{"id":10536,"date":"2018-07-08T15:53:22","date_gmt":"2018-07-08T05:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/?p=10536"},"modified":"2018-08-09T13:40:15","modified_gmt":"2018-08-09T03:40:15","slug":"46-great-opening-lines-46","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/?p=10536","title":{"rendered":"46 Great Opening Lines: 46"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is it, 46 of 46. More importantly, together with the 54 Great Opening Lines I posted a couple of years ago (click on ‘categories’ to go there), now there are a hundred all together.<\/p>\n

This last opener is from my (unpublished) translation of a book of short stories. Here today in Canberra it’s mid-winter, about 10 degrees celsius with an icy breeze that spoils a good walk. Winter Tales<\/em> came to mind not only because of the weather but because, as a translator, I’ve been reading it so closely for so long that I want to show you a little of its magic.<\/p>\n

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Tom River Valley, near Tomsk, western Siberia, courtesy Andrei Zverev, Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was Christmas, a few years ago. I had been invited to join a wolf hunt in a province of the Russian interior. The morning was superb: ten degrees of frost, a bright sun in a blue sky, not a breath of wind; plains stretching to the horizon, everything a raw white with pink glints and hints of gold; a dead world gleaming like old bone china.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First lines, Winter Tales<\/em>, Eug\u00e8ne-Melchior de Vog\u00fc\u00e9, 1893, my translation<\/p>\n

Certain words of the first two sentences had my attention from the start: Christmas, wolf hunt, Russian interior.<\/p>\n

Set in Russia and Ukraine, these tales are the writing of a French diplomat who lived there for seven years and married a Russian aristocrat. His unnamed narrator, invited to join the wolf hunt, was staying with a host who had lived through the times of serfdom and its abolition. The host tells stories of former serfs, beginning and ending with his own story as a property and serf owner during this era.<\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n

And that, my friends, is my last offering to the list of Great Opening Lines. I do hope you’ve been inspired to hunt down some of these books, particularly the less-known novels and collections. If you have, please leave me your kind reflections on them.<\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is it, 46 of 46. More importantly, together with the 54 Great Opening Lines I posted a couple of years ago (click on ‘categories’ to go there), now there are a hundred all together. This last opener is from my (unpublished) translation of a book of short stories. Here today in Canberra it’s mid-winter, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “46 Great Opening Lines: 46”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1088,157],"tags":[241,844,156,716,2,246,1302,501,3,270],"class_list":["post-10536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-46-great-opening-lines","category-french-literature-and-translation","tag-19th-century-literature","tag-eugene-melchior-de-vogue","tag-french-literature","tag-literary-translation","tag-literature","tag-opening-lines","tag-russian-winter","tag-short-stories","tag-translation","tag-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t