Please please please do the last lines of classics. Most people probably aren’t going to have the full book ruined by one line at the end. And a lot of people, especially students, look at those powerful last line without reading the book. I just want to see how passionate you get when ranking the last line of the Great Gatsby, “So we beat on, boats against true current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Like fuck me dude. What a great ending!!!
definitely up for last lines. Showing the covers in the thumbnail and having named chapters again would let me know which bits of the video to skip to avoid spoilers.
I wonder if Kurt Vonnegut was intentionally referencing both Moby Dick (a book about a whale), and the biblical story of Jonah (who was swallowed by a whale.)
100% a conscious choice, Kurt Vonnegut is a very intentional writer. When reading his work, you really get the sense that EVERY SINGLE word and EVERY SINGLE piece of grammar is there for a purpose - and that's not something I say flippantly.
Your analyses are so brilliant. I’m an English teacher studying to be a librarian…. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed this morning but your video swiftly reminded me why I love literature and assured me I’m on the right path. Thank you so much!
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson is known for its iconic opening paragraph, but I think the first line is powerful on its own too: “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream."
If you ever write down the first liners that you come up with, it’d be fun to see how you’d rank your own lines (and to see what some of them are or what kind of story you’d apply them to)
I really enjoy these videos. I also wanted to point out to you that in the Bible, Jonah was swallowed up by a large fish “whale” and was trapped there for 3 days and 3 nights. I thought that was an interesting tie between Cat’s Cradle and Moby-Dick. 😊
Here is one of my favorite first lines, from Kafka's Metamorphosis, in German: "Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt." (English: "When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed right there in his bed into some sort of monstrous insect") This line is cool, not only because of the nice satisfying way "ungeheueren Ungeziefer" rolls off the tongue and the immediate interesting start to the book but also because it is notably difficult to translate (basically every translation of Die Verwandlung has a pretty different first line, I would recommend Susan Bernofsky's essay "On Translating Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'"). Much of the language is a bit vague and many of the words are negations (with the "un-" prefix) and that nuance is hard to get in English. For example, "Ungeziefer" invokes vermin, specifically unpleasant bugs (it's never specified at all what Gregor was transformed into). "Unruhig" literally means "uncalm." Kafka uses "ruhig" (calm) and "unruhig" (troubled) in contrast in the novella a lot, and the use of (un)ruhig just can't be translated very well into English. The novella as a whole has a lot of these translation issues, the German has a lot of these subtle little nuances that add dimension to the novella that you can't replicate in English. Also, fun detail: because of German sentence structure, "transformed" ("verwandelt") is the very last word in the first line of the original. The last three words in the sentence (horrible insect and transformed) are the most interesting ones
Ah so interesting. We did a performance based on the story for our A level drama exam and our translated version was "into some kind of enormous beetle." I wonder how our performances would have changed had our starter text not been so beetle specific
This is one of my favorite first lines also (and favorite stories)! Never knew this explanation about the translation oddities but the copy I have is her translation.
@@blockieran I just looked it up because I had a vague memory of reading Kafka's correspondence with his publisher in regards to the cover art and you're right! German: "Es ist mir nämlich, da Starke doch tatsächlich illustriert, eingefallen, er könnte das Insekt selbst zeichnen wollen. Das nicht, bitte das nicht! Ich will seinen Machtkreis nicht einschränken, sondern nur aus meiner natürlicherweise bessern Kenntnis der Geschichte heraus bitten. Das Insekt selbst kann nicht gezeichnet werden. Es kann aber nicht einmal von der Ferne aus gezeigt werden." English (sorry, the translation is my own so it won't be the best! 😄): "it has occurred to me that, since Starke actually illustrates, he might want to depict the insect itself. Not that, please not that! I don't want to limit his circle of power, but only ask from my naturally better knowledge of the story. The insect itself cannot be drawn. It cannot even be shown from a distance."
So happy I didn’t have to scroll very far for someone to mention THIS opening sentence. When Ariel said something about "so iconic because we can all quote it", I had to think of Gregor Samsa, even though I wouldn’t be confident to be able to quote it perfectly.
12:27 While we do SAY it is 13:00 o'clock, the clock would never strike 13. Imagine it being 23:00 (11pm) and the churches / clocks would have to ring 23 times. Or the numbers on the clock having to go from 0 to 23/24. That is a bit much. So it actually is a truly unusual element as ON THE CLOCK it is 1, not 13. So you were not off with your vibe here :D
“Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure.” from The Stranger by Camus is absolutely one of the best lines. It sets the tone and character for the rest of the novel.
When you read that first line to Peter Pan, I also thought “instantly iconic”, BECAUSE IT IS LITERALLY THE PREMISE OF THE BOOK think about it, when you’re explaining Neverland to someone, you say exactly that! GENIUS!
One of my favorite first lines is from N. K. Jemisin’s book The fifth season, “Let’s start with the end of the world, why don’t we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.”
I think what you said about 13:00 really shows how your own upbringing and culture influence the perception of a book, not just specifically personal interpretations. Like I personally would interpret the bright cold day as like a ice cold because that what the coldest days where I’m from are like. The clear ones are always the coldest. But then 13 as a time is just so normal to me (I’m from Europe) that I only see it as a bad omen because of the 13 and wouldn’t ever think of futuristic anything. This just really excites me, how differently we can read not even the same book but even the same sentence!
I haven’t read the book but as another europian from north europe I heard that as a ”it was a pleasant day in april”. So to me it was kind of boring sentence.
as a Brit I read it as one of the rare dry days in early spring, when the cloud layer is thin enough to let some light through and you realise how long it's been since you had to squint. Striking 13 still seems odd to me, because analogue clocks here generally run on 12 hours not 24, especially church bells or town halls which were my first thought.
I had the same, regarding the description of the weather, but I really enjoyed the 'clock strikes thirteen' bit. It's a bit out of the ordinary for a clock to strike 13, even though it can be 13.00 hours. But it also reminded me of an expression we have in the Netherlands: it's five to twelve. I don't know if it's an expression in English too, but it means that we're close to disaster. And 13 is way past that! So for me it really set the tone that the world had already gone to shit.
Love these! Have you seen the ad for Master Class that Margaret Atwood did? She said something like “a better beginning for Little Red Riding Hood might be ‘ It was dark inside the wolf.’” YAAASSSSS!!
For me, “Maman died today” from The Stranger by Albert Camus is the most iconic one. It is so striking and throws us into the story right away. Also, saying such a sentence in the most casual, plain way gives us a big hint of what this book is going to be like.
I find it interesting that "It was a dark and stormy night..." is universally lambasted and derided as one of the most awful openings to any book, but "It was a bright cold day in April..." is one of the most iconic.
Good Omens starts with: IT WASN’T A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT. It should have been, but that’s the weather for you." and I think that's an interesting way of setting the tone and subverting the boring opening
One of my favorite first lines is “A typewriter shattered my destiny.” It sounds even better in the original Spanish: “Una máquina de escribir reventó mi destino.” From “The Time in Between” by María Dueñas. A historical novel about a young seamstress in WW2 Spain who is forged from a starry-eyed lover to a formidable wartime spy for the Allies. In the TV series, Adriana Ugarte portrays the growth of a daring, resourceful, intelligent female protagonist.
I literally wrote a mini essay comparing the first line of 1984 to The Waste Land! Something else that sticks out at me is the connection between "a bright cold day in April" from 1984 and "Winter kept us warm" from The Waste Land. The paradoxical nature of bright/cold really aligns with the winter/warm.
It's funny you guys say that, because for me, bright and cold have no contradiction at all! I grew up in the UK and in a super mountainous place (7,000 feet above sea level) and I'll tell you we had a hell of a lot of bright cold days. In fact the dark days were often a bit muggy and humid.
Would love to see more of these videos but with different genres! I also feel exactly the same about introductions. The amount of times I have had a book spoiled for me because I felt like I had to read the introduction first... I now exclusively read introductions after finishing a book, unless it's something where I am already familiar with the plot and don't care about being spoiled.
Yes more of these! Also something interesting is that Jonah is a name of a character in the bible and the character is famously known to have been swallowed by a whale. Something else to tie in with Moby Dick!
I’m currently watching this video on our tv in our family room and my 2 year old daughter said “who is that?” And I replied “her name is Ariel.” And my daughter says “ARIEL?! She’s a princess!!!” Melted my heart. My daughter thinks you’re a princess, Ariel! 🥹🤣❤️
Hello Ariel ! About 100 años de Soledad...I am glad you put it in "Iconic". Those first lines are one of the most crazy line in literrature( with maybe Proust's A la Recherche du temps perdu) For 100 años de Soledad, I recommend to read one chapter every night : 20 chapters, 20 nights. Make it like a "rendez-vous" with the book. Print the family tree and keep it while you read it for reference. .maybe read it in Spanish ? I am french and Colombian, raised in Paris and I still live there. and I speak Spanish too like you... To read it in spanish really helped to enter in the book for me. To get the atmosphere, it reminded me of holidays in Colombia, of the people I would meet there. I primarily read in French and always thought that reading in Spanish would be harder...turns out, it is not. Thank you for your videos !!!
I'm pretty sure a lot is lost in traslation, but then again I'm a huge fan of García Márquez and I feel like his writting isn't for everyone and it's okay to dislike it. I agree with you that is useful to have the family tree and I hope Ariel does give it a second chance in spanish :)
I might try it the way you say! For more than I try I can't get into Garcia Marquez, and for some time a felt guilty about it. I agree that his writing style isn't for everyone
The first time I tried to read 100 years of solitude I found it a bit depressing and abandoned it. The second time, I really understood what he was about and got right into it. I read it in Spanish though. It might be useful to read up on what Latin American Magic Realism is all about. You have to somehow let go of logic and let the absurdity of the story carry you.
I loved your review and the books you chose to discuss. Also, I agree with your comment on Introductions. I too have felt like they were more 'spoilery' than helpful when presented at the start. They feel like a delay tactic keeping me from the main event. I mostly skip them or wait until I finished the book to go back and see if they seem interesting.
Quick thought on introductions: I love them because I like to have an idea of the deeper conversations surrounding the book going into it (e.g. themes to look out for) but at the same time they are sooooo spoilery! It's risky business. I think they deffo need to be split up between introduction and afterword better!!
My favorite is Franz Kafka 'The Metamorphosis' is “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” gotta be up there at the top!
You are so much fun! I enjoy your channel very much and this one was particularly fun. My favorite first line ever is from Andy Weir's "The Martian"...it begins "I'm pretty much f*%ked." I was hooked from that moment on and couldn't wait to see why. Also it is the first time EVER in my 55 years of reading, that I have remembered an opening line of a book and quoted it. Keep up the great work, Ariel.
I would love any videos about first (or last!) lines in books! when I was a kid and my mom took me to the library I would always read her the first line of each book I got on the ride home and we would judge them together to decide which book I would read first lol
Watched your video today (discovered you today too). A lazy Saturday evening, and my husband and I just played your game ourselves. We each pulled 5 books off the shelves and read/ranked the first lines. We found that for us, we needed something between "informative" and "classic" - we decided on "inviting." Anyway, thank you for the entertainment, and I'll be watching you!
I love this - it really grounds me into the word by word way that stories are built. So much of the time, we speak in abstract and high level discussions of plot, character, theme, and don't bring it back to specificity. And I love the energy you bring to each line - the excitement and the level at which the little moments of these books affect you. That energy is the high I'm chasing every time I pick up a new book.
i agree dont do last lines! Last lines are so resolute and you work all the way up to that final concluding moment of the novel. i love last lines so much that i am always terrified when i am just checking how many pages are in the book that i will accidentally see the last line. my heart literally beats faster as im checking page numbers haha
I would watch this video with all kinds of books idk why I love this sooooooo much! It's just fun and making me want to read/rered these and I immediately went and rewatched the first one it's just I LOVE. Seriously no matter how many of these videos you make with however bad, classic, or odd of books I will watch it
This reminds me of something my MFA creative writing professor would say, which is that your first paragraph is about “hook, pull, hold.” Hook the reader’s attention, pull them in with more interesting info/voice, and hold their attention there for the ride. The iconic and classic first lines are definitely hooky!
I love these videos! I would definitely watch a video on the last lines, I feel like it would make me want to read the book. Can you also do a video on the first line of books you haven't read? I love how you talk us through your thought process and would love to see your immediate reactions to something you haven't seen before. ❤️
“We’re just here having some fun” Successfully executed! 👏💜 ABSOLUTELY LAST LINES. My reasoning is twofold, it’s not often enough information to be a spoiler and it may lead to the choice to read a book that’s just a maybe. As in, that’s such a curious last line I must know more!
What a great idea! I’ve always said, I couldn’t immerse myself in reading the classics because I became a young mom…..then I realized I immersed myself in motherhood. Although I’ll always be a mom, I have more time to read….even if it’s 1 book every few weeks or months ….. this will help me decide! 💖💐📚🤓 Very Fascinating….I suppose as artists and musicians inspire (copy) each other, it’s found in writing too….
I LOVE Ariel's chill yet passionate vibes in these videos. Yes please to all the ranking first line videos. All the genres. And the last lines!! I'll be spoiled I don't even care!!!! I love to get a glimpse of where I'm going. It's about the journey, ya know. And I could just listen to Ariel talk books all day long.
Not a classic, but a very well done first line to a fantasy book: "The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed". --Stephen King (The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger)
I started watching you on the house renovation videos because I love watching house renovations, car renovations and campers. I love arts and crafts but a few years ago I decided to start reading books so I could learn about all types of things. Now I read every day and I have enjoyed watching your videos about books. I just hope I can remember all the books you have showed that I really want to read. Lol
It‘d be interesting to see you rank the first lines of your favourite contemporary books. This video was a lot of fun and makes me excited about reading, thank you!
I LOVED this video. Please make more of this fun analysis stuff! Having you interpret and break down the first lines just tickles my reader/writer brain. ☺️
I reaaaally want to read all the classics you did in this series and film it for fun. I really get hyped for reading when watching you videos. You are so good with your words!
When you were trying to remember the first line of Great Gatsby, I was too. Only, I remembered the first part, so it was very satisfying when you said the rest of the sentence 😂 Great video!
This is the first video of yours that i’ve seen. You are so passionate about literature and charismatic as a TH-cam personality. I am definitely going go end up binging your content. I love how you convinced yourself by repeating the first lines and by reading more indepth. I'm an English literature and creative writing student currently. Hoping to write classic amazing first lines for people like you to enjoy. I also just enjoy reading. But I get slumped a lot due to vision issues. But seeing content creators like you being so passionate relights a fire in my soul and passion. Thank you :)
Loved this video. I read Cat’s Cradle at the same point in my life as you, passed down by my brother. It blew my mind and opened up reading in a new way. 🎉 going to check out your other video now. Love both your channels ❤❤❤
I’m so happy that you made another one!!!! The first video is one of my favorites videos on the whole booktube, and yes we need more, all the different versions you can think of
Thank you so much for the First Lines video. I feel back in English class again, Creative Writing classes. So much fun! Please keep doing these videos.
Haha, I think Conor is right - I'm always scared I will see the last line when I'm reading a book and want to check how many pages it has 😅 But I would probably watch the video, just skipping the ones I haven't read!
I think this might be one of my favorite video of yours! I myself studied French and English literature and I loved your analysis and how you put those first lines into perspective with the rest of the novels (and I loved that you used the analysis terms, that brought back memories haha) ! And PLEASE do a video on last lines, those are my personal favorites 🤗
just gotta say i love your vibe love your voice it's so round and comforting!! can't describe it it's almost like vanilla. anyhow! thanks for the video!
I love the idea of doing last lines. Also, it would be fun to rank books by one author--pick a prolific author and rank the first lines of several of their books.
Please continue to do these videos if you can! They are WONDERFUL!! Some of these books are being added and re-added to read again on my reading lists :)
Last lines of classics would be cool as would first lines of all books one author has written. I too am an English degree nerd but LOVE how you disect each first line so deeply and use the big words. I do not do podcasts anymore (prever booktube) but think I may have to start listening to yours.
I'm thrilled that you are so superly passionate about books. It is just too contagious. And I drink coffee! I usually never read the last lines of any book because I always think that I might read it one day. But the last lines by Ariel Bissett, way too tempting an idea! Please, go ahead. It would be also alluring if you ranked the first lines of books you haven't yet read. And then rank them again after reading them. I don't know. Just thinking out loud. In Finnish literature there is a classic called Under the North Star of which first line is: "In the beginning there was the swamp, the hoe - and George." Hmmm, it is certainly....... Ps. One more a thinking out loud: What if, just what if, you analyzed, for example, Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984, chapter by chapter (a kind of book club) and reveal all the myriad layers of the most intriguing sides and views and wordplays.
When I was a kid, anytime I started reading a book or would be browsing shelves at the library, I'd always check the first and last words to see if the author was trying to send a hidden message lol. Love these videos, first and last lines are so interesting and powerful.
Favorite line hands down is the first line of 100 years of solitude "Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo" In spanish it is just so powerful... I feel like the english translations takes all the magic out of it
I'd love to see this with a group of books that you intend to, but have not yet read. Does the first line entice you further, or put you off? Does it feel like it's going to be a classic, or not?
