Read that onetime longest sentence in literature, all 1,288 words of it, below. Fahrenheit 451 details a dystopian future in which a firemans sole job is to burn books, thereby maintaining a society made up of people who are oblivious and manageable. I recall being stunned by one in some novel of his but i cant say now for certain which one it was. The statistic shows the authors with the longest average first sentences worldwide as of 2017. First sentence from first the travel short story titled the records of a weatherexposed skeleton from matsuo bashos the narrow road to the deep north and other travel sketches did. It should be mysterious and compelling, either poetic or shockingly abrupt. May 19, 2017 the first line to eugenidess pulitzer prizewinning novel is a textbook example of efficient writing.
Winners will be announced on wednesday, july 8, 2020 at the craftfest luncheon. The first sentence sets the stagehowever long or short the textand hints at the narrative vehicle by which the writer will propel the book forward. Jul 05, 2014 according to a 1983 guinness book of records, this monster once qualified as literatures longest at 1,288 words, but that record has long been surpassed, in english at least, by jonathan coes the rotters club, which ends with a 33pagelong,955 word sentence. If a bookstore browser flips to the first page and reads the opening line, he or she should want to immediately sit down in the middle of the aisle and keep reading. At least thats what our english teachers told us when we cited dickens as a defense for our use of runon sentences. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Parsing the longest sentence in the book of mormon gently. The first line is the authors chance to make a first impression and to capture the imagination of the reader, and the very best books will keep the. Worlds longest english sentence abhirupa purkayastha.
The book with the longest paragraph was the prince of nothing, which had one paragraph of 508 words. To qualify to enter, you must be an itw member or registered for thrillerfest xv 2020. Jul 27, 2017 learning how to start a novel, how to write a great first sentence, paragraph or chapter, is key to writing books that pull readers in fast. Having that in mind, weve rounded up the first lines of some of the worlds most famous books, and they stand as excellent examples of how a short sentence or two can set the tone for an entire story and define its legacy for decades to come. The current record holder for the longest english sentence is. Some great first sentences which got me hooked are.
What is the longest sentence in english literature. One of my favorite first sentences is the first sentence ernest hemingway crafted for his novel the old man and the sea 1952. However, joyces record has recently been surpassed. Use longest in a sentence longest sentence examples. These famous authors made it okay to commit grammar nonos you have to learn the rules before you can break them. Top 10 longest novels in the english languagetop 10 longest novels in the english languagei love a long book that i can really get into, so i decided to compile a list of the longest novels ever written. But for me, a good opening sentence really begins with voice. The sentence is made up of six words, elegant in their brevity and crushing in. According to a 1983 guinness book of records, this monster once qualified as literatures longest at 1,288 words, but that record has long been surpassed, in english at least, by jonathan coes the rotters club, which ends with a 33pagelong,955 word sentence. Currently, i read when i am free from my college work. This 1,288word runon sentence by william faulkner broke records. The second part of his work won international awards as soon as it was published and with them, an international reputation.
He avoids the adjective whenever possible, but because he is. Note that many national legislations worldwide do not allow for such sentences. According to wiki, the guinness book says it is a 1287 word sentence in a book called absalom, absalom. Aug 21, 2016 traditionally, the longest sentence in english literature has been said to be a sentence in ullyses by james joyce, which clocks in at 4,391 words. William faulkner was featured in 1983 guinness book of world records for this 1,288word sentence from absalom, absalom. To find out how long should a chapter be, we examined books from a wide variety of genres and eras. I dont think the first version had much punctuation and i bet they put semicolons instead of. Write the argument of your book in a sentence, then stretch that out to a paragraph, and then to a onepage outline. Read examples from classics and bestselling novels, then get feedback on your own.
