It was a dark & stormy night: Favourite beginnings & endings

[Nesacat]

It was a dark and stormy night ... All of us have, at one time or another heard about a tale beginning with those words. Beginnings are important. They pull us into a tale and many a reader's interest has been lost by a dull beginning. Endings are the same. The bring some form of closure, create a sense of mystique and possibility perhaps. But a bad ending can ruin a good book.

We all of us have beginnings and/or endings we are particularly fond of and I'm curious to see what some of them are and know why you care for them.

I'll start with a long-time favourite beginning.

The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
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. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

I've liked this paragraph from the first time I read it years ago in high school. This house standing alone with it's doors and floors doing exactly what they are meant to do. But things are not as they seem. The house stands alone, without dreams, silent and yet somehow alive, watching and waiting and walking and knowing it's time would come. The words are quiet yet give the house a sinister personality and make the house a character in it's own right in the tale.

 

[j d worthington]

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." -- "The Call of Cthulhu," by H. P. Lovecraft.

Note that HPL is not deploring knowledge, but humanity's inability to handle an accurate knowledge of the nature of the universe and reality. With this paragraph, he turns the universe into the biggest haunted house of all, because it is an empty place that mocks us by mirroring our own delusions about our importance therein.

 

[Paige Turner]

There was a white horse, on a quiet winter morning when the snow covered the streets gently and was not deep, and the sky was swept with vibrant stars, except in the east, where dawn was beginning in a light blue flood. The air was motionless, but would soon start to move as the sun came up and the winds from Canada came charging down the Hudson.

From A Winter's Tale by Mark Halprin. The best first chapter I've ever read, though not, in the end, the best book.

 

[Silent Speaker]

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what looked like eternity in all directions. It was white and blinding and waterless and without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon and the devil-grass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death. An occasional tombstone sign pointed the way, for once the drifted track which cut its way through the thick crust of alkali had been a highway. Coaches and buckas had followed it. The world had moved on since then. The world had emptied."
-The Gunslinger, S. King.

Though perhaps not seeming quite as eloquent as when it was first read, this, I would say, is one of my favourite beginnings. Perhaps my liking of it is due only to the situation/condition I was in at the time of reading; the memories of the first time that I read it.
I was sick, a cold, I think. In my ears was the lulling drone of the hot and stuffy bus (van) I was in and an agonising rhythm pounded in my skull as the bus travelled down a rather featureless road with naught but dried up grass on the edges. But through the haze, the disorienting thoughts sickness had induced and the overall hell that I was feeling, I managed read a little .

The passage struck me with strange clarity (considering my state): I was in that desert, following the man in black, whoever he was, for god knows whatever reason. I either fell asleep or passed out soon after and crazy, dali-esque dreams followed (dali-esque scares me ). So you see, I like it because by reading the words I can evoke that scene in the bus, the feeling of wandering through that bleak desolation of a "world that had moved on/a world that had emptied". Reading it makes me feel thirsty every time . (praise the gods for fridges )

Although, why I would want to experience it all again is an excellent question

Edit:
Oh god! Is it possible to mortally injure oneself whilst simply drinking water? Cause I think I just did. Oh the pain! Curse you, King! You caused this! *shakes fist at the sky before issuing watery death gurgle.

 

[Foxbat]

Not Science Fiction or Fantasy...not even a favourite book of mine...but I do like the ending

Rick is a hundred yards away across the river, flittling from tree to tree like playing Indians. I shall have an audience for my ritual. Now he is leaning against a tree and peering at me through some instrument or other. How the devil did Rick L. Tucker manage to get hold of a gu

From The Paper Men by William Golding.

It's a fine way to end a first-person account in a tragic and yet believable way.

 

[Prefx]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times [...]

 

[Nesacat]

The beginning and end of Ray Bradbury's short story The Fog Horn

The beginning...
Out there in the cold water, far from land, we waited every night for the coming of the fog, and it came, and we oiled the brass machinery and lit the fog light up in the stone tower. Feeling like two birds in the grey sky, McDunn and I sent the light touching out, red, then white, then red again, to eye the lonely ships. And if they did not see our light, then there was always our Voice, the great deep cry of our Fog Horn shuddering through the rags of mist to startle the gulls away like decks of scattered cards and make the waves turn high and foam.