Love these, and think genre editions would be so fun!. I'm also on board with last lines of classics segment. I feel like the proverbial cat's out of the bag with those anyway.
This was so much fun to watch! Really got me thinking about the first lines of my favourite books. Immediately went and watched the first video you did of this because I loved it so much !
I just love that you did another one of this!! Since I saw the first video last year, I always take close attention to the first lines and categorize them. 🤩
These are my favorite videos on all of booktube and has become a standard praxis of mine to always read the first line in books when I’m buying a book! 📚😍 This absolutely needs to be some kind of series and I wouldn’t at all mind a “last sentence video”.
I should have been an English major. I LOVE THIS!!! Do the last lines, though. I love everything you do. It's nice to know that there is someone as weird as I am. Keep it up! The Audacity of Ariel is my favorite unfolding novel...
i love these videos!! analyzing first lines of books is so fun, especially after reading the whole work and knowing the full context. i also think a video about the last lines would be really cool :D
YESSSSS i loved the first video you made ranking classics based on their first line and I couldn't have been happier seeing a second video! I love hearing you talk about classics.
I am from Puerto Rico and have been watching your renovation videos when I found this one. It was great! Actually, I just watched the Passing movie this week so it was nice it was in your list. Also, I consider the García Marquez’s first line to be wonderful! Keep doing these videos please!
I love these videos, so interesting and fun! The Peter Pan one has got to be my favourite of these ones. Also, I'd enjoy the last lines video, sounds really cool.
I'm not great at analyzing literature but, as a former Russian Studies student, a slight defense Zamiatin's We: the state newspaper is key - immediately we know there's a state-controlled media which is super important. That the narrator is "merely stating" what's in the state newspaper is also so reflective of his character, he's very hesitant to take a stand against the state and rebel, very much toeing the line for much of the book (if I'm remembering correctly). wow, haven't thought about this book in ages, super excited you included it!
19:56 That happened to me while I was reading the introduction to Dune Messiah. Granted, it wasn't the biggest spoiler because it was something that happened within the first few chapters, but it was still pretty frustrating as a first time reader!
I love these videos, with your tier rankings and analysis. I would love another tier ranking classics by opening lines. Other ideas could be tier ranking classics by main character; here it'd be even more subjective, but you can give a summary of that character. Also tier ranking dystopian novels. Maybe also tier ranking classics by their themes or motifs (Tiers like 1)World Altering, 2) Beautifully explained, 3) Gave me Pause, 4) Well that was a Waste, and 5) Shouldn't Be Published). I find your analysis/discussion of prose and detail so inspiring. I was recently reading Dorian Gray and was noticing so much more magic in Wilde's amazing personification, description, and parallelism because of watching these videos.
1. You look/feel/vibes like a cartoon character 2. End lines would be AMAZING! 3. I love the dedication (only God could stop me from cheating in this game - and it could be considered as the first line) in The Posthumous Memories of Bras Cubas. "To the worm who first gnawed on the cold flesh of my corpse, I dedicate with fond remembrance these Posthumous Memoirs"
omg and you could also do a video or something like that where you create new first lines to the books that you didn't feel were good or did justice to the rest of the story!!! love this series btw
I can't stop thinking about this video; it has made me go back to all the books I have recently read and re-read those first lines again and really consider their place. And not in classics, just regular books. I want to capture them in some meaningful form, I will have to come up with something.
This video just popped up in my auto play, and I loved it. Thanks for introducing me to classics I’ve never read nor heard of. Which is why the question of “Can you spoil a classic?”, shouldn’t even be a question. I’m glad I haven’t been spoiled for The Yellow Wallpaper or Passing, because thanks to you, they’ve only just been added to my list.
Please please please do the last lines of classics. Most people probably aren’t going to have the full book ruined by one line at the end. And a lot of people, especially students, look at those powerful last line without reading the book. I just want to see how passionate you get when ranking the last line of the Great Gatsby, “So we beat on, boats against true current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Like fuck me dude. What a great ending!!!
I love reading last lines of books!
+++
I'm with you! Fascinating!
The last line of _The Great Gatsby_ is inscribed on Fitzgerald's grave stone in Rockville, Maryland.
definitely up for last lines. Showing the covers in the thumbnail and having named chapters again would let me know which bits of the video to skip to avoid spoilers.
I wonder if Kurt Vonnegut was intentionally referencing both Moby Dick (a book about a whale), and the biblical story of Jonah (who was swallowed by a whale.)
100% a conscious choice, Kurt Vonnegut is a very intentional writer. When reading his work, you really get the sense that EVERY SINGLE word and EVERY SINGLE piece of grammar is there for a purpose - and that's not something I say flippantly.
Came to the comment section for this 🔥🤣
Exactly my thought!
Your analyses are so brilliant. I’m an English teacher studying to be a librarian…. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed this morning but your video swiftly reminded me why I love literature and assured me I’m on the right path. Thank you so much!
🥲 this is such a lovely comment. You’re going to be an amazing librarian!!!!!!
@@ArielBissett oh gosh thank you, I certainly hope so! Sending lots of bookish love from Australia! :)
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson is known for its iconic opening paragraph, but I think the first line is powerful on its own too:
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream."
If you ever write down the first liners that you come up with, it’d be fun to see how you’d rank your own lines (and to see what some of them are or what kind of story you’d apply them to)
I really enjoy these videos. I also wanted to point out to you that in the Bible, Jonah was swallowed up by a large fish “whale” and was trapped there for 3 days and 3 nights. I thought that was an interesting tie between Cat’s Cradle and Moby-Dick. 😊
I also made this connection and love it!
In Coran too :)
I was thinking about that too. Mind blown!!
Same!!!
I thought that too, as a sort of inversion of someone hunting a whale.