Past editions of the guinness book of world records have listed this record. In a sense, it invites us to refashion it in our own minds. A sentence often claimed to be the longest sentence ever written is in molly blooms soliloquy in the james joyce novel ulysses 1922, which contains a. For now, the longest word contains 3,609,750 letters and is published in nigel tomms novel the blah story, volume 19. For some odd reason, i started searching for the longest sentence ever written in english and was amazed to find that in fact, a sentence of 469,375. Free curbside pickup for online orders books of the month. Hrabal wasnt the first to attempt the very long sentence. The longest sentences 67 books goodreads share book. The word means the current day or date between real and imaginable today. Like other answers have said, there is no exact figure because there are too many variables. Its been said that science fiction is a genre that writes of the present while claiming to write of the future, and in a tale of two cities dickens is explicitly going in the other direction. Every year, the announcement of bulwerlytton prize is a gift from bad writing heaven. Traditionally, the longest sentence in english literature has been said to be a sentence in ullyses by james joyce, which clocks in at 4,391 words. For my own part, ive read plenty of good books whose first lines i dont remember.
And there are even one sentence books actually, a few of them. Mar 14, 2014 7 of the most memorable long sentences in lit. Theres the hero, the problem and the goal in the first sentence. Oct 04, 2014 the longest sentence in literature the 1983 guinness book of world records is from the novel absalom, absalom by william faulkner. And when the story becomes a classic, the first line can sometimes become as famous as the novel itself, as the quotes below demonstrate. Like a paragraph, it should be long enough to reach its end, but, as with a paragraph, that objective should be balanced with aesthetic considerations. Read examples from classics and bestselling novels, then get feedback on your own story opening. Though the record has been broken, faulkners legacy lives on.
I even tore out the first three pages of one of my favorite novels. From which book is that first sentence all happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, 12 june 1942. Assassins apprentice 453, the hobbit 458, and the lord of. But i had seen first one and then another of the rooms in which i had. Just as william blake said, to see the world in a grain of sand, so the first line of a novel can contain its entirety within it. In looking for the best opening lines, we took all of this into consideration. Oct 12, 2019 the first lines of novels set the tone for the story to come. Global authors with the longest first sentences 2017 statista. Basically, his style is simple, direct, and unadorned, probably as a result of his early newspaper training. In the first few pages of a novel by william faulkner i forget which one, but it was one of his famous novels, there is a single sentence which goes on for a few.
Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided i was depressed, presumably because i rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death. It is the extraordinary sensory quality of his prose that enabled faulkner to get away with writing the longest sentence in literature, at least according to the 1983 guinness book of world records, a passage from absalom, absalom. Literature is full of stunning examples of looooooooooong sentences, both. Literature is full of stunning examples of looooooooooong sentences, both properly punctuated and not ahemjohn updike. The writer henry james has some quite long sentences. In this single, perfect sentence nabokov reveals all the passion, poetry, and disaster that will follow.
None of the other books topped 500 words in a single paragraph, although there were three that surpassed 450. This is a list of longest prison sentences ever given to a single person, worldwide. Jun, 2008 the book gives 100page excerpts from the longest word, sentence, novel and poem. And there are even onesentence books actually, a few of them. The books, which easily get the readers dizzy, exhausted, or maybe even bored to death while following, because of the amazing length of the sentences. The polish novelist jerzy andrzejewski went even longer in the gates of paradise. So the first sentences has to get me hooked, otherwise i dont read any further. Still, its influence has been great and longenduring, in the catholic church primarily, but indirectly among protestants, especially in england, since the famous first book of hooker s ecclesiastical polity is to a great extent taken from the summa theologiae. A sentence often claimed to be the longest sentence ever written is in molly blooms soliloquy in the james joyce novel ulysses 1922, which contains a sentence of 3,687 words. How to start a novel first lines, first paragraphs now novel. We have to read a long sentence over and over to comprehend what those. A sentence can consist of one word or be infinitely long, but what will serve the reader while expressing a complete thought. Learning how to start a novel, how to write a great first sentence, paragraph or chapter, is key to writing books that pull readers in fast. One of the longest sentences in american literature is in william faulkners absalom, absalom.
In a single sentence, he manages to set up the novels ohsointriguing premise icymi, the book is about a hermaphrodite, as well as the time period and place. These famous authors made it okay to commit grammar nono. Book one hundred years of solitude by gabriel garcia marquez on page no. Its important to never judge a book by its cover, but how do you evaluate it. Listed are instances where people have been sentenced to jail terms in excess of a human lifetime. Armen shekoyan, an armenian writer committed to producing the worlds longest novel, says. But i wanted an approximate answer too, and heres how i got to it.
