most beautiful novel opening

[Ian (Hank Kimble) Scuffling]

I thought we were talking "beautiful" rather than great or even
wonderful.  Who of us P-listers doesn't love the the opening of MD
(that's Moby Dick, not M&D) and of GR, but are they beautiful, i.e is
the image described or the sound of the words (or preferably both)
beautiful in the same way as "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from
the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor
lay crossed," or the opening lines of any number of Shakespeare's
play?

AsB4,

Henry Mu
http://www.urdomain.us/kcuf.htm

On Nov 9, 2007 10:37 AM, Robert Mahnke wrote:
> I like the first paragraph of the book I'm reading right now:
>
> Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation.