Time for another round of Entitled:

Oracles & Miracles is a novel by Stevan Eldred-Grigg, a best-seller and award-winner about Ginnie and Fag, twin sisters growing up in working class Christchurch, New Zealand, in the 1930s and '40s.

Please submit your fabricated first sentences for this "bildungsroman" to me by PM in the next week or so, and I'll post your creations along with the real first line so that we can all guess.

Wordmatic

Thanks for reviving the Entitled game, wordmatic. Mine is on the way; come on Wordcrafters...let's play!

Once the Mystery of the Flummadiddle is solved, I certainly hope more of you novel sentenceists will come up with a first line for Oracles & Miracles!

I only have one hopeful entry so far....

Of course, they say Tolstoy would rewrite a single sentence more than 300 times...

Wordmatic

Come, Wordcrafters, let's play!

I still have only one entry! I'm wondering if I've picked a book that's perceived as being too much of a "chick" reading experience, since I think the gender balance of this group is more heavily weighted on the M side. Or maybe it's just a bad time of year.

At any rate, the game is here if anyone wants to play, but if you'd like for me to pick a different book, I'll do so when I have time, so let me know.

In fact, I'll probably drop in on the chat for a bit in a little while, (but have much to do today, so won't stay long,) so you can pelt me with your comments then!

Wordmatic

I don't know how to play the game but what was the mother smoking when she named the kids?

quote:

Originally posted by missann:
I don't know how to play the game but what was the mother smoking when she named the kids?

Good question. Now that we've talked about how to play the game on the chat, Maybe you could work that into your imagined first line--just submit it to me via PM (private message). Click on my screen name to the left of this msg and select "Invite wordmatic to a private topic," then just write your fake first line in the box and click "post now."

Give it a try--it's fun!

Well, I've just sent you a piece of truly deathless prose.

Come on Wordcrafters...Asa? CW? Hab? Pearce? Arnie? Jo? Who am I missing?

Where...are...all...of...you?

[As Shu will testify, I can nag with the best of them! Oh and Shu, you promised!

Hey, I'm betting I was one of the first to post a reply to this.

Do you have my first line?

Jo, yes I do and you are the first to reply to Kalleh's last post! Thanks again. I also have Bob's and Kalleh's. Just a few more and I'll roll out the results....

Five amazing entries now sit in the judges' vault! The suspense builds.....

Who will be the next to enter? Even you, who always dreamed of writing the Great Polynesian Novel?

WM

Nothing to say, just bringing you back on top so potential posters will PM you with their Polysyllabic perambulations.

Here are seven possible first lines for Oracles & Miracles, including the real one.

Vote for the one you think is the author's, whether you submitted one or not:

1. Black high heels, so high they make your head light, and mesh stockings. That's whats makes the blokes notice you.

2. You've probably heard that twins often share minds, but these two girls have never agreed on anything.

3. No!

4. Me and Ginnie was born on the bed Mum and the old man slept in.

5. Ginnie was serenely reading under a tree, sipping lemonade from her chilly bin, and wasn't in the mood for her sister's constant interruptions.

6. Ginnie was thieving Aunt Bae's cigs again, so I told.

7. If Fag hadn't broken her left ankle when she did, I wouldn't be here, so maybe things happen for a reason.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: wordmatic,

I'll try 4

I'll try with #7.

#5

I have NO idea! #4 seems as good as any, so I'll guess it.

Kalleh? Others?

2, my dear.

Thanks, everybody--this was fun.

Alrighty, then, here are the answers:

1. Black high heels, so high they make your head light, and mesh stockings. That's whats makes the blokes notice you. Submitted by Jo.

2. You've probably heard that twins often share minds, but these two girls have never agreed on anything. Created by Caterwauller and selected by Kalleh.

3. No!
This is Bob's deathless prose. It may have been inspired, but nobody bit.

4. Me and Ginnie was born on the bed Mum and the old man slept in. This is the real thing and it contains an error (sorry). It was supposed to say, "Me and Fag was born..." Even so, both Asa and Bob guessed correctly.

5. Ginnie was serenely reading under a tree, sipping lemonade from her chilly bin, and wasn't in the mood for her sister's constant interruptions. Kalleh's creation, swallowed by Jo.

6. Ginnie was thieving Aunt Bae's cigs again, so I told. A fraud submitted by me to fill out the list.

7. If Fag hadn't broken her left ankle when she did, I wouldn't be here, so maybe things happen for a reason. A curiously somber entry from Asa, so no one bothered to guess that either he or Griggs had written it!

The novel takes the twin sisters from childhood to middle age against a backdrop of the Depression, political and social turmoil. Ginnie (real name, Janet) is a diamond in the rough, natural, emotional and spontaneous, but unread and uneducated, a reflection of her impoverished childhood. Fag (nee Daphne) has raised herself up from the working class background, become educated, married well but succumbed to alcoholism and depression, possibly because she has not managed to move beyond the angry maxims of her embittered mother.

Oracles & Miracles , Grigg's first novel, published in 1987, won second prize in the Wattie Book Awards, was a finalist for a New Zealand Book Award in 1988, and was a "joint winner" of the Asia-Pacific section of the Commonwealth Writers Prize. I'll bet you've never even heard of the Wattie Book Awards, have you. It's been a long time since I read the book, so this is only the lightest glossing over, but I would recommend it. It was a compelling read.

Wordmatic

Thanks, Wordmatic. That was fun!

I spent hours and hours working on that masterpiece and nobody chose it. I shall cry and cry and cry until I'm sick. So there!

But Bob, just think--you can use that line over and over again. It is a possible first line for any novel on the face of the earth! Your Entitled work is finished here!

(Personally, I thought it was hilarious.)

WM

quote:

I spent hours and hours working on that masterpiece and nobody chose it. I shall cry and cry and cry until I'm sick. So there!

In all fairness, I considered it.

I think all the entries (including Bob's) were great this time!

I have a great one for this next time. I'll post now!