Here is one of my favorite first lines, from Kafka's Metamorphosis, in German: "Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt."
(English: "When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed right there in his bed into some sort of monstrous insect")
This line is cool, not only because of the nice satisfying way "ungeheueren Ungeziefer" rolls off the tongue and the immediate interesting start to the book but also because it is notably difficult to translate (basically every translation of Die Verwandlung has a pretty different first line, I would recommend Susan Bernofsky's essay "On Translating Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'"). Much of the language is a bit vague and many of the words are negations (with the "un-" prefix) and that nuance is hard to get in English.
For example, "Ungeziefer" invokes vermin, specifically unpleasant bugs (it's never specified at all what Gregor was transformed into). "Unruhig" literally means "uncalm." Kafka uses "ruhig" (calm) and "unruhig" (troubled) in contrast in the novella a lot, and the use of (un)ruhig just can't be translated very well into English. The novella as a whole has a lot of these translation issues, the German has a lot of these subtle little nuances that add dimension to the novella that you can't replicate in English. Also, fun detail: because of German sentence structure, "transformed" ("verwandelt") is the very last word in the first line of the original. The last three words in the sentence (horrible insect and transformed) are the most interesting ones
Ah so interesting. We did a performance based on the story for our A level drama exam and our translated version was "into some kind of enormous beetle." I wonder how our performances would have changed had our starter text not been so beetle specific
This is one of my favorite first lines also (and favorite stories)! Never knew this explanation about the translation oddities but the copy I have is her translation.
i read that kafka specifically didn't want a drawing on the book so it can stay as this vague concept
@@blockieran I just looked it up because I had a vague memory of reading Kafka's correspondence with his publisher in regards to the cover art and you're right!
German: "Es ist mir nämlich, da Starke doch tatsächlich illustriert, eingefallen, er könnte das Insekt selbst zeichnen wollen. Das nicht, bitte das nicht! Ich will seinen Machtkreis nicht einschränken, sondern nur aus meiner natürlicherweise bessern Kenntnis der Geschichte heraus bitten. Das Insekt selbst kann nicht gezeichnet werden. Es kann aber nicht einmal von der Ferne aus gezeigt werden."
English (sorry, the translation is my own so it won't be the best! 😄): "it has occurred to me that, since Starke actually illustrates, he might want to depict the insect itself. Not that, please not that! I don't want to limit his circle of power, but only ask from my naturally better knowledge of the story. The insect itself cannot be drawn. It cannot even be shown from a distance."
So happy I didn’t have to scroll very far for someone to mention THIS opening sentence. When Ariel said something about "so iconic because we can all quote it", I had to think of Gregor Samsa, even though I wouldn’t be confident to be able to quote it perfectly.
12:27 While we do SAY it is 13:00 o'clock, the clock would never strike 13. Imagine it being 23:00 (11pm) and the churches / clocks would have to ring 23 times. Or the numbers on the clock having to go from 0 to 23/24. That is a bit much. So it actually is a truly unusual element as ON THE CLOCK it is 1, not 13. So you were not off with your vibe here :D
“Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure.” from The Stranger by Camus is absolutely one of the best lines. It sets the tone and character for the rest of the novel.
When you read that first line to Peter Pan, I also thought “instantly iconic”, BECAUSE IT IS LITERALLY THE PREMISE OF THE BOOK
think about it, when you’re explaining Neverland to someone, you say exactly that! GENIUS!
Ariel cursing because literature is *that good is so wholesome.
One of my favorite first lines is from N. K. Jemisin’s book The fifth season, “Let’s start with the end of the world, why don’t we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.”
Just reading that line made me put it on my to read pile on storygraph :-D
I just bought that book the other day and I’m so excited to read it
I think what you said about 13:00 really shows how your own upbringing and culture influence the perception of a book, not just specifically personal interpretations. Like I personally would interpret the bright cold day as like a ice cold because that what the coldest days where I’m from are like. The clear ones are always the coldest. But then 13 as a time is just so normal to me (I’m from Europe) that I only see it as a bad omen because of the 13 and wouldn’t ever think of futuristic anything. This just really excites me, how differently we can read not even the same book but even the same sentence!
I love this comment! It's too true! Here I am in Canada and it's a completely different lens!
I haven’t read the book but as another europian from north europe I heard that as a ”it was a pleasant day in april”. So to me it was kind of boring sentence.
as a Brit I read it as one of the rare dry days in early spring, when the cloud layer is thin enough to let some light through and you realise how long it's been since you had to squint. Striking 13 still seems odd to me, because analogue clocks here generally run on 12 hours not 24, especially church bells or town halls which were my first thought.
@@emilymartin5418 oh yes that is very strange. I was thinking of like an old school alarm clock but those don’t really strike 13.
I had the same, regarding the description of the weather, but I really enjoyed the 'clock strikes thirteen' bit. It's a bit out of the ordinary for a clock to strike 13, even though it can be 13.00 hours. But it also reminded me of an expression we have in the Netherlands: it's five to twelve. I don't know if it's an expression in English too, but it means that we're close to disaster. And 13 is way past that! So for me it really set the tone that the world had already gone to shit.
Love these! Have you seen the ad for Master Class that Margaret Atwood did? She said something like “a better beginning for Little Red Riding Hood might be ‘ It was dark inside the wolf.’” YAAASSSSS!!
I love those Master Class ads. The only ads I look forward to watching :)
For me, “Maman died today” from The Stranger by Albert Camus is the most iconic one. It is so striking and throws us into the story right away. Also, saying such a sentence in the most casual, plain way gives us a big hint of what this book is going to be like.
It was in part1 if i remember correctly
My favourite openers is The Hobbit's. Absolutely iconic, I'd say.
_In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit._
Everyone knows that from memory.
I find it interesting that "It was a dark and stormy night..." is universally lambasted and derided as one of the most awful openings to any book, but "It was a bright cold day in April..." is one of the most iconic.