This 1,288word runon sentence by william faulkner broke. Mar 18, 2019 the current record holder for the longest english sentence is jonathan coe for his staggering 33page,955word sentence in the rotters club, 2001. Around 5,300 sentences, but can vary at least between 2,667 and 12,500. The longest sentence in the book of mormon is 389 words long. Here we have none other than the resurrected jesus christ teaching the righteous survivors of an apocalyptic destruction. Its my first book for adult readers, about a group of people who saved the world when they were younger from a dark lord figure known as the dark one and now its ten years later, theyre the most famous people on earth, and theyre still dealing with the psychological impact of their adolescent trauma. But without that first book, you will never learn the. First sentences, of course, have different functionsto amuse, to frighten, to mystifyand the mechanics a writer uses to achieve this connection vary from genre to genre. Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do. After that, write a table of contents to help guide you as you write, then break each chapter into a few sections. While not as long as some of these others, the first 181words of the book. According to a 1983 guinness book of records, this monster once qualified as literatures longest at 1,288 words, but that record has long been.
Its an odd section anyway, or so i thought when i first read it. Some of the greatest first lines in world literature are but a few words long. Fahrenheit 451, ray bradbury, 1953 it was a pleasure to burn. This is one of the longest and most beautiful sentence i have come across till now.
For example, theres molly blooms 36page, two sentence monologue in ulysses, or victor hugos 800plus line in les miserables. The first named, the longest river in the colony, though obstructed by a bar like all western, and most eastern, new zealand rivers, is navigable for some 70 m. When william faulkner set the world record for writing the longest. Dec 02, 2011 the first line should tell the reader what to expect in terms of language, plot and character. Proust produced the first volume of his volume masterpiece in 1912 it was first published in 19. Atlas shrugged has been a bestseller for 4 decades, is listed as the second most influential book of all time, is still on the amazon bestseller list and is considered required reading by many of the countrys most successful corporate executives. If you write a book according to the usual criteria, one person may like it, the other may dislike it, but when you write ten volumes, no one will say that the book is in eight. Either way, it was the best of times, it was the tseb of times, it was a palindromic time. The longest sentence in english the vandal aka derek. When william faulkner set the world record for writing the.
Were honored to receive thousands of odious entries from around the world each year. The first chapter of the luminaries is 360 pages, whereas the final is two pages. By onesentence novels, i mean something more than a book that comes to a. Great long opening sentences in world literature culturedarm. As i did more research, i realized that there were many issues i had to take into consideration when deciding what to include on this list. The longest sentence in literature the 1983 guinness book of world records is from the novel absalom, absalom by william faulkner. Authors who mention weather in first sentence of books worldwide 2017.
Sep 11, 2017 in the first part of the essay, cole compares the experience of viewing cosindas photos to watching a single sentence unfurl over several pages, driven along by an invisible inner consistency he then allows the reader to discover that the essay itself is, in fact, one long sentence. The top 10 best opening lines of novels litreactor. The longest sentences in literature and why they work. Top 10 longest novels in the english language listverse. While sentences like these are sights to behold, they also demand a certain something from the reader. It may have been his ghost story the turn of the screw. Since 1982 the bulwer lytton fiction contest has challenged man, woman, and very precocious child to write an atrocious opening sentence to a hypothetical bad novel.
Inspired by novelist and playwright edward george bulwerlyttons famous it was a dark and stormy night opener, the contest asks writers to submit an opening sentence for the worst of all possible novels although fifty shades of grey has already been written. Score a book s total score is based on multiple factors, including the number of people who have voted for it and how highly those voters ranked the book. The longest published novel is the blah story by nigel tomm, the first 23 volumes contain 11,338,105 words. Then theres william faulkners as i lay dying, in which vardamans famous fiveword sentence, my mother is a fish, is the whole of chapter 19. Marco76uk asks out of curiosity, what is the third longest sentence.