Transcript of “It Was the Best of Lines, It Was the Worst of Lines”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
We were talking earlier in the show about great opening lines in books, and I wanted to share a great opening first paragraph in a book that I read recently.
Just sit back and listen to this one.
Perfume was the first to go, but I’d been expecting that. Scented detergent followed, then dryer sheets. I wasn’t sorry to give up raw onions or hot sauce. Not adding extra salt was rough at first, tolerable for a bit, then miserable. When I went out to eat, everything tasted like it had been doused in brine. Losing Listerine wasn’t so bad. Replacing it with a rinse of citric acid solution and watered-down whiskey was.
I went through a dark phase when I cut out coffee, but by that point, I was used to being a little slow in the morning. Daytime sobriety was ancient history, along with all hot liquids, the enamel on my teeth, and my Advil supply.
Now, Grant, that’s so puzzling, but you’re also sucked into it, I think, by the sensuality of this. This is the beginning of a book called Cork Dork, and it’s about learning to become a Somalese by Bianca Bosker. And I just really liked it.
Wow.
Yeah, that’s a setup because you’re like, I mean, if you started the book, you know what it’s about because the title and you probably picked it.
But still, questions.
I have so many questions.
I have to read on, right?
Right.
Yeah, and even that very first line, perfume was the first to go, but I’d been expecting that.
Okay, why did it go?
Why were you expecting it?
And as a writer, I can hear the hard work she put into that.
Yeah.
She must have worked her tail off on those lines.
Good for her.
She did the job.
She did the work.
Yeah, and becoming a sommelier.
I mean, it’s a fascinating book.
It’s nothing that I would have set out to read, but I was hooked by that first paragraph.
I always say I don’t care what the topic is.
If your writing is very, very well done, I will read you.
Yes.
Agreed.
I wanted to share an opening line.
This is a paragraph, but it’s also a single sentence, and you will recognize it as soon as I start.
But most people don’t know it beyond the first few words.
You ready for this?
Yeah.
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.
That’s A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens from 1859.
Right. And you’re right. What you usually think of is those first few words, but there’s so much more. I mean, the guy was getting paid by the word, right?
Right, right. Some of his writing does tend to be a little flabby. I feel so bad saying that about Dickens, who is a classic writer, but you can just tell he was padding out some of his paragraphs and some of his works.
But still, it sets a scene. It just, it settles you into a chair, I think. I think that’s what I’m thinking about these times.
There’s a rhythm to it, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Right, on the one hand, on the other.
We want your opening lines from your favorite works.
What’s the words and sentences, the paragraphs that snagged you, that made you read a book or a series or fall in love with an author?
Words at waywordradio.org.
Or if you’re somewhere else and you want to talk to us a different way, there are lots of ways to do it.
You can find them all on our website.
Easy to get to.