The end ...
The monster?
It never came back.
"It's gone away," said McDunn. "It's gone back to the Deeps. It's learned you can't love anything too much in this world. It's gone into the deepest Deeps to wait another million years. Ah, the poor thing! Waiting out there, and waiting out there, while man comes and goes on this pitiful little planet. Waiting and waiting.
I sat in my car, listening. I couldn't see the lighthouse or the light standing out in Lonesome Bay. I could only hear the Horn, the Horn, the Horn. It sounded like the monster calling.
I sat there wishing there was something I could say.

 

[Tau Zero]

Space is infinite.
It is dark.
Space is neutral.
It is cold.

The first 4 sentences of The Black Corridor by Michael Moorcock. The book ends with:

The spacecraft moves through the silence of the cosmos. It moves so slowly as to seem not to move at all. It is a lonely little object.

Space is infinite.
It is dark.
Space is neutral.
It is cold.

 

[Nesacat]

Tau Zero ... this book is definitely moving up on my to-read pile. I have a great fondness for books that begin and end with the same words. Thank you for this one.

 

[Tau Zero]

Tau Zero ... this book is definitely moving up on my to-read pile. I have a great fondness for books that begin and end with the same words. Thank you for this one.

I hope you like it. It's more a psychological thriller than anything else. A study of someone loosing their mind. If you go to this thread:

http://www.chronicles-network.com/forum/10751-my-favorite-cover-is.html

You can see the cover of my edition.

 

[j d worthington]

Tau Zero ... this book is definitely moving up on my to-read pile. I have a great fondness for books that begin and end with the same words. Thank you for this one.

Nesa: I highly second this. This remains one of my favorite of Moorcock's books. He wrote it in conjunction with his (then) wife, Hillary Bailey, and it is a very, very interesting book. The opening lines were also used by Hawkwind in their Space Ritual show in the '70s -- you can find it on disc, recently remastered, and used to much the same effect, to lead into a song that they'd written which chimes in perfectly with the themes of the book, I'd say...

And, of course, HPL frequently used this technique in his stories, the earliest example being "Polaris", which has always been one of my favorites for sheer mood and structure; I also find the brief verse in there very evocative....

 

[Brys]

Titus Groan has a brilliant beginning:

Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls. They sprawled over the sloping earth, each one half way over its neighbour until, held back by the castle ramparts, the innermost of these hovels laid hold on the great walls, clamping themselves thereto like limpets to a rock. These dwellings, by ancient law, were granted this chill intimacy with the stronghold that loomed above them. Over their irregular roofs would fall throughout the seasons, the shadows of time-eaten buttresses of broken and lofty turrets, and, most enormous of all, the shadow of the Tower of Flints. This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night, the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.

And the ending:

Through honeycombs of stone would now be wandering hte passions in their clay. There would be tears and there would be strange laughter. Fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings. And dreams, and violence,a and disenchantment.
And there shall be a flame-green daybreak soon. And love itself will cry for insurrection! For tomorrow is also a day - and Titus has entered his stronghold

Flowers for Algernon has a great beginning and ending as well:

progris riport 1 martch 3

Dr Strauss says I should rite down what I think and remembir and evrey thing that happins to me from now on. I dont no why but he says its importint so they will see if they can use me. I hope they use me becaus Miss Kinnian says mabye they can make me smart. I want to be smart. My name is Charlie Gordon I werk in Donners bakery where Mr Donner gives me 11 dollers a week and bred or cake if I want. I am 32 yeres old and next munth is my brithday. I tolld dr Strauss and perfesser Nemur I cant rite good but he says it dont matter he says I shud rite just like I talk and like I rite compushishens in Miss Kinnians class at the beekmin collidge center for retarted adults where I go to lern 3 times a week on my time off. Dr. Strauss says to rite a lot evrything I thin and evrything that happins to me but I cant think anymor because I have nothing to rite so I will close for today...yrs truly Charlie Gordon

The ending:

Anyway I bet Im the frist dumb persen in the world who found out some thing importent for sience. I did somthing but I dont remembir what. So I gess its like I did it for all the dumb pepul like me in Warren and all over the world. Goodby Miss Kinnian and dr Strauss and evrybody...

