No 3626 Set by Leonora Casement We decided to set an old favourite: new first lines of a well-known novel that would totally destroy it. The example given was: "Once upon a time there were four little rabbits - Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail and Peter - and very delicious they were too."
Report by Ms de Meaner
An extremely popular comp. But some of you weren't quite on my wavelength. Starting Moby Dick with "'Call me Ishmael,' she intoned, sticky with rice and raisins" will certainly go a long way to ruining the book - but then, any sentence about anything completely unrelated to the original will do that. And other compers, although following my train of thought with no difficulty, were just a teeny bit pedestrian. Surely you can come up with something funnier than "Owing to swine fever, Mr Jones had his pigs slaughtered" for the start of Animal Farm?
Sorry to all those who sent in versions of Pride and Prejudice similar to Sara Williams's; to the people who sent in "Call me fishmeal" for Moby Dick; to Tom Hayhoe for the rat line in 1984 (see John Bull, who did it a bit more funnily); to the many who sent in "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in need of an accountant" (which I have a sneaking suspicion won in the Eighties). In addition, I'm afraid I had to chuck out Chas F Garvey's new Fever Pitch beginning, "I remember that first time as if it were yesterday, dad taking me to the Spurs", as dad actually does take young Nick Hornby to a Spurs match very near the beginning of the book. Nice try, though. £10 to the winners; the bottle goes to John Bull.
1984
It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions with his pet rat nestling under his arm.
John Bull
La Disparition
E.
George Simmers
Lolita
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. Why is it that I'm always attracted to older women?
W J Webster
1984
It was a bright cold day in 1985.
Alice in Wonderland
Try as she might, Alice could not get to sleep.
R J Pickles
Emma
Emma Woodhouse, ugly, dim-witted and poor as a church mouse, with a miserable home and a sour disposition, seemed to unite some of the worst disadvantages of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world being distressed and vexed.
Watson Weeks
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Mellors was a person of great integrity and courteousness, in spite of the terrible accident to the lower half of his body, from the hips down, which had taken his manhood from him.
Katie Mallett
1984
It was a bright cold day in April, and polling had just started in the general election.
Michael Cregan
Dracula
1 May, Munich - Continental railways are always so unreliable that after consulting the office I have sent to the client advising that it will be easier to transact our business by cable or post; disappointed to miss Carpathian trip, but hardly a life-and-death matter.
A R Frith
Pride and Prejudice
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be gay.
Lord of the Flies
The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way towards the lagoon, where he had just seen the seaplane land.
Dune
In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul. She pointed out that sand would be bad for his eczema.
Sara Williams
Metamorphosis
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic squashed insect.
L'Etranger
Mother died today, or maybe it was yesterday. She's left me half a million, so I'm moving somewhere cooler.
Ian Birchall
Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
I could see by my watch, without taking my hand from the left grip of the cycle, that it was eight-thirty in the morning. If only I had kept my eyes on the road.
Robert Ireland
1984
It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen as Winston Smith enjoyed his usual lunch of Tournados Rossini and a fine Mouton Rothschild.
Basil Ransome-Davies
No 3629 Set by Leonora Casement
We want letters from a famous fictional person to an agony column and the ensuing advice. Max 200 words by 18 May.
E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk
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