or, Opening Lines

You only get one chance to make a good first impression, as they say. So, with that in mind, Brianetics gathered together a list of lines which introduced the world to the work that followed. Many will be

familiar, others not so much, still others forgettable even though it precedes a work of sheer brilliance. 

Just for fun there will be a poll should you care to weigh in on best, worst, favorite etc.

Be light of heart, dear reader; this time your reading will be done as 

soon as you finish reading this sentence. So no couple hundred

chapters yet to go as with Moby Dick.

Now here's the first first line...

No, your eyes did not betray you; not hardly. That entire passage was just a single sentence. One. Of course, it is the opening line to the Dickens classic and one, some say, is the greatest introductory sentence of all time. Which will not be argued here.

Instead, the Brianetics Division of Numbering Stuff, Counting Stuff Up and Vertically Integrated Analytical Index Of Projected Net Sums has quantified this sentence in order to illustrate the magnitude of its complexity. The numbers are as follows:

495 characters

119 words

17 commas

1 dash

3 capitalizations but just one proper noun

Now THAT's a sentence. Of course, what makes it masterpiece of literary introduction is not its length nor grammatical complexity, but the way Dickens crafted it. He writes of the years surrounding the French Revolution, 1775-1789. Without belaboring the point nor foisting a ponderous, dreary, oppressive tract upon the reader, Dickens adroitly describes a generation indentured to a world in irreversible tumult and cloaked in such onerous despair they anxiously, desperately turn to The Church and look to The Crown for hope. Thus, the optimism, wisdom and light expected from the ruling bodies is counterpoised with the foolishness, darkness and misery the people receive instead. Yet that unfortunate time was (somehow regarded) as even worse than the 1859 of Dickens world. Which, it could be argued, gave hope to the citizens of 1859 feeling, as they did, that if the woes of 1775-1789 were overcome then so could those of 1859.

This begs the question: If Mr. Samsa woke up as a giant insect what, exactly, was in his dreams that made them so uneasy? He should have remained a-slumber,  it seems.

J.D. Salinger Catcher In The Rye 1951

What makes young Holden Caulfield think we care about him at all, let alone about all the things he churlishly declares he is unwilling to discuss? This opening line almost forces the reader to go on so as to find out just why Holden is so churlish.

So one day, out of the blue, poor Josef K is arrested for no reason: no reason at all. They just came and cuffed him and docketed a trial. Even though he was innocent of...everything. So, if innocent, someone must have framed him. Certainly, that had to be the case.

Really? THAT's Josef K's story? The dog ate my homework?! Please.

But the author almost forces the reader to accept the lone slanderer story since it informs Josef K's undeserved arrest and prosecution despite never knowing what the charges are nor how Josef K came to be the prime suspect in the commission of the unnamed crime. It is K's maddening crypto-Stasi persecution in the face of his innocence that drives the narrative.

If the reader sees any indication that Josef K is guilty, after all, his  difficulties would be considered well deserved rather than the inescapable dystopian nightmare they are. 

Something is a little off here. If you didn't see it at first, read it again.  Take your time; Brianetics will wait for you. No hurry. Back already? ...so, did you notice it? Did you find it odd, too? Odd that, to open his own autobiography, David Copperfield wondered whether he or elsewhom would be the hero of his life.

But he wrote the whole book - himself! - first page to last! So how could he be in doubt as to how his life turned out? Did he fail to read his own autobiography? Were the latter chapters ghostwritten?

Or was he just a witless poseur? Post all theories on the Comments Page.

This opening sentence makes readers feel they have somehow overlooked the beginning of the book yet the narrative on Page 1 is so beguiling they are compelled to continue despite their "What did I miss?" wonderment. After all, the narrator isn't sure where he and his companion are, save it's the edge of the desert - and the drugs are just kicking in. So whatever the back-story, finding out what drug-addled travelers are doing in the desert just has to be found out immediately.

Hunter S. Thompson has crafted a terse introductory that is near-perfect in foreshadowing all the fears and loathings he and his attorney experienced that weekend. Not all of them founded in reality.

Scholarship and debate by the Brianetics Panel on Literature, Literacy and Lighter, Racy Literature has determined this account of Dr. Thompson's Fear And Loathing weekend inspired "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas", though it was decades before it evolved from a whispered promise by Las Vegas casino management to the 21st Century Vegas motto of today.

And to think this is merely the first line of Robinson Crusoe and not the book in toto. Nor is much of this comprehensive introductory line necessary to enjoy the following adventure. For the record, Brianetics Division of Numbering Stuff, Counting Stuff Up and Vertically Integrated Analytical Index Of Projected Net Sums made the following calculations: 604 characters, 111 words, 15 commas, 2 semicolons, and 25 capitalizations - not including the first word of the sentence - only 13 of which are proper nouns. Which makes it a close second to A Tale Of Two Cities.

Middle Passage - Charles Johnson 2015

The Brianetics Content Review & Revisions Right After Lunch Committee felt it prudent to provide the following Synopsis:

Another elongated opening sentence, though not quite as prodigious as Tale of Two Cities or Robinson Crusoe it is still daunting with its 90 words and ten commas. It is also worthy to note that every staple of pirate lore we know today was invented by Stevenson in this book: the peg-leg old salt, buried treasure with a map, 16 men on a dead man's chest, the pirate flag etc.

Best line according to the Brianetics Panel on Literature, Literacy and Lighter, Racy Literature : "And them that die'll be the lucky ones." (pirate thug Long John Silver snarling angrily at the good  men of  The Hispanola for choosing battle over surrender.)

“In the last years of the Seventeenth Century there was to be found among the fops and fools of the London coffee-houses one rangy, gangling flitch called Ebenezer Cooke, more ambitious than talented, and yet more talented than prudent, who, like his friends-in-folly, all of whom were supposed to be educating at Oxford or Cambridge, had found the sound of Mother English more fun to game with than her sense to labor over, and so rather than applying himself to the pains of scholarship, had learned the knack of versifying, and ground out quires of couplets after the fashion of the day, afroth with Joves and Jupiters, aclang with jarring rhymes, and string-taut with similes stretched to the snapping-point.” John Barth The Sot-weed Factor 1969

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Yipes! Mr. Barth was not one to parse numerous words into a number of sentences, was he? This seemingly infinite sentence dawdles on with a startling 748 characters, 125 words, 12 commas, 4 hyphens and 11 capitalizations not including the first word, all of which would clearly put it ahead of the Dickens opener but for the fact Mr. Barth set out to do just that. No matter how good the imitation it, is still an imitation and you can't outpace Dickens with a copy. But if you fell tired reading just this first sentence then best get some exercise in as the entire book counts out to 50,000 words. All that for a parody of what were themselves social satires of their day such as Tom Jones by Henry Fielding and Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne.  Both of which are circuitous and exasperatingly dense...just as is this opus by John Barth, it seems.

Hmm...not exactly the kind of terse, rat-a-tat exposition one associates with hard-boiled, gumshoe-noir storytelling, is it? And at a hefty 75 words, 7 commas, 3 hyphens, 2 decimal points - DECIMAL POINTS! - and 1 dash, semi-colon and colon for a total of

368 characters, James Ellroy gave us quite an opening sentence. But he is quite the master of LA noir, and the only author Brianetics considers equal to the Great Raymond Chandler. His phrasing, mood, use of alley-slang, plot development are incomparable in the noir field of brass-knuckle fiction. Why he decided to leave the genre is just as much a mystery as those he penned.

And that's all there is to that.

Before anything is said, the inclusion of an entire paragraph rather than the opening line alone was not an oversight. As you see, this passage opens the first novel by Raymond Chandler, to whom our previous author, James Ellroy, was compared, if you recall. You see how Chandler is so much more spartan with his prose; where Ellroy used 75 words in one gulp, Chandler parceled out his opening penumbra so the reader has a chance to let the words waft over them. Once the climate is made clear, he then makes clear the climate - so to speak - of Philip Marlowe. We know what the day, then Philip Marlowe looks like and in the next sentence we have an idea as to what Marlowe's sensibilities look like. Notice, too, how the pace quickens with each sentence until it goes from an amiable stroll to a more urgent stride.

And it gets better with every page.

Sadly, Chandler only left us with 6 novels, a handful of novellas and a number of insightful essays before falling into his own Big Sleep March 26, 1959 at the age of 84.

And while Ellroy giving up his pen was a great loss, Raymond Chandler's death created a literary vacuum in the hard-boiled genre that lasts to this day.

RIP, Raymond...it will be a Long Goodbye for all who treasured your work.

