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Book: The Sequel
Clive Priddle, Vice President of PublicAffairs Books, discusses their collaborative publishing project Book: The Sequel. The Public Affairs team is collecting first lines for imagined sequels to famous books (eg "See, I was right." from Das Kapital 2). Then, over the course of 48 hours later this month, they will edit, print, bind, publish and market the book, offering a glimpse into the entire book publishing process.
What's your best first line for a famous book sequel? Post it below!- About the Brian Lehrer Show »
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The Brothers Karamazov, Part Deux: The California Years
"But Mitya," cried Ivan Karamazov, "the Father Zosima blintzes can retail at an even higher mark-up if you would only print the 'organic' label IN ENGLISH."
(If you missed the novel, Ivan was a non-entrepreneurial rationalist, and Mitya in the end disdained America and its language. But, were the visionary priest Father Zosima living today, he might, like the once-mescaline-vision-loving Dr. Andrew Weil, be making a small fortune peddling organic products with his bearded image on every product.)
"Today Mom was resurrected."
(after Camus's "L'etranger")
The Silicon of Sloth:
(sequel to "The Grapes of Wrath")
To the hills of golden grass with the here and there sporadic spurt of deep green trees, the bubble expanded slyly and it did not scar the valley, as nature's hand at times had, but a bubble's nature is fragile, and is destined to pop at some point.
"My name is Charlotte Simmons."
- Manderley, the sequel to Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca
Moby Dick II: The Reckoning.
Ishmael? Shmishmael! I was big, I was white, and the ocean was mine.
Sequel to "The Fall" by Camus.
"When her body washed ashore several miles downstream from the bridge where she jumped, they found in her coat a waterlogged photo of myself on the back of which I had written, "Fondest thanks for the great good time."
The Dead of Eastwick
Sequel to the Widows of Eastwick, which was the sequel to the Witches of Eastwick
"Call me Ishmael"
"and call me Moby"
"...and call me Sanchez"
"Three Guys Private Eyes!...best damn gun-slinging-gumshoes in the city of Los Angeles...Ole!!"
From John Irving's "A Prayer for Owen Meany"
Irvin'gs First Line: I m 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.
Sequel's First Line:
The Vietnam War, Ronald Reagan, and Owen Meany are three of the primary reasons I abandoned Christianity and became an ardent Buddhist.
Sequel to James Joyce's "Ulysses"
"No."
My Name Is Scout... sequel to To Kill A Mocking bird.
Atticus Finch was my father.
the stranger part two: satan's laugh
jesus christ. i was wrong about everything.
For sequel to William Faulkner's _Absalom, Absalom!_:
"I can say now that I was in love with Quentin Compson," Shreve said.
First line from 'A Confederacy of Dunces: Ignatius Destroys New Orleans':
Ignatius' valve snapped shut, perhaps for good, as if in vain rebellion against the tides which swelled and broke the levees, or perhaps in an attempt to shut out the bellowing voice in his head which insisted that all of this was indeed somehow his own fault.
The Electric Koolaid acid test
The musicians left the stage as ***sprinklings*** of euphoria ***sparkled*** among the elated comments emanating from the souls surrounding me, leaving me with a singular thought: the test continues.
Gulliver Travels Again
I recently read the book again, as an adult, and loved it. While much of the satire from that period still holds up, a new story could return Lemuel to Lilliput, among others, to observe changes. Potentially, these changes could have occured due to his first visit.
jim
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities sequel
It was a rockin’ good time, it was a bummer, it was the age of google, it was the age of Twitter, it was the epoch of Obama, it was the epoch of Bush, it was the season of the witch, it was the age of Aquarius, it was the spring of beer, it was the winter of valium, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to McDonalds, we were all going direct to Whole Foods - in short, the period was so far like the last period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of a flickering Kindle.
At first they werent even allowed to watch, and they would come under cover- but once they began to fight... the women changed everything.
Fight Club 2
Bible sequel
In the end God created nuclear proliferation...
I twit a tweet of myself.
Gravity's Rainbow II:
Slothrop's new Brooks Brothers Dress shirt was getting him pretty excited.