So do I! How interesting!
Good Omens starts with: IT WASN’T A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT. It should have been, but that’s the weather for you." and I think that's an interesting way of setting the tone and subverting the boring opening
One of my favorite first lines is “A typewriter shattered my destiny.” It sounds even better in the original Spanish: “Una máquina de escribir reventó mi destino.” From “The Time in Between” by María Dueñas. A historical novel about a young seamstress in WW2 Spain who is forged from a starry-eyed lover to a formidable wartime spy for the Allies. In the TV series, Adriana Ugarte portrays the growth of a daring, resourceful, intelligent female protagonist.
Please do last lines of classics!!! Or one where you compare first and last lines of classics to see how well they encompass the book as a whole!!
No. Some novels would be spoiled that way. Finnegan's Wake, for example.
So glad you did this again! I loved the first one ❤️📚
Me too! These are such a riot!
Btw, I think 1984 is playing off Elliot’s Wasteland (like so many books we read and never realise do too): “April is the cruelest month”.
I literally wrote a mini essay comparing the first line of 1984 to The Waste Land! Something else that sticks out at me is the connection between "a bright cold day in April" from 1984 and "Winter kept us warm" from The Waste Land. The paradoxical nature of bright/cold really aligns with the winter/warm.
It's funny you guys say that, because for me, bright and cold have no contradiction at all! I grew up in the UK and in a super mountainous place (7,000 feet above sea level) and I'll tell you we had a hell of a lot of bright cold days. In fact the dark days were often a bit muggy and humid.
The Bell Jar - the best. I feel so sad for thinking about the books she never got to write and we never got to read!
Would love to see more of these videos but with different genres! I also feel exactly the same about introductions. The amount of times I have had a book spoiled for me because I felt like I had to read the introduction first... I now exclusively read introductions after finishing a book, unless it's something where I am already familiar with the plot and don't care about being spoiled.
I always think of Anna Karenina when I think of first lines. Great video idea, btw!
Yes more of these! Also something interesting is that Jonah is a name of a character in the bible and the character is famously known to have been swallowed by a whale. Something else to tie in with Moby Dick!
I’m currently watching this video on our tv in our family room and my 2 year old daughter said “who is that?” And I replied “her name is Ariel.” And my daughter says “ARIEL?! She’s a princess!!!” Melted my heart.
My daughter thinks you’re a princess, Ariel! 🥹🤣❤️
Hello Ariel ! About 100 años de Soledad...I am glad you put it in "Iconic". Those first lines are one of the most crazy line in literrature( with maybe Proust's A la Recherche du temps perdu) For 100 años de Soledad, I recommend to read one chapter every night : 20 chapters, 20 nights. Make it like a "rendez-vous" with the book. Print the family tree and keep it while you read it for reference. .maybe read it in Spanish ? I am french and Colombian, raised in Paris and I still live there. and I speak Spanish too like you... To read it in spanish really helped to enter in the book for me. To get the atmosphere, it reminded me of holidays in Colombia, of the people I would meet there. I primarily read in French and always thought that reading in Spanish would be harder...turns out, it is not. Thank you for your videos !!!
I'm pretty sure a lot is lost in traslation, but then again I'm a huge fan of García Márquez and I feel like his writting isn't for everyone and it's okay to dislike it. I agree with you that is useful to have the family tree and I hope Ariel does give it a second chance in spanish :)
I might try it the way you say!
For more than I try I can't get into Garcia Marquez, and for some time a felt guilty about it. I agree that his writing style isn't for everyone
The first time I tried to read 100 years of solitude I found it a bit depressing and abandoned it. The second time, I really understood what he was about and got right into it. I read it in Spanish though.
It might be useful to read up on what Latin American Magic Realism is all about. You have to somehow let go of logic and let the absurdity of the story carry you.
And Vonnegut with that Jonah and the Whale biblical connection for the double reference... madness. Thank you for doing this, it was delightful 🥰
I’ve never paid too much attention to first lines before, but now I want to go back and reread the first line of every book I’ve read!
The atmosphere in this video is so relaxing, inviting and perfectly bookish! The soft lighting and stacks of books are just so comforting.
I loved your review and the books you chose to discuss. Also, I agree with your comment on Introductions. I too have felt like they were more 'spoilery' than helpful when presented at the start. They feel like a delay tactic keeping me from the main event. I mostly skip them or wait until I finished the book to go back and see if they seem interesting.
Quick thought on introductions: I love them because I like to have an idea of the deeper conversations surrounding the book going into it (e.g. themes to look out for) but at the same time they are sooooo spoilery! It's risky business. I think they deffo need to be split up between introduction and afterword better!!
Please do another of these videos!! I loved this so much
My favorite is Franz Kafka 'The Metamorphosis' is “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” gotta be up there at the top!
I absolutely love this series -- please keep doing them!!
Lol, I love the introductions! Especially if written by the author, you get a great feel for their writing style, humor, etc.
omg, this reminds me of that ad for Margaret Atwood's online course where she goes "it was dark... inside the wolf..." OMG THE CHILLS!
You are so much fun! I enjoy your channel very much and this one was particularly fun. My favorite first line ever is from Andy Weir's "The Martian"...it begins "I'm pretty much f*%ked." I was hooked from that moment on and couldn't wait to see why. Also it is the first time EVER in my 55 years of reading, that I have remembered an opening line of a book and quoted it. Keep up the great work, Ariel.
I would love any videos about first (or last!) lines in books! when I was a kid and my mom took me to the library I would always read her the first line of each book I got on the ride home and we would judge them together to decide which book I would read first lol
Watched your video today (discovered you today too). A lazy Saturday evening, and my husband and I just played your game ourselves. We each pulled 5 books off the shelves and read/ranked the first lines. We found that for us, we needed something between "informative" and "classic" - we decided on "inviting." Anyway, thank you for the entertainment, and I'll be watching you!
