Memorable Book Beginnings

The first line of a book can be quite important because it often sets the tone for the rest of the book and writers have often used it to great effect. Here are a list of beginnings that are memorable. Some of them are obvious choices, some very witty and ironical, and some have this ring of significance that can be felt but cannot be explained(as with many of the best things in the world!)

Call me Ishmael.

-Moby Dick

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.

- A Tale of Two Cities

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.

-David Copperfield

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

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. 

-Pride and Prejudice

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

-Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

This is just a few books and I'll keep adding more as and when I get them.

Essay:Feminism in literature

Do male authors ever write about average women?Female characters are almost unfailingly beautiful in books authored by men :D Infact, they are generally a perfect package of great looks, high intelligence and supreme confidence. I think male authors have a very black-and-white perception of women. To them, women are either angels from heaven or villains sent to break their hearts. Take Vanity Fair for example: Amelia and Becky Sharp are two extremes of womankind. One is too soft and innocent to defend even herself and the other, too manipulating and scheming. If there is one grouse I have with Dickens, it is his portrayal of women. Of course, it is a recent development!His heroines(Agnes Wickfield particularly) were my models of humanity. They were perfect in every way:kind, patient and loving. There was never a fault with them and they were incapable of hurting anyone. Indeed, they often put others before themselves. Now, I ask myself why!Why should women have to be angels who guide the hero of the novel to the path of righteousness?Women are as human as men and as liable to have their own weaknesses. We are all learning from life and though women's maternal instincts make them naturally kinder, they cannot, and need not, be flawless!

Female authors have often tried to battle this perception. They rarely write about perfect women. You either have Scarlett O'Hara's looks or Melanie Hamilton's character, rarely both. Their heroines are not demi-gods but real people like Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Eyre or Jo. I almost feel as if female authors are pleading with the world, through their characters, to see that women are a mixture of good and bad, virtues and vices. Their women are more complex and vulnerable and want to be accepted the way they are. And they don't always have to be good!

Let alone the characters, the authors themselves have had to encounter prejudice of this kind in the reception of their books. Female authors often used pseudonyms to hide their gender because they didn't want people's opinions of their work to be distorted by it. Jane Austen was one of the few who didn't and Virginia Woolf praises her for it. But the Bronte sisters weren't as lucky. People thought their books were vulgar because they were too open about feelings and passions than women had any right to be. Wuthering Heights was criticized as being coarse and Jane Eyre, too passionate. The world has surely come a long way since then. Female authors are not ostracized for being frank anymore but do women still have to shoulder the responsibility for perfect morality?I don't know..I'm still stuck in the 19th century.

Essay:The Mill on the Floss

I had wanted for sometime to read a book by George Eliot for two reasons: she was liked by Charlotte Bronte and she was one of the Big Four(the others being Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte and Jane Austen) mentioned in a Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf(I'm not a big fan but still, the lady had some good judgement ;)). I randomly picked up The Mill on the Floss and am very happy that I did.

The book has moved me a great deal. It is one of those "epics" where you feel as if you have actually spent a lifetime through it rather than just a period of someone's life. I felt the same about Gone with the Wind: you go through various and strong emotions along with the characters in their intense joy and suffering and are left in awe by the end of the book. To my knowledge, this book has been very different from it's contemporaries in the way it has handled it's characters and most of all, in the way it ended. I really did not expect Tom and Maggie's life to be cut short like that but for me, it was a happy ending! I don't think it could have ended more beautifully. You might think I have a morose mind and the person who wrote the introduction to the story felt that G.E. could surely have conjured up a happier ending. However, to me, the central point was the love that existed between the brother and sister that was sorely obstructed by misfortune and their vastly different natures so I was just happy they loved each other again like they did as little children;nothing and noone could come again to spoil it! I just felt happy that Maggie was satisfied in her one great wish to be simply loved by Tom without judgement. It seems human nature rejoices as much in touching tragedy as in happy endings and authors have totally exploited that  :D Shakespeare's tragedies are more loved and admired than his comedies, aren't they?

This book initially put me in a lot of confusion. I was always used to utterly and completely siding with the protagonist of any book I read and I assumed that since, Maggie is the protagonist of this book, all my sympathy will be directed towards her. Yet, I often found myself supporting Tom over Maggie and couldn't help wondering if I had lost feelings like compassion and generosity. Of late, I have been suspecting myself of losing some of my idealistic notions and turning a little practical/cynical(honestly, the world seems too grey and complicated to have fixed ideas and opinions anymore!Live and let live seems to be the best policy to follow :)). This unusual reaction caused me to worry a little. Then I realised that's exactly what the book wants me to do. It doesn't want me to point out that this person is a hero and that person is a villain. Rather, it is showing me that everyone in the book, without exception, has both merits and demerits. Maggie is no angel, Tom is no villain, Philip is no long-suffering saint and Stephen is not a heartless traitor. They have all, including the dull Mrs Tulliver, done both good and bad things. Even the grouchy Aunt Glegg is redeemed in the end!I think George Eliot wants to convey that human nature is too complicated and mixed to be judged too severely and so, we must just help each other along the way rather than being bent on punishing everyone for their faults.

