100 Best First Lines from Novels

[Michael Bailey]

CoD actually turned out to be fairly fun,
and had a happy ending.  not to deal out spoilers,
but Thank goodness for the nice Jewish girl he met!

Just read the Yiddish Policeman's Union.  That main character had about the
same mix of attractive and unattractive traits as old Ignatius, I thought.
And was as good a vehicle for spawning ruminations on the subculture -
Jewish diaspora and New Orleans underclass respectively - and soaking
up an imagined atmosphere.




On 7/30/08, robinlandseadel at comcast.net <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
> Fair enough Laura.
>
>  I'll confess that my eeeeesthetique leans more towards Bob Clampett
>  & Chuck Jones, Tex Avery—one of those things that I just
>  loooooooove in Pynchon, Vineland in particular, are the cartoons.
>  They may be cardboard-cutout cartoons of characters, but they're
>  every bit as good as anything on the Simpsons. The first image of
>  Ignatius J. Reilly is a malevolent comic masterstroke, much like
>  Bob Clampett's and Chuck Jones' early rendition of Elmer Fudd,
>  with rolls of fat joining neck and skull, clearly a tragicomic clown,
>  with an infants soft skull, an obvious case of craniotabes.
>
>  Genius, really.
>
>  -------------- Original message ----------------------
>  From: kelber at mindspring.com
>  > To be honest, I found this first sentence so unpleasant that it put me off
>  > (rightly or wrongly) from reading the book.  Maybe a book shouldn't be judged by
>  > its cover, but the first sentence seems fair game -- the author's got complete
>  > control.
>  >
>  > Laura
>  >
>  > -----Original Message-----
>  > >From: robinlandseadel at comcast.net
>  >
>  > >
>  > >104: A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy
>  > >balloon of a head.
>  > >John Kennedy Toole: "A Confedracy of Dunces"
>  > >
>  > >
>  > >
>  > >http://americanbookreview.org/100BestLines.asp
>  > >
>  >
>
>