Fwd: most beautiful novel opening

[Daniel Harper]

Forgot to attach to the P-list.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Daniel Harper <daniel.e.harper at gmail.com>
Date: Nov 9, 2007 1:33 PM
Subject: Re: most beautiful novel opening
To: wilsonistrey at gmail.com


The first lines of GR are propulsive, immediate, totally engrossing. I
_love_ that opening line and paragraph, followed by that utterly
terrifying description of the bombing raid. One of the best openings
to a novel ever.

I think the opening to M&D is Pynchon goofing on himself, and showing
what a (relatively) lighthearted work M&D would be in comparison to
GR.


On Nov 9, 2007 12:53 PM, Bryan Snyder <wilsonistrey at gmail.com> wrote:
> always considered the opening of GR to be a total mindf*** and not beautiful
> ... but something to push away casual readers early on... a perfect prelude
> to the book.
>
> M&D: I'm reading now, but every 5 pages... return to that opening paragraph
> and read it again... I now it by heart now!!  It's something miraculous
> almost considering the year of pub and the year of the language!
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
> Of Ian (Hank Kimble) Scuffling
> Sent: Friday, November 09, 2007 1:06 PM
> Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: most beautiful novel opening
>
>
> 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.
>
>



--
...the insanely, endlessly diddling play of a chemist whose molecules
are words...
--Daniel Harper



-- 
...the insanely, endlessly diddling play of a chemist whose molecules
are words...
--Daniel Harper