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"Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested."

The 100 best first lines from novels... or so says American Book Review.

The "truly" is the best part, right? Ah, I'm thinking of this part of Jonathan Franzen's "The Discomfort Zone."

[The teacher, Avery] began to mumble about "three different universes of interpretation" in which the text of The Trial could be read: one universe in which K. is an innocent man falsely accused, another universe in which the degree of K.'s guilt is undecidable... I was only half listening. The windows were darkening, and it was a point of pride with me never to read secondary literature. But when Avery arrived at the third universe of interpretation, in which Josef K. is guilty, he stopped and looked at us expectantly, as if waiting for us to get some joke; and I felt my blood pressure spike. I was offended by the mere mention of the possibility that K. was guilty. It made me feel frustrated, cheated, injured. I was outraged that a critic was allowed even to suggest a thing like that.

Franzen's whole book is worth reading. So is Kafka's.

And "The Trial" is only #13 on that first lines list, which is also worth reading.

IN THE COMMENTS: molly writes:

The "truly" isn't even in the original -- it's "etwas Böses," something bad/evil, which is meant to be a little ironic, I think.

I found my copy, translated by Willa and Edwin Muir, and the first line is:

Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.

I guess Willa and Edwin are from the "universe" in which "K. is an innocent man falsely accused." Franzen is reading the untranslated book, and there is a lot in "The Discomfort Zone" about studying the German language.

Full post as published by Althouse on August 30, 2008 (boomark / email).