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Doris Lessing, The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and FiveĪ destiny that leads the English to the Dutch is strange enough but one that leads from Epsom into Pennsylvania, and thence into the hills that shut in Altamont over the proud coral cry of the cock, and the soft stone smile of an angel, is touched by that dark miracle of chance which makes new magic in a dusty world. The cabin-passenger wrote in his diary a parody of Descartes: “I feel discomfort, therefore I am alive,” then sat pen in hand with no more to record. Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The Last Days of Pompeii “Ho, Diomed, well met! Do you sup with Glaucus to-night?” said a young man of small stature, who wore his tunic in those loose and effeminate folds which proved him to be a gentleman and a coxcomb. This is but a tentative beginning we welcome your contributions. We begin with Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who penned the most famous dead-weight line: “It was a dark and stormy night.” We end with the first sentence of the first published novel by John Edward Williams, one of our favorite novelists, who went on to write the spare, near-perfect Stoner, giving hope to clunky writers everywhere. Our highly subjective list includes “worst firsts” from famous and infamous writers. Here are 10 opening doozies, lines that make it difficult to continue reading.
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We’ve all noticed them: first sentences of a novel, either overwrought or just plain embarrassing, that elicit a groan or a smack of the forehead.