Literary elevation

[altivo]

From soreth, this one makes more sense than the "take the nearest book, go to page whatever" memes.

1. Choose five to ten of your all time favorite books.
2. Take the first sentence of the first chapter and make a list in your journal.
3. Don't reveal the author or the title of the book.
4. Now everyone try and guess! Cross them off as they're guessed correctly.

It's difficult for me to choose a small group and call them favorite but here are some of the books I like best. Where the first sentence is really short, I'll give more than that as a clue. In no particular order, and chosen from the more accessible shelves:

1. There had been something loose about the station dock all morning, skulking in amongst the gantries and the lines and the canisters which were waiting to be moved, lurking wherever shadows fell among the rampway accesses of the many ships at dock at Meetpoint.


2. The Titanide galloped from the fog like a fugitive from a demented carousel. Wizard by John Varley, credit to ruwhei, half credit to calydor for getting author but not title.


3. I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, credit to ruwhei.


4. I know a place where there is no smog and no parking problem and no population explosion...no cold war and no h-bombs and no television commercials...no summit conferences, no foreign aid, no hidden taxes--no income tax. Glory Road by Robert A. Heinlein, credit to ruwhei.


5. It was a dark and stormy night. In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, credit to soreth.


6. There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien, credit to calydor.


7. The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, credit to calydor.


8. He was not dead. That much, at least, he was certain of.


9. The last drops of the thundershower had hardly ceased falling when the Pedestrian stuffed his map into his pocket, settled his pack more comfortably on his tired shoulders, and stepped out from the shelter of a large chestnut-tree into the middle of the road. Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis, credit to bariki.


10. The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it. Black Beauty by Anna Sewall, credit to calydor.


11. Kerris woke. He stretched. He was stiff and cold. The pallet under him was thin and prickly; he had slept far from the chimneys, in the place nearest the door.

Yes, I know, I already cheated. There are eleven in the list. I could hit twenty-five in another ten minutes, because I already had to choose to drop out several. Anyone want to take a guess?

Comments

[calydor.livejournal.com]

2 is a Varley book; I guess a certain mutual Europe-touring friend will guess that one.
6 is Silmarillion.
7 is Wind in the Willows.
8 sounds ... familiar, but I can't place it.

[calydor.livejournal.com]

Oh, and wild-guessing 10 yields Black Beauty, strike that one too.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Good job. Half credit awared for #2 as well, but I'll give you that when someone gets it right.

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

Either Wizard or Demon :)

Ru

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*snicker*

Two thirds credit. But you probably have both of them on the shelf. Figure out which one and win the point.

You should do this meme, I'd like to have a bite at your list.

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

Wizard it is. And yeah, I do have them on my shelf - though the first time I replied I wasn't at home to check.

I'll see about doing this meme, though favorite is a hard thing to classify for me.

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, the "I know a place where there is no smog..." is Glory Road by Heinlein. (The author Varley admires most.)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Points awarded. I knew you'd be good if you stopped by. If you'd been ahead of calydor no doubt you'd have taken some of his points too.

Yes, I squirmed on 'favorite' too. These are all AMONG my favorites, but there are more and I don't want to rank one above another.

Agree with you about The Left Hand of Darkness of course. It's definitely near the very top of my list and one of her best. Almost everything she does is very good, but that one is superb. I suggested it to favouritewindow (Perrier) and he really liked it too. Now he's working his way through Varley's Gaea trilogy.

[quickcasey.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. While a voracious reader, I have to say, I realy ned to broaden my tastes more. I was just looking at my bookshelves. Technical manuals, some olde textbooks, automotive, and railroad history, and a small section of speculative fiction. (An old mentor of mine hated the term science fiction, as a lot of the books didn't pertain much to science.)

Your selection #1, sounds spacey, though I initally thought it might have been railroady.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yep, we need to broaden your exposure. I think you would like nearly all of these. Several are quite furry. And #1 is indeed spacy, thought the connection between space freight and rail freight is certainly apt.

Speculative fiction is a better term. And then there's fantasy, which is often lumped in with the science/speculative fiction though properly it deserves its own heading. More fantasy here than speculative, though #1 certainly falls in the SF category, and a couple more are commonly placed there.

[soreth.livejournal.com]

5 has a ring of L'Engle to me, though I couldn't say which book exactly. Someone with a better memory than I might know for sure, but I'll just go and guess at "A Wrinkle In Time" and hope.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Your guess is good. I figured the name would give it away to someone if nothing else did. :)

[soreth.livejournal.com]

The name was what turned the key in my memory, yes. Thank god you quoted more than just the first sentence, though! "It was a dark and stormy night" indeed!

