BECAUSE

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… I’ve been furiously writing essays–the hardest one on Hannah Arendt is to be last–I’ve also been furiously procrastinating. This morning, while procrastinating, I found a page of first lines from new novels.

So to amuse myself I dug up my recent acquisitions and here is a list of first lines:

“Here’s a memory.” How to be Alone by Jonathan Franzen. Essays. Harper Canada (2003).

“Powwow 1/2 mile.” Backwater Mystic Blues by Lloyd Ratzlaff. Thistledown Press (2006).

“In an upstairs room on Temperance Street, Amber dragged a box out of her closet and through her bedroom, bumped it over the edge of the carpet and pulled it across the kitchen tiles.” The Art of Salvage by Leona Theis. Coteau (2006).

“July 13, 1999” Between Mountains by Maggie Helwig. Knopf Canada (2004).

“Supposing truth to be a woman–what? is the suspicion not well founded that all philosophers, when they have been dogmatists, have had little understanding of women?” Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche Penguin (1973, 2003)

6 thoughts on “BECAUSE”

  2. But this is such a fun way to procrastinate!

    I was tickled to find that two of these first lines belong to two books I acquired at the Fall Conference–Lloyd’s and Leona’s.

    Here, I’ll help you procrastinate (translation–I’m putting off something myself).

    Here are a few more first lines from books I’m currently reading/have recently read:

    At five in the morning, on a sticky Tuesday in July, Dave woke up sweating. (From Vinyl Cafe Unplugged)

    The hottest day of summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive. (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)

    It was a little after 11:00 p.m. on a frigid Tuesday night. (Flight of Aquavit)

  4. Ok B–whatever you say.

    Thanks Amy, it is fun. I’ve never thought of novels in this way before. It’s interesting. I enjoyed your list.

    Rhett–everyone loves Nietzsche. They just won’t admit it.

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