I love this - it really grounds me into the word by word way that stories are built. So much of the time, we speak in abstract and high level discussions of plot, character, theme, and don't bring it back to specificity. And I love the energy you bring to each line - the excitement and the level at which the little moments of these books affect you. That energy is the high I'm chasing every time I pick up a new book.
this!! yes i feel the exact same way haha
I love your videos, Ariel! One of my favourite openings is:
"The next day, no one died." Death with Interruptions by José Saramago ❤
Oh my GOD, you just reminded me about this book! It is INCREDIBLE, one of my favorites!
i agree dont do last lines! Last lines are so resolute and you work all the way up to that final concluding moment of the novel. i love last lines so much that i am always terrified when i am just checking how many pages are in the book that i will accidentally see the last line. my heart literally beats faster as im checking page numbers haha
I would watch this video with all kinds of books idk why I love this sooooooo much! It's just fun and making me want to read/rered these and I immediately went and rewatched the first one it's just I LOVE. Seriously no matter how many of these videos you make with however bad, classic, or odd of books I will watch it
This video is so underrated! So interesting to hear your analyses!
my jaw dropped at that edition of 1984. i’m so jealous ariel! so happy you made a part 2!
“Call me, Ishmael. Feel absolutely free to call me any hour of the day or night at the office or at home . . .”
Peter deVries, The Vale of Laughter
This reminds me of something my MFA creative writing professor would say, which is that your first paragraph is about “hook, pull, hold.” Hook the reader’s attention, pull them in with more interesting info/voice, and hold their attention there for the ride. The iconic and classic first lines are definitely hooky!
I love these videos! I would definitely watch a video on the last lines, I feel like it would make me want to read the book. Can you also do a video on the first line of books you haven't read? I love how you talk us through your thought process and would love to see your immediate reactions to something you haven't seen before. ❤️
“We’re just here having some fun”
Successfully executed! 👏💜
ABSOLUTELY LAST LINES. My reasoning is twofold, it’s not often enough information to be a spoiler and it may lead to the choice to read a book that’s just a maybe. As in, that’s such a curious last line I must know more!
What a great idea! I’ve always said, I couldn’t immerse myself in reading the classics because I became a young mom…..then I realized I immersed myself in motherhood.
Although I’ll always be a mom, I have more time to read….even if it’s 1 book every few weeks or months ….. this will help me decide! 💖💐📚🤓
Very Fascinating….I suppose as artists and musicians inspire (copy) each other, it’s found in writing too….
I love you tier ranking books, definitely do more! I really like the idea of ranking the last lines of classics :)
I LOVE Ariel's chill yet passionate vibes in these videos. Yes please to all the ranking first line videos. All the genres. And the last lines!! I'll be spoiled I don't even care!!!! I love to get a glimpse of where I'm going. It's about the journey, ya know. And I could just listen to Ariel talk books all day long.
Not a classic, but a very well done first line to a fantasy book:
"The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed".
--Stephen King (The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger)
I started watching you on the house renovation videos because I love watching house renovations, car renovations and campers. I love arts and crafts but a few years ago I decided to start reading books so I could learn about all types of things. Now I read every day and I have enjoyed watching your videos about books. I just hope I can remember all the books you have showed that I really want to read. Lol
I find that We is a difficult book for which you can rate a first line because of its structure, whereas 1984 has a more traditional structure.
you inspire me to read more classics with these videos! and they're so much fun! please do more videos to talk about classics.
It‘d be interesting to see you rank the first lines of your favourite contemporary books. This video was a lot of fun and makes me excited about reading, thank you!
I LOVED this video. Please make more of this fun analysis stuff! Having you interpret and break down the first lines just tickles my reader/writer brain. ☺️
Love this series! Honestly, a YA edition would be really fun and entertaining.
I reaaaally want to read all the classics you did in this series and film it for fun.
I really get hyped for reading when watching you videos. You are so good with your words!
When you were trying to remember the first line of Great Gatsby, I was too. Only, I remembered the first part, so it was very satisfying when you said the rest of the sentence 😂 Great video!
I gasped because I'm yearning to secure an ancestral hall and I don't even know what that means
hahahahahaha
This is the first video of yours that i’ve seen. You are so passionate about literature and charismatic as a TH-cam personality. I am definitely going go end up binging your content. I love how you convinced yourself by repeating the first lines and by reading more indepth. I'm an English literature and creative writing student currently. Hoping to write classic amazing first lines for people like you to enjoy. I also just enjoy reading. But I get slumped a lot due to vision issues. But seeing content creators like you being so passionate relights a fire in my soul and passion. Thank you :)
Loved this video. I read Cat’s Cradle at the same point in my life as you, passed down by my brother. It blew my mind and opened up reading in a new way. 🎉 going to check out your other video now. Love both your channels ❤❤❤
I’m so happy that you made another one!!!! The first video is one of my favorites videos on the whole booktube, and yes we need more, all the different versions you can think of
Thank you so much for the First Lines video. I feel back in English class again, Creative Writing classes. So much fun! Please keep doing these videos.
Haha, I think Conor is right - I'm always scared I will see the last line when I'm reading a book and want to check how many pages it has 😅 But I would probably watch the video, just skipping the ones I haven't read!
I think this might be one of my favorite video of yours! I myself studied French and English literature and I loved your analysis and how you put those first lines into perspective with the rest of the novels (and I loved that you used the analysis terms, that brought back memories haha) !
And PLEASE do a video on last lines, those are my personal favorites 🤗
just gotta say i love your vibe love your voice it's so round and comforting!! can't describe it it's almost like vanilla. anyhow! thanks for the video!
I love the idea of doing last lines. Also, it would be fun to rank books by one author--pick a prolific author and rank the first lines of several of their books.
