A dark and stormy night
IT'S THAT high point again in English literature. The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (also known as the Dark and Stormy Night Awards) is sponsored annually by the English Department of San Jose State University, in California.
Entrants are invited "to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels" – that is, deliberately florid and bad. The contest is named for Victorian English novelist and playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel, Paul Clifford, opened with the much quoted (and much-derided) line: "It was a dark and stormy night …"
This year's overall winner is Cathy Bryant, of Manchester, England. Her splendid opening line:
"As he told her that he loved her she gazed into his eyes, wondering, as she noted the infestation of eyelash mites, the tiny deodicids burrowing into his follicles to eat the greasy sebum therein, each female laying up to 25 eggs in a single follicle, causing inflammation, whether the eyes are truly the windows of the soul; and, if so, his soul needed regrouting."
Other categories:
· Grand Panjandrum Special Award - "As an ornithologist, George was fascinated by the fact that urine and faeces mix in birds' rectums to form a unified, homogeneous slurry that is expelled through defecation, although eying Greta's face, and sensing the reaction of the congregation, he immediately realised he should have used a different analogy to describe their relationship in his wedding vows." (David Pepper, Hermosa Beach, California).
· Children's literature - "He swaggered into the room (in which he was now the 'smartest guy') with a certain Wikipedic insouciance, and without skipping a beat made a beeline towards Dorothy, busting right through her knot of admirers, and she threw her arms around him and gave him a passionate though slightly tickly kiss, moaning softly, 'Oooohh, Scarecrow!'" (David S Nelson, Falls Church, Virginia)
· Crime - "She slinked through my door wearing a dress that looked like it had been painted on … not with good paint, like Behr or Sherwin-Williams, but with that watered-down stuff that bubbles up right away if you don't prime the surface before you slap it on, and – just like that cheap paint – the dress needed two more coats to cover her." (Sue Fondrie, Appleton, Wisconsin).
· Historical fiction - "The 'clunk' of the guillotine blade's release reminded Marie Antoinette, quite briefly, of the sound of the wooden leg of her favourite manservant as he not-quite-silently crossed the polished floors of Versailles to bring her another tray of petit fours." (Leslie Craven, Hataitai, New Zealand).
· Purple prose - "William, his senses roused by a warm foetid breeze, hoped it was an early spring's equinoxal thaw causing rivers to swell like the blood-engorged gumlines of gingivitis, loosening winter's plaque, exposing decay, and allowing the seasonal pot-pouris of Mother Nature's morning breath to permeate the surrounding ether, but then he awoke to the unrelenting waves of his wife's halitosis." (Guy Foisy, Orleans, Ontario).
· Romance - "'I'll never get over him,' she said to herself and the truth of that statement settled into her brain the way glitter settles on to a plastic landscape in a Christmas snow globe when she accepted the fact that she was trapped in bed between her half-ton boyfriend and the wall when he rolled over on to her nightgown and passed out, leaving her no way to climb out." (Karen Hamilton, Seabrook, Texas).
Magnificent stuff! And there's more to be shared as space allows.
In full
LET'S LOOK at Bulwer-Lytton's full opening line:
"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
Compared with the contemporary stuff, that's quite brisk and terse.
Tailpiece
Last word
An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.
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