Last week’s newsletter about opening lines in literature sparked some of the most thoughtful replies I’ve received so far. Thank you. If you missed it, you can read it here. You also shared some of your favourites - some familiar, some surprising - and as I read through them, I started noticing some patterns.
It seems we’re drawn to many of the same beginnings: the outsider looking in, the ordinary that hides something strange, the sudden confession that pulls you closer before you even know the character’s name.
A few of you mentioned lines that begin mid-motion or the prophetic ones that seem to know how the story will end before it even begins. The weather openers made an appearance too (“It was a dark and stormy night…”), and then there were the first lines that look straight at you and start talking, as if the book itself has decided to break the fourth wall and let you in on the secret.
Here are just a few that readers sent in:
“If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.
The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.
We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.
Here is a small fact: You are going to die.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes.
What stayed with me was how so many opening lines do the same quiet thing. They don’t just begin a story; they decide where the reader stands, inside or outside, witness or accomplice. They’re both introductions and invitations, a way of saying, Here’s how we’ll speak to each other from now on.
My favourite at the moment? “I am a ridiculous man.” Dostoevsky. A line that collapses distance at once: confessional, ironic, and entirely aware of its own performance.
Your turn
If you missed last week’s note, it’s not too late. Which first line from literature is your favourite? Send me a note at info@thestorystation.co.za.
PS: Next week we talk endings. The natural conclusion, apparently. Unless I get distracted by something shiny mid-sentence in which case, we’ll just call that foreshadowing.