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marty(r)
climber
beneath the valley of ultravegans
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Topic Author's Original Post - May 7, 2005 - 10:50pm PT
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So what are the best/most classic/most memorable opening lines to a
(fictional or real) adventure story. Think outside of climbing box.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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"Call me Ishmael" the first line to the great American Epic... obsessed captain, raging nature, death and distruction, only one survivor... who tells the tale...
many obscure passages... like "recycled air" after the people on the forecastle violate the pythagorean creed ("don't eat beans") the natural consequence resulting in the air the officers on the poop deck breathed in....
it is there, see what you missed! your high school english teacher probably didn't point that one out to you (do they require reading it in high school anymore?)
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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2nd runner up- "It was a dark and Stormy night." Sure this one has been done to death by Snoopy and others, but, it actually is the first line of "A Wrinkle in Time," by M. L'engle.
But the winner, inmho, Is "Ya Bolyen." The first line from "Notes from the Underground," by F. Dostoyevski. The general, literal transalation is, " I am sick." But, in Russian, there is no verb 'to be' in the present tense. The 'am', or 'is' is implied, so, in Russian, you say I sick, or I doctor, etc, but it's not the caveman talk it would sound like in english; however, to my mind, at least, it gives a much closer association between the speaker and the condition. When the 'underground' man says he is sick. he is saying something much closer to the soul than, "I don't feel good," or,"I'm bummed." though those are both included in it. The whole rest of the story builds, exponentially, from that line, in a way I don't know how you'd attempt, in english.
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dirtbag
climber
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"It seemed like a good idea at the time..."
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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another one
might not be the actual first line, and I am paraphrasing from memory.
"3:00 am, we started with a breakfast of strong coffee, pancakes and Beans."
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Flash
Ice climber
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"Well now, I would say that they are a little off course"
Teacher at Wolverine HS as he sees Communist paratroopers landing in the field and thinks they are U.S. paratroopers practicing.
Opening scene in Red Dawn.
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Mountain Man
Trad climber
Outer space
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"Last night I dreamed of Mandalay..."
Rebecca by Daphne De Maurier
"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. "
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
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dirtbag
climber
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"She wore a slinky, black, low-cut cocktail dress..."
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Shack
Trad climber
So. Cal.
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"A SQUAT grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State's motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY."
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Hey Werner, cool! but are you suggesting:
"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water."?
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2tallclimber
Trad climber
OC
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"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." Tale of Two Cities.
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maculated
Trad climber
San Luis Obispo, CA
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"I can see by my watch, without takin gmy hand from the left grip of the cycle, that it is eight thirty in the morning." - Pirsig, _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_
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Bob Jones
Trad climber
san luis obispo
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oh dam it.
" ...a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away....."
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Dragon with Matches
climber
Bamboo Grove
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"The order to abandon ship was given at 5 p.m. For most of the men, however, no order was needed because by then everybody knew that the ship was done and that it was time to give up trying to save her. There was no show of fear or even apprehension. They had fought unceasingly for three days and they had lost. They accepted their defeat almost apathetically. They were simply too tired to care."
-Alfred Lansing, "Endurance"
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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"A screaming comes across the sky."
(Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow)
"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
(William Gibson, Neuromancer)
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marty(r)
climber
beneath the valley of ultravegans
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Topic Author's Reply - May 8, 2005 - 11:31am PT
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"I'm 24 years old and I have these dreams." ('ball four'--later pinched for 'death valley days.')
"horses, dogs, men. no one gets out of life alive." (toward the end of 'hud')
"quite an experience to live in fear...?" ('blade runner')
"his was an age old question, How do i get some money right now?" (treasure of the sierra madre)
"abandon all hope ye who enter here" (the divine comedy)
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marty(r)
climber
beneath the valley of ultravegans
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Topic Author's Reply - May 8, 2005 - 11:38am PT
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"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix..." (the howl)
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John Vawter
Social climber
San Diego
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"Did you spot that great long streak of blood on the road over from Chamonix? Twenty yards long I'd say." Patey
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." Thompson
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