[cats-haven.livejournal.com]

I guessed the Black beauty one as well before I saw who guessed it before me. I'd have to do some digging to get the lines needed, or take lines from my own stories. *wink*

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

#3 is Left Hand of Darkness by LeGuin, one of the best books I've ever read.

[bariki.livejournal.com]

I knew 7 and 10, but was beaten to those ones.. thankfully I recognise C.S. Lewis when I see it. Therefore, #9 is from Out of the Silent Planet.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Point granted. I also think it's one of the best novels with furry characters, right up there with The Wind in the Willows and... number 1 on this list, which no has yet recognized.

Obviously you are well-read too and should do this meme. :)

[bariki.livejournal.com]

My fave Lewis book is still The Silver Chair, despite liking other works. But it was mostly just like that I recognised the capitalisation on the word Pedestrian - that's what jogged my memory. ^)^

This meme is in my journal, but only half-full as I am currently without some of my favourite books and can't quite remember all of the right words for each one. :P

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Mmm. Hard to pick among the Narnia books. I almost put the first line of The Horse and his Boy into this list. In fact, had it there and deleted it. I really like The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle too. We were rather disappointed by the BBC dramatizations, despite the very appropriate casting of Tom Baker as Puddleglum. While they certainly followed the books closely (I approve of that) they just seemed a bit flat for some reason.

I can enjoy Lewis despite his rather heavy handed (at times) Christian slant. Have you read David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus or Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy?

[bariki.livejournal.com]

"Be winged. be the father of all flying horses."

That was my favourite line from The Magician's Nephew. ^)^

I've never read either of the books that you mentioned. I am going into town now, so I'll pop into the library and see if they have them for loan.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the whole creation thing in Narnia gives me goosebumps. As it does in The Silmarillion as well. Interesting that both Lewis and Tolkien chose to have the world created by music, as the creator sings it into being.

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

I guess we shouldn't be surprised, Lewis and Tolkien were very close when they were alive and talked often.

[bariki.livejournal.com]

Interesting point.. perhaps they both picked up on the idea that music has infinite variety in terms of note, pitch and tone, therefore being able to create infinite variety of life in the same vein? I don't know for sure.. I'm just guessing here. ^)^

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Perhaps. Though in Tolkien's case, it seems more likely that he borrowed from a real myth belonging to some people of northern Europe. Offhand I don't know whose the idea is. Finnish perhaps? Or Celtic?

[bariki.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* Pass. Outside of their books, I'd never come across the idea in the real world. Still.. it is intruiging. And, perhaps, when the creator hit a flat note, something less perfect was made... like France. ^)^

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Ah, but in her wisdom, and seeing her error, the Creator compensated for France by making Roquefort cheese and fine wine, and decreeing that the French must forever produce those.

[bariki.livejournal.com]

Library was shut. Damned government cutbacks. x.x

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Money has to come from somewhere. If it's not there, then someone decides what services are "non-essential" and they go away. Libraries in this country are facing that daily, especially when the people making decisions believe that "it's all on the internet now" or "no one reads, we have television these days."

[bariki.livejournal.com]

Here libraries are funded by local councils using Council Tax money - money that every local homeowner must pay - to keep the libraries open. Same goes for garbage collection, traffic wardens and local streetlighting. Since there have been 17 (at least 17 - I'm sure that's what the BBC reported) distinct tax increases in the UK since 1997, I'd expect my library to be open on a Monday afternoon... it's not asking for too much.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Varies from state to state, but in Illinois where I live and work, the situation is similar. Local taxes pay for most libraries. What may be different from the UK, though, is that local taxes are decided upon by local vote. So when inflation and operating costs rise to where the current taxes no longer pay for everything, the library has two choices: cutbacks, or go back on the ballot asking for an increase. In recent years, voters have been rejecting any request for library increments, hence the cutbacks.

In the district where I live, the library tax amounts to about 100 US dollars per year per household on average. This entitles all members of the household to library services not only in their own district but at just about any public library in the whole state. People who use libraries find it a very reasonable deal. People who don't tend to resent it a great deal and complain about the "waste". Now 100 dollars amounts to just 3 or 4 best sellers or 2 popular magazine subscriptions a year. But if you don't read at all, I guess you don't see it that way.

[bariki.livejournal.com]

Here library spending is decided upon by the council. It is such a non-issue to most people here that it hardly gets a second thought. At least we do still have a public library, and I am thankful for that, at least.