Please continue to do these videos if you can! They are WONDERFUL!! Some of these books are being added and re-added to read again on my reading lists :)
Last lines of classics would be cool as would first lines of all books one author has written. I too am an English degree nerd but LOVE how you disect each first line so deeply and use the big words. I do not do podcasts anymore (prever booktube) but think I may have to start listening to yours.
I'm thrilled that you are so superly passionate about books. It is just too contagious. And I drink coffee! I usually never read the last lines of any book because I always think that I might read it one day. But the last lines by Ariel Bissett, way too tempting an idea! Please, go ahead. It would be also alluring if you ranked the first lines of books you haven't yet read. And then rank them again after reading them. I don't know. Just thinking out loud. In Finnish literature there is a classic called Under the North Star of which first line is: "In the beginning there was the swamp, the hoe - and George." Hmmm, it is certainly....... Ps. One more a thinking out loud: What if, just what if, you analyzed, for example, Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984, chapter by chapter (a kind of book club) and reveal all the myriad layers of the most intriguing sides and views and wordplays.
When I was a kid, anytime I started reading a book or would be browsing shelves at the library, I'd always check the first and last words to see if the author was trying to send a hidden message lol. Love these videos, first and last lines are so interesting and powerful.
Favorite line hands down is the first line of 100 years of solitude "Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo"
In spanish it is just so powerful... I feel like the english translations takes all the magic out of it
I'd love to see this with a group of books that you intend to, but have not yet read. Does the first line entice you further, or put you off? Does it feel like it's going to be a classic, or not?
Love the way you consider and dissect each line, I could listen for hours! And yes to the last lines video!
Love these, and think genre editions would be so fun!. I'm also on board with last lines of classics segment. I feel like the proverbial cat's out of the bag with those anyway.
This is the first video i watch on your channel and i absolutely love your energy. Thanks for a great time.
This was so much fun to watch! Really got me thinking about the first lines of my favourite books. Immediately went and watched the first video you did of this because I loved it so much !
This was a great video, Ariel. I used to write the first line and last line of a book I had read in my journal. I think both would be fantastic.
29:40 Also, the fact that Jonah in the Bible spent 3 days inside a big fish, and Ishmael spent his life trying to kill a big fish… 😂😂
I just love that you did another one of this!! Since I saw the first video last year, I always take close attention to the first lines and categorize them. 🤩
“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect.” ICONIC
These are my favorite videos on all of booktube and has become a standard praxis of mine to always read the first line in books when I’m buying a book! 📚😍
This absolutely needs to be some kind of series and I wouldn’t at all mind a “last sentence video”.
I should have been an English major. I LOVE THIS!!! Do the last lines, though. I love everything you do. It's nice to know that there is someone as weird as I am. Keep it up! The Audacity of Ariel is my favorite unfolding novel...
i love these videos!! analyzing first lines of books is so fun, especially after reading the whole work and knowing the full context. i also think a video about the last lines would be really cool :D
YESSSSS i loved the first video you made ranking classics based on their first line and I couldn't have been happier seeing a second video! I love hearing you talk about classics.
I am from Puerto Rico and have been watching your renovation videos when I found this one. It was great! Actually, I just watched the Passing movie this week so it was nice it was in your list. Also, I consider the García Marquez’s first line to be wonderful! Keep doing these videos please!
I love these videos, so interesting and fun! The Peter Pan one has got to be my favourite of these ones. Also, I'd enjoy the last lines video, sounds really cool.
I'm not great at analyzing literature but, as a former Russian Studies student, a slight defense Zamiatin's We: the state newspaper is key - immediately we know there's a state-controlled media which is super important. That the narrator is "merely stating" what's in the state newspaper is also so reflective of his character, he's very hesitant to take a stand against the state and rebel, very much toeing the line for much of the book (if I'm remembering correctly). wow, haven't thought about this book in ages, super excited you included it!
19:56
That happened to me while I was reading the introduction to Dune Messiah. Granted, it wasn't the biggest spoiler because it was something that happened within the first few chapters, but it was still pretty frustrating as a first time reader!
I didn’t know that about the “clocks striking 13” being a colloquialism!
the Passing movie is amazing! its such a beautiful adaptation and explores the subtext of the novella so well.
I love these videos, with your tier rankings and analysis. I would love another tier ranking classics by opening lines. Other ideas could be tier ranking classics by main character; here it'd be even more subjective, but you can give a summary of that character. Also tier ranking dystopian novels. Maybe also tier ranking classics by their themes or motifs (Tiers like 1)World Altering, 2) Beautifully explained, 3) Gave me Pause, 4) Well that was a Waste, and 5) Shouldn't Be Published).
I find your analysis/discussion of prose and detail so inspiring. I was recently reading Dorian Gray and was noticing so much more magic in Wilde's amazing personification, description, and parallelism because of watching these videos.
1. You look/feel/vibes like a cartoon character
2. End lines would be AMAZING!
3. I love the dedication (only God could stop me from cheating in this game - and it could be considered as the first line) in The Posthumous Memories of Bras Cubas.
"To the worm who first gnawed on the cold flesh of my corpse, I dedicate with fond remembrance these Posthumous Memoirs"
All of the ideas you have for your next videos seem great! I'm down for all of them!
omg and you could also do a video or something like that where you create new first lines to the books that you didn't feel were good or did justice to the rest of the story!!!
love this series btw
I can't stop thinking about this video; it has made me go back to all the books I have recently read and re-read those first lines again and really consider their place. And not in classics, just regular books. I want to capture them in some meaningful form, I will have to come up with something.
This video just popped up in my auto play, and I loved it. Thanks for introducing me to classics I’ve never read nor heard of. Which is why the question of “Can you spoil a classic?”, shouldn’t even be a question. I’m glad I haven’t been spoiled for The Yellow Wallpaper or Passing, because thanks to you, they’ve only just been added to my list.