Thursday, February 1, 2024

Memorable First Lines: A Quiz by Susan Van Kirk

 


First lines often make great books memorable, and they’re quoted for years. Writers, even now, are told to make their first lines memorable. Consider the first line of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Three words. I’ll bet you can remember them from your high school English class. I thought I’d collect some first lines from books in my earlier life as an English teacher. Do you know the title of the books that contain these first lines? The answers are at the end, but don’t peek.

 


1. “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

2. “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.”

 

3. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”       

 

4. “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

 

5. “When Caroline Meeber boarded the afternoon train for Chicago, her total outfit consisted of a small trunk, a cheap imitation alligator-skin satchel, a small lunch in a paper box, and a yellow leather snap purse, containing her ticket, a scrap of paper with her sister’s address in Van Buren Street, and four dollars in money.”

 

6. “To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth."


 

7. “The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.”

 

8. “A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with

women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak and studded with iron spikes.”

 

9. “I went back to Devon School not long ago, and found it looking oddly newer than when I was a student there fifteen years before.”

 

10. “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.” [So, I had to throw in an easy one.]

 

11. “When he was three, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.”

 

12. “My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call.”

 

 

 

 

 


Answers: 1. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald  3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen  4. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier  5. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser   6. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck  7. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane  

8. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne 9. A Separate Peace by John Knowles  10. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell  11. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee  12. The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy


Photo by Tamarcus Brown on Unsplash.com

 

19 comments:

  1. I failed. I recognized a few, guessed a couple, hadn't read three, and was clueless on most.

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    1. I'd have the same problem in your former life in the business world!

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  2. Fun! Junior year American lit revisited. When my kids were in middle and high school, I "read along" with my own copies of their required reading so we had something non-controversial to discuss in the car. I admit that three trips through GREAT EXPECTATIONS was a stretch.

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    1. OMG. Great Expectations...I'd agree. Moby Dick was one that I had to read way too often in undergrad college classes. I have a hatred for that book to this day. But what a great conversation you had for road trips.

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  3. What a great idea, Margaret! I'm sorry that didn't occur to me. (My other regret along those lines was not thinking of the "book on every bed" on Christmas morning. I always gave books, but never thought to put one on the bed for the kids to read if they woke up early.)

    I got some, but not all, of the first lines.

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  4. Good for you, Kathleen! Some of these are pretty tough, like "Sister Carrie." Thinking back to those days, I'm not sure a book would have held my kids back!

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  5. As an English major, I'm embarrassed by how many I didn't know (but pleased with the ones I got right).

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  6. I love this post. I missed two, The Prince of Tides, and Sister Carrie, but I’ve not read them.

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    1. Kait, I think you win the prize today! I probably included Theodore Dreiser because I'm from the Midwest. And as for "Prince of Tides," I read it but also watched the movie. I can still hear Nick Nolte saying that first line. What a beautiful narrative style Pat Conroy had. Smooth as butter.

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  7. I only got a few right, but one of them was Sister Carrie. Must be the Midwest thing. Fun post, Susan.

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    1. I think you've got it....the Midwest thing! I should think about some more blog posts that invite audience participation!

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  8. Molly, I loved Sister Carrie.
    What a great post, Susan!

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    1. Oh, Marilyn...I'm having trouble at times with Anonymous too. I also loved "Sister Carrie." Glad you did too.

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  9. I missed Sister Carrie and Prince of Tides (thank you, I've always wanted to read Prince of Tides and now I'll put it on my TBR.) Got most of the others except Red Badge of Courage, Separate Peace, and Scarlet Letter. I read them all, but just didn't remember those first lines, but it's interesting how I felt those lines, as if I had a memory of the author's voice. Cool exercise! Shari, who sometimes pops up here as Anonymous

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  10. I think if I had mentioned these were American Lit books, you might have picked those up from the context clue, Shari. I have always loved the first line from "The Great Gatsby," but then that is one of my favorite books!

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  11. Replies
    1. Good. I'm glad you enjoyed going back to school!

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