"Even though when history is reckoned in total, it becomes clear that the freedom of the will is a grand illusion that we spin to give our lives meaning and that the heroes we hold in esteem are powerless pawns pushed by the tide of history from behind and around them, this does not stop men from moving with a kind of fast-stepping assurance in our actions; indeed, his experiences with truth manifest in the form of Platon Karataev did not stop Pierre Bezukhov from standing at the head of the Decemberist revolution in 1825."
(This is my first line to a sequel for "War and Peace.")
Bible sequel
In the end God created nuclear proliferation
"Sorry to have to say this, but, it is the worst of times" A Second Tale of Two Cities
Peace...was probably not the best word to describe the inane twittering that crowded her mental space.
Delillo, Underworld II
"Being has not been given its due."
-The Pursuit of Being (Being and Nothingness: Ontological Proof, pt V) by Sartre
I know I'm stretching the word "book" but here's my first line for the sequel to A Streetcar Named Desire:
"Turns out some strangers weren't as kind as Blanche had hoped."
Gulliver Travels Again
Lemuel had cleared his name, but not his conscience; he would travel again.
Moby Dick II:
Text me, Ishmael!
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic car dealership.
The Sequel to Pride and Prejudice
Whatever truth may be universally acknowledged by men and women married or single alike, the fact that Darcy turned out to be a priggish jackass was one Elizabeth Bennet could not escape.
"So it turned out the world wasn't all that was the case after all."
-Tractatus-Logico Philosophicus, Wittgenstein
Sequel to Moby Dick:
"Call me Shamu."
"I used to stay up all night reading Proust."
Getting Rid of Found Time, (In Search of Lost Time 2)
"A Tale of Two Cities:"
sequel, first line: "Oh, sh*t"
Text me, Ishmael!
Sequel to "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan called "Air." First line: "Breathe Air. Not too much. Mostly Oxygen."
Jane Eyre: On Her Own
Reader, I divorced him.
Whether 'tis more weaslish to blame my mother or take it out on my girlfriend, that's the question. Hamlet II.
Line one of George W. Bush's forthcoming autobiography:
"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."
East of Eden II:
The Salinas Valley is in Northwest Mexico.
Anna Kareninny:
"No family can remain happy when the credit card bills arrive."
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Former President George W Bush was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover oil.
Suzanne (38) wins!
The unedited report on 911
On September 10 in the clear over office, “George lets go over this one more time” said Dick.
The Stranger II
-The Undead Existentialist
"Today, mother came back. . . "
(not a book, but) New York Times: "All the News That Fits the Web"
The House of the Seven Gables II: The Eighth Gable
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Halfway down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely-peaked gables, but Hepzibah Pyncheon knew she could rebuild it, better than it was before: bigger, stronger, gable-ier.
Farenheit 452
It was a pleasure to burn Kindle yet his fumes were way to toxic to endure.
First line of the sequel to James Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"... "Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man":
Once upon a time and a very bad time it was there was a nurseoo coming down along the hall and this nurseoo that was coming down along the hall met a nicens little old man named stephen doodoo...
First line to the sequel to James Joyce's "Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man", titled "Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man":
Once upon a time and a very bad time it was there was a nurseoo coming down along the hall and this nurseoo that was coming down along the hall met a nicens little old man named stephen doodoo...
Sequel to Book:The Sequel
"We are delighted to bring out one more sequel in our "First Lines"TM series simultaneously with the introduction of the board and computer game"
Bible II
Now that I have your attention, here's the truth...
#30 kills me:
Richard
May 26, 2009 - 11:51AM
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic car dealership.
Also, the other Richard at #52
Dear Reader,
below is Charles Dickens' first sentence of A Tale of Two Cities followed by my title and first sentence of a sequel.
Thank you for your attention.
First sentence of A Tale of Two Cities (1859):
* “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.“ Charles Dickens.
Title and first sentence of a sequel: The Tale of two Towers
* It was the innocence of times, it was the most brazen of times, it was the age of goggled erudition, it was the age of botoxed agelessness, it was the epoch of trendy irreverence, it was the times of arrogant certainty and reckless confidence, it came the morning of fire, falling and finality, it was the twilight of anguished theories, it was the night without morning.
The Fountainhead II
Howard Roark belched.
Moby Dick 2:
One whale of a story deserves another.
Oblomov 2:
One might have assumed that the story of Oblomov had exhausted itself.
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