Bulwer Lytton literarni je međunarodni natječaj u čast i sjećanje na viktorijanskog pisca Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lyttona (1803-1873). Cilj natjecanja je vrlo jednostavan – pronalaženje najjednostavnije i najlošije rečenice koja otvara zamišljenu/nepostojeću novelu. Iako je Lytton dobro poznat po svojoj noveli “Posljednji dani Pompeja” (objavljene 1834 godine) i iz koje nam dolazi glasovita tvrdnja kako: “Pero je jače od mača!”, njegova najpoznatija je u stvari rečenica kojom je 1834 godine započeo roman Paul Clifford a koju je bezobrazno godinama zloupotrebljavao Snoopy i koja glasi “It was a dark and stormy night”.
Rezultati natječaja za 2006 godinu su ovdje i besramno kopiram neke od najboljih:
Pobjednik natječaja za 2006:
Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you’ve had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.
Skoro pa pobjednik za 2006:
“I know what you’re thinking, punk,” hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, “you’re thinking, ‘Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?’ – and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel loquacious?’ – well do you, punk?”
Kategorija “Avantura”, nečasni spomen:
It was a day, like any other day, in that Linus got up, faced the sunrise, used his inhaler, applied that special cream between his toes, wrote a quick note and put it in a bottle, and wished he’d been stranded on the island with something other than 40 cases each of inhalers, decorative bottles, and special toe cream.
Kategorija “Detektivsta fikcija”, pobjednik:
It was a dreary Monday in September when Constable Lightspeed came across the rotting corpse that resembled one of those zombies from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” except that it was lying down and not performing the electric slide.
Kategorija “Ružičasta proza”, pobjednik:
A single sparkling tear fell from Little Mary’s cheek onto the sidewalk, then slid into the storm drain, there to join in its course the mighty waters of the Los Angeles River and, eventually, Long Beach Harbor, with its state-of-the-art container-freight processing facilities.
Kategorija “Romansa”, pobjednik:
Despite the vast differences it their ages, ethnicity, and religious upbringing, the sexual chemistry between Roberto and Heather was the most amazing he had ever experienced; and for the entirety of the Labor Day weekend they had sex like monkeys on espresso, not those monkeys in the zoo that fling their feces at you, but more like the monkeys in the wild that have those giant red butts, and access to an espresso machine.
Kategorija “Kaubojski”, pobjednik:
His mistake, Shut-eye McBlamaway reflected, was not in standing up to a gang of desperadoes and rustlers on the high country, but in standing up to a gang of desperadoes and rustlers who had just left the set of a Sergio Leone shoot, and were thus equipped with those guns that never run out of ammunition.
Kategorija “Nekategorizirano”, časni spomen:
Kathy, who had bound her breasts and cropped her hair, and lied about her gender to join a monastery of Jesuits in northern Kentucky, until she was discovered one night in the shower, winced as the dentist pulled her tooth.
Kategorija “Nekategorizirano”, časni spomen:
Withdrawing his hand from her knee, the English professor stormed, “Ending a sentence with a preposition is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put,” although she had merely looked at his hand and asked, “What are you doing that for?” in a sentence intended to end the proposition.
Kategorija “Nekategorizirano”, časni spomen:
I saw her from across the room and knew I had to meet her, not because of her ample bosom, or her full lips, or her beautiful creamy skin, or the way her hair was twisted into a nice tight bun, or the buttoned-up blouse that begged to be torn off her body, or the skirt that was perhaps a size too small, but because she was my kid’s teacher and I was here for the parent-teacher conference.