 

[Nesacat]

The Strange High House in the Mist - HP Lovecraft.

This is one of those tales where the beginning and the end are made of almost the same words.

The beginning:
In the morning, mist comes up from the sea by the cliffs beyond Kingsport. White and feathery it comes from the deep to its brothers the clouds, full of dreams of dank pastures and caves of leviathan. And later, in still summer rains on the steep roofs of poets, the clouds scatter bits of those dreams, that men shall not live without rumor of old strange secrets, and wonders that planets tell planets alone in the night. When tales fly thick in the grottoes of tritons, and conchs in seaweed cities blow wild tunes learned from the Elder Ones, then great eager mists flock to heaven laden with lore, and oceanward eyes on tile rocks see only a mystic whiteness, as if the cliff's rim were the rim of all earth, and the solemn bells of buoys tolled free in the aether of faery.

The end:
All these things, however, the Elder Ones only may decide; and meanwhile the morning mist still comes up by that lovely vertiginous peak with the steep ancient house, that gray, low-eaved house where none is seen but where evening brings furtive lights while the north wind tells of strange revels. white and feathery it comes from the deep to its brothers the clouds, full of dreams of dank pastures and caves of leviathan. And when tales fly thick in the grottoes of tritons, and conchs in seaweed cities blow wild tunes learned from the Elder Ones, then great eager vapors flock to heaven laden with lore; and Kingsport, nestling uneasy in its lesser cliffs below that awesome hanging sentinel of rock, sees oceanward only a mystic whiteness, as if the cliff's rim were the rim of all earth, and the solemn bells of the buoys tolled free in the aether of faery.

 

[j d worthington]

Here's one where the beginning is quite nice, but the ending.... Well, see for yourself:

The beginning:

I knew she was a virgin because she was able to ruffle the silken mane of my unicorn. Named Lizette, she was a Grecian temple in which no sacrifice had ever been made. Vestal virgin of New Orleans, found walking without shadow in the thankgod coolness of cockroach-crawling Louisiana night. My unicorn whinnied, inclined his head, and she stroked the ivory spiral of his horn.

And the ending:

We faded and were lifted invisibly on the scented breath of that good God who had owned us, and were taken away from there. To be born again as one spirit, in some other human form, man or woman we did not know which. Nor would we remember. Nor did it matter.

This time, love would not destroy us. This time out, we would have luck.

The luck of silken mane and rainbow colors and platinum hoofs and spiral horn.

"On the Downhill Side", by Harlan Ellison

 

[Tau Zero]

Here's the great final sentence by Lovecraft's Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath:

And vast infinities away, past the Gate of Deeper Slumber and the enchanted wood and the garden lands and the Cerenarian Sea and the twilight reaches of Inquanok, the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep strode brooding into the onyx castle atop unknown Kadath in the cold waste, and taunted insolently the mild gods of earth whom he had snatched abruptly from their scented revels in the marvellous sunset city.

Now THAT is what i call an ending!

 

[j d worthington]

And a personal favorite, as well. Dream-Quest is such a sadly underrated story ... but finding more and more of an audience as time goes on, thank goodness!

 

[Nesacat]

Aye Tau Zero that is a lovely ending indeed. Echoes in the mind long after the book has been closed and put away.

I'll echo j.d. in being glad that the tale is increasingly being appreciated along with the rest of H.P.L's work.

Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn! .... sorry ... got a little carried away there.

 

[j d worthington]

Ia! Ia! Shub-niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young! (Can you imagine the cleaning bill for all those diapers?)

 

[Saeltari]

The end.

 

[j d worthington]

The end.

I'm assuming the beginning was "I AM BORN"?