Peter Pan begins:
- All children, except one, grow up.
- Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
The telegram wasn't written by Meursault, though.
Don't know if it's the best opening line ever, but I always loved:
- I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.
A Prayer For Owen Meany was my introduction to John Irving. I absolutely adore that book.
The only John Irving book I liked so much I read twice.
There are other I want to read again (the one with the "Wilzpatzer(?) Pension" chapter, is it 'the world according to Garp'?) but I got them from a library and never bother buying them.
The few last Irving books are lackluster.
An ex-girlfriend got me onto John Irving. When I said I'd never read anything he'd written, she took me to Powell's in Portland and wasted no time finding me a copy of A Prayer... and A Son of the Circus. I will always love her for that!
The World According to Garp is absolutely the book you're thinking of. It's another favourite of mine. My parents keep telling me I have to watch the movie adaptation starring Robbin Williams; I haven't gotten around to it yet.
But I agree with your last statement. I wasn't impressed all that much with In One Person and I haven't read the latest one.
- The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
If you've never read the series, the line doesn't seem that great. It only makes its heaviest impact later on. So I can understand your feelings.
As for eothas' opinion, I like it because it sets up basically the first half of the whole book - you could replace it all by this line alone. It cuts to the very essence of the book. It's straightforward - it doesn't try too hard.
And of course for spoilery reasons mentioned above.
I love the opening line in Thomas Bernhard's Woodcutters:
- While everyone was waiting for the actor, who had promised to join the dinner party in the Gentzgasse after the premiere of The Wild Duck, I observed the Auersbergers carefully from the same wing chair I had sat in nearly every day during the fifties, reflecting that it had been a grave mistake to accept their invitation.
In German:
- Während alle auf den Schauspieler warteten, der ihnen versprochen hatte, nach der Aufführung der Wildente gegen halbzwölf zu ihrem Abendessen in die Gentzgasse zu kommen, beobachtete ich die Eheleute Auersberger genau von jenem Ohrensessel aus, in welchem ich in den frühen Fünfzigerjahren beinahe täglich gesessen war und dachte, dass es ein gravierender Fehler gewesen ist, die Einladung der Auersberger anzunehmen.
- First the colours.
Then the humans.
That’s how I usually see things.
Or at least, how I try.
HERE IS A SMALL FACT
You are going to die.