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Forum games - First lines

This game is very simple: you try to guess what book the given first lines are from. The one to guess the correct book first will be the next to post their own, which everyone else will then try to guess, and so on. If it seems like no one gets it right, you can give additional hints.

I'll start with a modern classic:
When he was nearly thirteen my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right-angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh.

Start guessing, folks! :)

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Medusa on April 22, 2009 at 8:43pm

I said it was an existentialist novel. I had a book about existentialism from Dosoyevsky to Satre that I argued my case with. Oops, now I'm going to have to look up the exact title and editor of that!

Permalink Reply by Medusa on April 24, 2009 at 9:53am

OK. here are my lines:

"Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John.

Jonah--John--if I had been a Sam, I would have been a Jonah still--not because I have been unlucky for others, but because somebody or something has compelled me to be certain places at certain times, without fail. Conveyances and motives, both conventional and bizarre, have been provided. And, according to plan, at each appointed second, at each appointed place this Jonah was there."

Permalink Reply by Medusa on April 25, 2009 at 11:16am

Yes, it is a Vonnegut novel, _Cat's Cradle_.

Your turn!

Permalink Reply by Dallas (on hiatus) on April 26, 2009 at 9:58pm

Ditto.

Permalink Reply by Eric S. on April 28, 2009 at 11:14pm

THE SIRENS OF TITAN by Kurt Vonnegut. I googled it, I guess it's OK to do that after enough time has gone by. I say we wait at least 24 hours before it's alright to google.

Permalink Reply by Eric S. on April 28, 2009 at 11:30pm

The irreducible strangeness of the universe was first made manifest to Anthony Van Horne on his fiftieth birthday, when a despondent angel named Raphael, a being with luminous white wings and a halo that blinked on and off like a neon quoit, appeared and told him of the days to come.

I haven't yet finished the book but so far I'm diggin' it.

Permalink Reply by Dallas (on hiatus) on April 29, 2009 at 8:36am

Pass.

Permalink Reply by Calla on April 29, 2009 at 1:32pm

Pass as well, but glad to see this thread is still going strong!

Permalink Reply by Eric S. on April 29, 2009 at 6:25pm

Hint: It was a book discussed on the latest Atheist News podcast, episode 4.

Permalink Reply by Jaume on August 31, 2009 at 5:24am

Google suggests it might be Josephine Winslow Johnson (whom I've never heard about), but the quote doesn't seem to come from Now in November (partially available on GoogleBooks).

Permalink Reply by Jaume on August 31, 2009 at 12:27pm

So I assume it's my turn. Here's an easy one:

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing; that not only the production of a rational being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind [...]

Permalink Reply by Jaume on September 3, 2009 at 7:23am

Hint: another quote from the same chapter (a short dialogue between the narrator's parents, caught in the act of procreating him)

- Pray my Dear, quoth my mother, have you not forgot to wind up the clock?
- Good G..! cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the same time, did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question? Pray, what was your father saying?
- Nothing.