Book with best opening paragraph - Page 5

jason_t · #41 10-23-2005, 04:13 PM

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, "No, I don't want to watch TV!" Raise your voice--they won't hear you otherwise--"I'm reading! I don't want to be disturbed!" Maybe they haven't heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: "I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!" Or if you prefer, don't say anything; just hope they'll leave you alone.

jason_t · #42 10-23-2005, 04:14 PM

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. ta.

Blarg · #43 10-23-2005, 04:15 PM

It's time for people to start putting up the names of the stuff they're quoting. I think I'm guessing pretty well, but nobody's going to know how to pursue reading a book further without the title.

By the way, is that 100 Years of Solitude?

private joker · #44 10-23-2005, 04:17 PM

[ QUOTE ]
It's time for people to start putting up the names of the stuff they're quoting. I think I'm guessing pretty well, but nobody's going to know how to pursue reading a book further without the title.

By the way, is that 100 Years of Solitude?

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you look at the subject line of the post you just wrote? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Blarg · #45 10-23-2005, 04:17 PM

This is the first time in OOT I've ever seen anyone besides me mention Italo Calvino, and it's gratifying to see. He's one of my favorites, and one hell of a good writer.

private joker · #46 10-23-2005, 04:18 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. ta.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good call Jason -- because nobody has posted this yet. You're on the ball with it! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Blarg · #47 10-23-2005, 04:18 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's time for people to start putting up the names of the stuff they're quoting. I think I'm guessing pretty well, but nobody's going to know how to pursue reading a book further without the title.

By the way, is that 100 Years of Solitude?

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you look at the subject line of the post you just wrote? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL, no. I don't think I ever look at 'em!

jason_t · #48 10-23-2005, 04:21 PM

A man went to knock at the king's door and said, Give me a boat. The king's house had many other doors, but this was the door for petitions. Since the king spent all his time sitting at the door for favors (favors being offered to the king, you understand), whenever he heard someone knocking at the door for petitions, he would pretend not to hear, and only when the continuous pounding of the bronze doorknocker became not just deafening, but positively scandalous, disturbing the peace of the neighborhood (people would start muttering, What kind of king is he if he won't even answer the door), only then would he order the first secretary to go and find out what the supplicant wanted, since there seemed no way of silencing him. Then, the first secretary would call the second secretary, who would give orders to the first assitant who would, in turn, give orders to the second assitant, and so on all the way down the line to the cleaning woman, who, having no one else to give orders to, would half-open the door and ask through the crack, What do you want. The supplicant would state his business, that is, he would ask what he had come to ask, then he would wait by the door for his request to trace the path back, person by person, to the king. The king, occupied as usual with the favors being offered him, would take a long time to reply, and it was no small measure of his concern for the happiness and well-being of his people that he would, finally, resolve to ask the first secretary for an authoritative opinion in write, the first secretary, needless to say, would pass on the command to the second secretary, who would pass it on to the the third secretary, and so on down once again to the cleaning woman, who would give a yes or a no depending on what kind of mood she was in.

jason_t · #49 10-23-2005, 04:32 PM

Above the door frame is a long, narrow plaque of enamelled metal. The black letters set against a white background say Central Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths. Here and there the enamel is cracked and chipped. The door is an old door, the most recent layer of brown paint is beginning to peel, and the exposed grain of the wood is reminiscent of a striped pelt. There are five windows along the facde. As soon as you cross the threshold, you notice the smell of old paper. It's true that not a day passes without new pieces of paper entering the Central Registry, papers referring to individuals of the male sex and of the female sex who continue to be born in the outside world, but the smell never changes, in the first place, because the fate of all paper, from the moment it leaves the factory, is to begin to grow old, in the second place, because on the older pieces of paper, but often on the new paper too, not a day passes without someone's inscribing it with the causes of death and the respective places and dates, each contributing its own particular smells, not always offensive to the olfactory mucous membrane, a case in point being the aromatic effluvia which, from time to time, waft lightly through the Central Registry, and which the more discriminating noses identity as a perfume that is half rose and half chrysanthemum.

Blarg · #50 10-23-2005, 04:41 PM

Those two seemed bloated and put me to sleep.