This Fall the Miscellany’s weekly contest asks you to identify books from their opening lines. Here is the first entry. You are encouraged not to Google but we have no way, of course, of verifying that you didn’t. Email werneri or workm with your answers by Fri. 9/27 at 3pm. The winner will be picked at random from all the correct entries received and will receive a prize (tbd).
Opening Lines
1. “The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.”
2. “I have just returned from a visit to my landlord—the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with.”
3.”To be born again,” sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, “first you have to die. Ho ji! Ho ji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs to fly. Tat-taa! Taka-thun! How to ever smile again, if first you won’t cry? How to win the darling’s love, mister, without a sigh? Baba, if you want to get born again . . .”
4. “Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin.”
5. “I scowl with frustration at myself in the mirror. Damn my hair – it just won’t behave, and damn Katherine Kavanagh for being ill and subjecting me to this ordeal.”
Email werneri or workm with your answers by Fri. 9/27 at 3pm
Comments
And the correct answers are:
1. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
2. Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
3. Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
4. A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh
5. E. L. James, Fifty Shades of Grey