most beautiful novel opening

[Richard Ryan]

I agree with Robert - on every score - beauty, skill,
creation of anticipation, setting of scene,
establishment of themes, pick your category or
superlative - Moby Dick is the heavyweight champion of
the world.

In re Joyce - you know, the intro passage of Ulysses
is a fine thing, but for sheer bedazzlement and
originality, methinks Portrait tops it:

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was
a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow
that was coming down along the road met a nicens
little boy named baby tuckoo...

His father told him that story: his father looked at
him through a glass: he had a hairy face.

He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road
where Betty Byrne lived: she sold lemon platt.

    O, the wild rose blossoms
    On the little green place.

He sang that song. That was his song.

    O, the green wothe botheth.

When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets
cold. His mother put on the oilsheet. That had the
queer smell.

His mother had a nicer smell than his father. She
played on the piano the sailor's hornpipe for him to
dance. He danced:

    Tralala lala,
    Tralala tralaladdy,
    Tralala lala,
    Tralala lala.

Uncle Charles and Dante clapped. They were older than
his father and mother but uncle Charles was older than
Dante.

Dante had two brushes in her press. The brush with the
maroon velvet back was for Michael Davitt and the
brush with the green velvet back was for Parnell.
Dante gave him a cachou every time he brought her a
piece of tissue paper.

The Vances lived in number seven. They had a different
father and mother. They were Eileen's father and
mother. When they were grown up he was going to marry
Eileen. He hid under the table. His mother said:

--O, Stephen will apologize.

Dante said:

--O, if not, the eagles will come and pull out his
eyes.--


    Pull out his eyes,
    Apologize,
    Apologize,
    Pull out his eyes.
    Apologize,
    Pull out his eyes,
    Pull out his eyes,
    Apologize.

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4217



--- "Ian (Hank Kimble) Scuffling"
<scuffling at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.
>