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Those opening sentences have a particular kind of urgency. By contrast, the equally memorable openings of Lolita and Moby Dick could never be called urgent, but

Those opening sentences have a particular kind of urgency. By contrast, the equally memorable openings of Lolita and Moby Dick could never be called urgent, but they do instantly establish an unusual first-person narrator. What they all share is density. If instead you want to fill up the page with ink while wasting the time of your readers, you start your book like Dickens did in A Tale of Two Cities.

pcrh 14y ago
For the curious: Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. and Call me Ishmael. and It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
jonnathanson 14y ago
The old joke about Dickens is that he got paid by the word, and he wrote accordingly. (There's probably some truth to it; he did serialize many of his novels, and was paid by the word for them. But he was paid very handsomely, and was considered something like his day's equivalent of John Grisham or Stephen King. It's doubtful he was seriously trying to nickel and dime his publishers by being verbose). That said, I quite enjoy that opening line. It's satirical and snarky, and it plays on the sort of common hyperbole that's still very prevalent in today's society.
- psykotic 14y ago
  Dickens wrote many great sentences by my reckoning, but that one has always annoyed me. It is a workaday piece of prose that long overstays its welcome, finally admitting its own irrelevance to this or any other book. That punch line witticism is an insufficient excuse for its pride of place as a starting sentence.

pcrh 14y ago

For the curious: Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. and Call me Ishmael. and It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

jonnathanson 14y ago

The old joke about Dickens is that he got paid by the word, and he wrote accordingly. (There's probably some truth to it; he did serialize many of his novels, and was paid by the word for them. But he was paid very handsomely, and was considered something like his day's equivalent of John Grisham or Stephen King. It's doubtful he was seriously trying to nickel and dime his publishers by being verbose). That said, I quite enjoy that opening line. It's satirical and snarky, and it plays on the sort of common hyperbole that's still very prevalent in today's society.

psykotic 14y ago
Dickens wrote many great sentences by my reckoning, but that one has always annoyed me. It is a workaday piece of prose that long overstays its welcome, finally admitting its own irrelevance to this or any other book. That punch line witticism is an insufficient excuse for its pride of place as a starting sentence.