Read that last week and thought about mentioning it, but is it an especially good first line or merely the first line of a good book?'Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.'
- The Sound and the Fury
"I am living at the Villa Borghese. There is not a crumb of dirt anywhere, nor a chair misplaced. We are all alone here and we are dead."
"..and people are straggling back to their rooms with that weary, dejected air which comes from earning a living honestly"
Read that last week and thought about mentioning it, but is it an especially good first line or merely the first line of a good book?
At the moment Tropic of Cancer is sitting on my desk and flicking to the front reveals a good first line (although not one I'd remembered)
In Tropic of Cancer? Yeah I reckon so. In fact just reading it there at lunch-time there were several other bits that I would have liked to quote but I didn't want to mess the thread up too much. In general the best lines are inside books and presumably the whole point of the thread is to celebrate those special few that aren't."Best lines are deep in the book though"
Read that last week and thought about mentioning it, but is it an especially good first line or merely the first line of a good book?
:
In Tropic of Cancer? Yeah I reckon so. In fact just reading it there at lunch-time there were several other bits that I would have liked to quote but I didn't want to mess the thread up too much. In general the best lines are inside books and presumably the whole point of the thread is to celebrate those special few that aren't.
Dunno if I can find the two you mention while I'm pretending to work but here are some I like:"Well, yes - off topic but I was kind of hoping that you'd remind me of them properly."
"All I ask from life is a bunch of books, a bunch of dreams, and a bunch of cunt"
"The wallpaper with which the men of science have covered the world of reality is falling to tatters. the grand whorehouse which they have made of life requires no decoration; it is essential only that the drains function adequately."
The whole book is pretty much one great rant though - interspersed with a few slightly smaller ones. I remember starting it years ago and thinking it was boring but now giving it another chance it seems totally different from how it did before. It's great."Perhaps it is because the book has begun to grow inside me. I am carrying it around with me everywhere. I walk through the streets big with child and the cops escort me across the street. Women get up to offer me their seats. Nobody pushes me rudely any more. I am pregnant. I waddle awkwardly, my big stomach pressed against the weight of the world."
Oh - and of course:
"Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning."
Timely.
[Though this thread is beginning to resemble all too closely a Grauniad one from a few months ago. Oh dear, internet forums beginning to fall behind, getting a bit slow as they busily replicate the establishment media ... very dissensian]
Father died last year. I don't subscribe to the theory by which we only become truly adult when our parents die; we never become truly adult…As I stood before the old man's coffin, unpleasant thoughts came to me. He had made the most of life, the old bastard; he was a clever cunt. 'You had kids, you fucker…' I said spiritedly, 'you shoved your fat cock in my mother's cunt.' Well, I was a bit tense, I have to admit; it's not everyday you have a death in the family.
Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know. I had a telegram from the home: ‘Mother passed away. Funeral tomorrow. Yours sincerely.’ That doesn’t mean anything. It may have been yesterday.
When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect.
Nothing to be done
Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo
Timely.
[Though this thread is beginning to resemble all too closely a Grauniad one from a few months ago. Oh dear, internet forums beginning to fall behind, getting a bit slow as they busily replicate the establishment media ... very dissensian]
Dungbeetle? *googles* Actually it seems that the original German word is Ungeziefer =vermin, which really should be used, but it rarely. This seems criminal, and makes you realise what gets lost in translation. Even the discussion below makes ludicrous assumptions like "[vermin] isn't commonly used in English, so some translators prefer to use words like bug or insect which will be more easily understood by their readers". And worse - "using [vermin] doesn't describe exactly what Gregor has become" - so what? It's the original text! Who asked the translator to describe what Gregor has become, misquoting as s/he goes - dreadful, patronising behaviour (and dangerous, if applied to history or politics).weird Kafka translation of "dungbeetle" to "insect"
http://www.nvcc.edu/home/vpoulakis/Translation/kafkatr1.htmThe original German word -- Ungeziefer -- is literally translated as vermin. However, this word isn't commonly used in English, so some translators prefer to use words like bug or insect which will be more easily understood by their readers. Also, since the word vermin can describe any loathsome creature, not just an insect, using this word doesn't describe exactly what Gregor has become. The disadvantage of words like bug or insect, however, is that they don't convey the sense of disgust that's implicit in the word vermin. A bug or insect can be harmless, perhaps even beautiful like a butterfly. Certainly this meaning doesn't apply to Gregor Samsa, but the reader has no way of knowing this at the beginning of the story. And this kind of misunderstanding is even more likely to occur since the word metamorphosis in the story's title is often associated with a butterfly.
An added complication familiar to most translators is that the word vermin has particular historical significance lacking in the words bug and insect. In the region where Kafka lived, Jewish people were often referred to, in times of persecution by anti-Semites, as Ungeziefer, or vermin. Since Kafka was himself Jewish, he was undoubtedly aware of this derogatory meaning of the word Ungeziefer -- but there's no way of knowing if he intended this meaning to apply to Gregor Samsa. Translators who feel he did intend to suggest it are more likely to use the word vermin in their translations; those who feel it's not an intended meaning may choose more easily-understood words like bug or insect. There's no way of deciding conclusively which is the better choice.