By some weird coincidence, many of the books I read have themes that are similar to my life at that point because of which I can relate better to them! Here, Tom and Maggie's passage into care-ridden adulthood coincided with what I've come to finally accept, that I must grow up :D But it brought back to me why childhood is so amazing. For one, we had time to stand and stare, as that poet says. I miss the balcony at 27/5 from where I had an awesome view of the vast sky that I would stare at joblessly. Nowadays, the sky has become a rare sight in Mumbai >:( Secondly, we had unalloyed fun. Fun was not analysed to find out if it was good enough or cool enough; it was just had. Thirdly, we had unalloyed affection. We just liked people till we had a reason not to. We were barely aware of their faults, let alone their virtues. But these are luxuries only a protected, dependent individual may enjoy without getting into a lot of trouble :D The Mill on the Floss was an amazing read and I'm looking forward to more of George Eliot in the future!

CORRECTION: The author Charlotte Bronte mentions is George Sand, not George Eliot.I conveniently mixed up the last names!

Essay: On sub-themes in literature

I have observed that, just as authors have pet themes that appear in more than one of their books, they also have sub-themes that recur across books. These are mostly inconspicuous, insignificant things but may provide a greater insight into the author and I feel they are a reflection of the author's personal experience or their wishes and fears that make their way into the author's works. Here are the authors with whom I have noticed this:

Jhumpa Lahiri - She is the one who made me notice this tendency first. In two books, she has an instance where the protagonist loses interest in their lover after a parent's death. It happens to Gogol in The Namesake and to Ruma in Unaccustomed Earth(if my memory is right!). Two times is not much but it is a strange thing to happen in the first place, the connection that is drawn between the death of a parent and the breaking up of a relationship. The fact that it appeared in another book made me wonder if she has seen this happen or thinks that it should happen!
Update: I think I understand what this is about. In both cases, the protagonist is a first generation NRI child with an identity crisis who has chosen the American culture over the Indian one. Both their partners are Americans and they find their parents a little backward. But the deaths of the parents makes them take the trouble to understand their parents and the parent's cultural roots, and appreciate both. The break-up with the American signifies that they accept their Indian heritage and themselves for who they are. Whew! Now that I think about it, this was very obviously implied in The Namesake.

Charles Dickens - I am pretty sure Dickens had an OCD of some sort because many of his characters do!Traddles' habit of drawing skeletons whenever he was nervous, Mr. Jaggers' repetitive washing of hands with soap, Sydney Carton dipping his head into a towel before getting to work, Dr. Manette's compulsive need to work on shoes when his trauma returns, Mr. Dick and the declaration or something that he used to copy out constantly: many of them had these compulsive habits. So, I wonder if Dickens had one too :) Another thing that has appeared in more than one book is marriage between a young woman and a much older man. This happens in David Copperfield(Dr. Strong and Anne), The Cricket on the Hearth and Hard Times. In the first two books, the woman is suspected of being attached to another man but it is proved false and the marriage takes place successfully. I know that Dickens, after being separated from his first wife, fell in love with a young actress. I'm not sure if this could explain the above situations though, as these books were most likely written earlier. But, it is all very interesting :D

Charlotte Bronte - Three recurring characteristics of her protagonists are they are orphans facing loneliness, they are plain-looking and the person they fall in love with is also plain-looking. Examples are Jane and Mr. Rochester, Lucy and M. Paul Emanuel, Shirley and Louis Moore(though in this case, Shirley is not plain) . Since, I've read Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Bronte, I know that Bronte had strong feelings about beauty and plainness. She considered herself ugly and it affected her a lot mentally. I think this has reflected in her books and she wants to dispel the notion that beauty is essential for two people to love each other. Considering that beauty is given a lot of importance in romantic stories, she may have wanted to write about love between plain people for a change! I respect her for making the hero plain-looking too. It would have been hypocritical to have the plain heroine end up with a very handsome man :D Bronte's mother passed away when she was a small child and this may explain why her characters are without a family in more than one case. She writes about the pain of such a situation and the need for loved ones with great feeling in her books, especially in Jane Eyre.

Jane Austen - In her case, a situation where the heroine of the story has fallen for a dashing, young man only to find out that he was quite an idiot and the sulky fellow was Mr. Right after all, has occurred more than once :D Elizabeth Bennet is deceived by George Wickham's charms, Emma by Frank Churchill's attentions and Marianne by John Willoughby's. Maybe Jane Austen herself encountered such a young man. That is all, can't think of anything else on Jane Austen.

