquote a little. Just in order to fool everyone, I did not choose any of the Lymond books.

1. There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.



2. When I was very young I used to dream about a city, which was strange, because it was before I knew what a city was.



3. Bifocal glasses are asthma. All those words are spelled correctly. I looked them up. [This one is a dead giveaway to anyone who has read this book.]



4. With one particular horse, called Nugget, he embraces.



5. Both moons were high, dimming the light of all but the brightest stars. [I've been wanting to reread this one. Maybe being reminded of it here tonight is the incentive I need.]

Comments

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

No. 3 is Dolly and the Bird of Paradise - I can remember doing a double take the first time I read the opening lines. *g*

No. 5 is saying Guy Gavriel Kay to me, but I don't have much idea which book. ::ponders:: Either Tigana, or more likely, Sailing to Sarantium - or am I hallucinating?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You're right on both. Everyone did a double take on the first lines of Dolly and the Bird of Paradise. Which is why it's such fun.

No. 5 is Tigana. I reread the Prologue last night and didn't want to put it down.

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

Heh. Tigana was a lucky guess, really, because I seem to remember two moons in G G Kay's world(s?).

As for BoP, that was tricksy, my dear, tricksy. No Lymond, she says, but slips in a Dunnett anyway. ;)

Are you going to reveal what the others are? I feel I should know 1 and 2, but the bells they're ringing are really exceedingly faint...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yup, two moons (I think) in Kay's world, which always seems to me the cut-rate way to turn history into fantasy. That is not a complaint - I love his books, regardless of the number of moons. I think it's cute.

Tricksy? I am proud. I learned from the master (mistress?) of tricksiness.

#1 is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.
#2 is The Chrysalids by John Wyndham. It's the one where I am least sure of the accuracy of the quote. (Though the gist must be right.)
#3 is Dolly and the Bird of Paradise by Dorothy Dunnett.
#4 is Equus by Peter Shaffer.
#5 is Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay.

[widget-alley.livejournal.com]

Oh DAMMIT. #1, #2, and #5 are SO familar but of course I can't place them!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's hard, isn't it, when it's out of context like this. I almost put in another one I love - which I could do very legitimately - the famous work that begins, "Who's there?" It is of course Hamlet but the phrase is so generic or innocuous or common that people usually don't get it.

Anyway, to ease your suspense: #1 is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte; #2 is The Chrysalids by John Wyndham (or an approximation thereof) and #5 is Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay.

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

I've read both Jane Eyre and The Chrysalids - hence the faint bells.

I think I'll attempt to confound and bewilder people with this in my lj.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, go for it! I love seeing what people choose.

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

Done. I'm pretty sure you've read at least three of my five. And there's no Dunnett, O'Brian or Tolkien - and no tricksiness, either. ;)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You're quite right, no Dunnett, O'Brien or Tolkien. We both know Tolkien would be too easy... unless of course one chose some really obscure Tolkien, which is possible. "A hobbit lived in a hole in the ground" doesn't cut it as major puzzles go.

[acampbell.livejournal.com]

I know the first one is from Jane Eyre...I must do this.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yup, Jane Eyre, good call. Yes, do it! I love seeing people's choices, and trying to guess or remember what they're from.

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

How about:
Once upon a time there was a little dog, and his name was Rover.

Or maybe:
Aegidius de Hammo was a man who lived in the midmost parts of the Island of Britain.

Nope. Still pretty obvious. ::sigh:: I'm very fond of both Roverandon and Farmer Giles.

And it doesn't feel right to consider The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, since who knows what first lines Tolkien would have used if they'd been published before his death?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

There was Eru, who in Arda is called Iluvatar; and he made first the Aunur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his though; and they were with him before aught else was made.

I like it. I don't know if that was how Tolkien would have started it if he'd done it all himself, but I'm not sure it matters: the book is the book, we'll never know what he would have done differently.

How about:
Lo! the golden dragon of God and Hell
the gloom of the woods of the world now gone
the woes of Men and the weeping of Elves

...Kind of obvious but fun too. (I don't mean the title is obvious, I wouldn't have remembered it, but it's obviously Tolkien.)