One difference I think between the US and the UK, certainly on local taxes, is that stereotypically, more people here are willing to accept taxes for "the greater good" of the community - for things like free health service, garbage pickup and, yes, public libraries. In my time in the US, I found lots of locals far less willing to pay for local services than my British counterparts.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm sure you're right, and it's something that reflects very badly in my opinion on US culture and society. "I don't use a library, why should I pay for one?" "I don't have children in school, why should I pay teacher salaries or building costs?" "I won't be living in this area by the time the new hospital opens two years from now, so why vote for it and pay part of the cost?" And so forth.

Americans are, much as viewed by many Europeans, selfish, short-sighted, xenophobic, illiterate, thoughtless pigs. So why am I still here? Good question. It's not easy to pick up and move to another country, at least not for me. I have roots, I hate travel, and I can't leave my horses and dogs behind.

[bariki.livejournal.com]

I don't think that Americans are, in general, selfish, short-sighted, xenophobic, illiterate, thoughtless pigs. I've lived in a many different counties and seen how a broad spectrum of people live. My favourite place to live... is still the United States. True, there are things that annoy and frighten me: the crowded cities, the lying, rootless television; dumbass politicians who'd serve their citizens better by dying; and a tendancy for murder and violent crime that I have never known before.

I have roots, but I love to travel. Even now, having done so much of it, I'd gladly pack a bag and leave again - if it were feasable. I don't like living in the UK now: it's so expensive, so cold, the politics is uninspired and dull, the food bland and costly for what it is, and (at the risk of getting a slapping) I find the people and the culture less vibrant.

The only reason that I have for saying such things is because I have seen how other people lived. I love Japan, but know that I wouldn't want to live in a big city there. Same goes to Australia, with the possible exception of Melbourne, which I truly came to enjoy staying in. Portugal was so laid back and relaxed.. the people warm and friendly, and the weather gentle. I loved it there too. In the US, I found more of the same as I did in Portugal - friendly people, good food, a vibrant society and culture. Politics could stand a shake-up, that's for sure, but I fell in love with the place all the same.

Perhaps it's not the same up north, nor the same anywhere outside of Florida... but it will remain a place that I've called home for the rest of my life.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Heh. Florida is definitely NOT a state of which I have a high opinion. And you must not have spent much time around Miami or you'd see my point.

I think to prove my thesis about the attitudes and behavior of the typical American we need look no farther than they way the majority has voted in the last several elections. Invariably, the majority favor their own convenience over any kind of long term plan, they refuse to take any responsibility for the effects of their own behavior on the rest of the world, they favor discrimination against and even persecution of those who are not just like themselves, they favor enforcing their own narrow religious views on everyone through codification as law, and so forth.

Sure, individuals and individual communities vary a lot from that. I'd certainly rather be in the midwest than in the south or the southwest, for instance. But even here, intolerance and greed are rampant. Insensitivity not only to the rest of the world but to anyone outside the immediate family or community is the rule rather than the exception.

People are willing to spend millions to keep gays from being treated equally or to avoid an increase in fuel or energy prices but not one cent for balanced education unless it is disguised as a new football stadium.

No, I couldn't live in a Japanese city, or in London or Liverpool, or in Paris, Rome, or even Stockholm. But that's because I can no longer live in the city at all. My claustrophobia and inability to stand noise makes it intolerable. If I could easily just transplant myself, I might choose Canada or Scotland or even Sweden. Within the US, at the moment, I seem to be in one of the few remaining states where tolerance is still the rule rather than an exception, and even here the religious fundamentalists are looking for any opening to make their move and shut that down.

[bariki.livejournal.com]

It seems as though all of the world were changing to support the current politican status quo. Tolerance, decency and the common good are things left at the roadside, dusty and forgotten.

I refuse to accept that. Regardless of how those above me tell me I should live, think, feel and worship I will continue to live my own life. Mistakes and all.

History shows that those who oppress are ultimately defeated. Fate, for once, is on our side.

[ruwhei.livejournal.com]

Voyage of the Dawn Treader has always been my favorite.

I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in fifth grade for the first time and even then I saw how obvious the christian allegories were. It was like being hit in the head with a brick. The later novels are much more subtle, although 'subtle' here is like comparing the occasional bursts of a jack hammer to the roar of a jet engine.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I agree entirely. Even though Lewis repeatedly denied that there was anything allegorical about Aslan's sacrifice and resurrection, it's blatantly obvious what it is. Especially in the context of all the rest.

It says something for his writing and his vivid imagination that he can hold even those of us who are more or less hostile to the "Christian" world view he expounds. If real Christianity were more like Aslanism, though, the world would be a much better place.