I may be making a mountain of a molehill here or I may have only touched the surface and left out many other authors and instances. Also, my knowledge of these authors is coloured by only those books I have read so it could be very incomplete. For instance, based on the short stories of Tolstoy that I've read, I would say he has a soft spot for cobblers because the protagonists are cobblers in the two stories I like best :D I also think Oscar Wilde has a tendency to play around with identities a lot: mistaken identities in The Importance of Being Earnest, hidden identity in Lady Windermere's Fan and manipulated identity in The Picture of Dorian Gray.There some authors, such as Wodehouse and Douglas Adams, whom I have read more than once without getting any idea about the author because I have only read the humorous stories written by them. Then there are authors such as JK Rowling and Louisa May Alcott whose books(that I've read) have been a series and I haven't really been able to see what they are like in different books. It's all very interesting though and if you have anything to add to it, you are most welcome!

Excerpts: Macbeth

Macbeth: The Thane of Cawdor lives:why do you dress me in borrowed robes?

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Banquo: And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths,

Win us with him honest trifles, to betray's

In deepest consequence.

Though the meaning of the second half is clear,it doesn't seem well framed or

something's wrong with my book!

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Banquo: New honours come upon him

Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould

But with the aid of use.

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Malcolm: Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it

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Macbeth: The Prince of Cumberland!That is a step

On which I must fall down, or else o'er-leap,

For in my way it lies, Stars, hide your fires!

Let not light see my black and deep desires:

The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be;

Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.

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Lady Macbeth: Art not without ambition, but without the illness(that) should attend it.

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Lady Macbeth: The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements.

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Lady Macbeth: Come, thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

That my keen knife see not the wound it makes

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,

To cry "Hold,hold!".

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Macbeth: If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well

It were done quickly.

This is quoted by Jeeves in one of the Jeeves books :D

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Lady Macbeth: Art thou afeared to be the same in thine own act and valour as

thou art in desire?

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Macbeth: Away, and mock the time with fairest show:

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

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Macbeth: Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,

The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,

Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,

Chief nourisher in life's feast

Shakespeare describes sleep like this in another play too.He seems to have thought about it a lot :)

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Lady Macbeth : My hands are of your colour; but I shame to wear a heart so white.

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Macbeth: To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.

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Malcolm: To show an unfelt sorrow is an office which the false man does easy.

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Macbeth: Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,

And put a barren sceptre in my gripe.

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Lady Macbeth: Nought's had, all's spent,

Where our desire is got without content;

'Tis safer to be that which we destroy

Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.

Best lines in the play!

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Macbeth : After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.

Quoted in Jane Eyre, Jane says this about Aunt Reed I think.

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Hecate: And, which is worse, all you have done,

Hath been but for a wayward son,

Spiteful and wrathful, who(as others do)

Loves for his own ends, not for you.

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Hecate: He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear

His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear:

And you all know security is mortal's chiefest enemy.

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The Three Witches: For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Scores for imagination and amazing choice of words!

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Apparition: Macbeth shall never vanquished be until

Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane hill

Shall come against him.

Clearly one of the most important lines of the story!

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Lady Macduff: When our actions do not, our fears do make us traitors.

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Macduff's son: Then the liars and swearers are fools; for there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men and hang up them.

A valid point..it never occurred to me! :D

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Lady Macduff: I have done no harm. But I remember now

I am in this earthly world; where to do harm

Is often laudable, to do good sometime

Accounted dangerous folly.

Well said!

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Malcolm: Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, yet grace must still look so.

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Lady Macbeth: All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.

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Macbeth: Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

So true!Our thoughts, actions everything will vanish beyond proof and for all anyone knows, we may just not have existed at all!

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Ross: Your cause of sorrow must not be measured by his worth, for then it hath no end.

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NOTES: I am new to Shakespeare and have read only a few plays and I like this one best. An extremely clever plot: it is thrilling as one by one, the witches' promises come undone. There is no way Macbeth could've expected their assertions to go wrong; yet, there were tiny loopholes that proved more dangerous than any open threat. Shakespeare has little tidbits of wisdom scattered throughout the play, just as he does in almost every other play I've read. The best thing is they always tell you something new, something you hadn't thought of before. His imagination is amazing!The three witches upon the heath and Hecate, the things they do and say and some of the descriptions given by other characters("though palaces and pyramids do slope their heads to their foundations") show he had good capacity for fantasy! Lord and Lady Macbeth are real characters: people who were good in normal circumstances but equally capable of cruelty when faced with desire and temptation. Finally, the best thing about Shakespeare:beautiful language with lots of poetry and metaphors. He is undoubtedly a genius.It was difficult to filter out good excerpts because there were just too many!