Literature's greatest opening paragraphs

[alice wellintown]

in his _how to read novels like a professor_, foster includes one
chapter on why novels have fist pages, pick-up lines and opening
seductions...and he talks about how the opening is a form of seduction
and a contract and also a lesson in how to read the rest of the work.
McHale provides an excellent analyis of how the opening of GR teaches
the reader how to read the rest of the book. Agree or disagree with
his analysis, but ity is difficult to disagree with the idea that the
opening is worth a very close examination. In fact, this is the case
with most works, when we turn to the opening after reading the work
weoften  discover what has been packed into the powerful opening.
Foreshadowing is difficult to see clearly the first go roud and
returning to the opening we often discover this subtle technique.


In any event, foster provides a nice list of things the opening of a
work can establish: style,  tone, mood, diction, pov, narrative
presence and attitude, time frame and management, place, motif, theme,
irony, rhythm, pace expectations, character, instruction in how to
read the novel.