After two consecutive masterworks of hard-boiled detective noir and its gritty argot, this opening line gives every indication it is heading down the mean streets of a third noir novel. Murder, sex and thought, for example, are emblematic of Philip Marlowe's LA grimscape.

But The Thurb Revolution not only falls outside the hard-boiled genre, it spirals beyond the parameters of the entire corporeal realm. Perfectly normal for a work of science fiction.

Anyway, The Thurb Revolution is a sci-fi-fantasy-adventure that takes place in some galactic travel epoch and follows one Anthony Villiers - the Viscount Charteris - and his large, orange-furred companion Torve the Trog - who is a dead ringer for Chewbacca, it seems. The plot is anfractuous yet engaging, peppered as it is with aphorisms from the opening line forward. And while that introductory sentence is memorable, it does nothing to prepare the reader for the narrative to follow. Although there is a subplot which involves the assassination of Anthony Villiers, so maybe it's a noir after all. 

And yet another interminable opening sentence, this one in first-person by a madman. Well, not a genuine madman but the author - Robert Graves - writing in the first-person of the Roman Emperor Claudius, considered by many Romans to be addle-minded and weak growing up. His uncle was Emperor Tiberius and his nephew was that gladitorial cut-up, Caligula. So had he actually been crazy no one would wonder how he got that way.

But it is time once again to see what the Brianetics Division of Numbering Stuff, Counting Stuff Up and Vertically Integrated Analytical Index Of Projected Net Sums has to say about this prodigious opener.

The tally may not approach Mr. Dickens' epic in any significant way but Brianetics feels the I, Claudius open used enough ink to qualify as breathtaking, literally. The numbers are as follows:

116 words

575 characters

24 capitalizations - 24! -

8 commas,

7 hyphens - 7! -

6 sets of quotation marks and

1 set of parentheses.

Which does not say much of anything about Rome's fourth emperor but what kind of amphetamine was Mr. Graves using for his mind to design a very nervous sentence like that? Had Claudius access to amphetamines he likely would have been held in greater stead rather than as a fidgety dimwit.

And that's all there is to that.

20th Century. But while this first line is spun from such gossamer whimsy it feels like it is being read to you rather than by you, it hardly prepares the reader for the farce to follow. First of all, published in 1904 it is set in an alternate reality of 1984 London where little but the social order has changed. Here is what Goodreads says about it:

"In a London of the future, the drudgery of capitalism and bureaucracy have worn the human spirit down to the point where it can barely stand. When a pint-sized clerk named Auberon Quinn is randomly selected as head of state, he decides to turn London into a medieval carnival for his own amusement. One man, Adam Wayne, takes the new order of things seriously, organizing a Notting Hill army to fight invaders from other neighborhoods. At first his project baffles everyone, but eventually his dedication proves infectious, with delightful results."

For more on The Napoleon of Notting Hill click the napoleon of notting hill summary - Search (bing.com)

Now what exactly is going on here? Was "her gynecologist" playing match-maker for a patient's lonely friend? Or were "her" and the narrator both seeing the same ob-gyn? Or is the narrator gay and "her" ob-gyn happened to have an eligible gay friend?

The mind swims with the endless permutations radiating from that 6-word opening sentence.

This was only John Irving’s second novel but he already perfected his trade-mark unpredictable to the absurd narrative style. What reader could remain indifferent to the intriguing private lives of these characters, after all.

Those familiar with Mr. Irving’s later works certainly recognize the tenor of this second of his books if not the book itself. The vagaries of popular literature made The World According To Garp, Hotel New Hampshire, Cider-House Rules and other books in that later string of acclaimed novels more well-known though of lesser quality than The Water-Method Man.

That’s what movie deals will do for an author.

Still, how curious that Irving’s best work is hardly associated with him, let alone being adapted for film. Not to mention it’s absence from many audio book libraries, though A Prayer For Owen Meany is an easy find.

For the curious, Brianetics has provided the following link to sites dedicated to all things The Water-Method Man.

The Water-Method Man - Wikipedia

The Water-method Man (豆瓣) (douban.com)

The Water-Method Man - King County Library System - OverDrive

This initial description of the most famous Southern Belle of all time subtly informs the reader that Scarlett O'Hara is not using grace and beauty and the batting of eyes to get whatever she wants or needs. Oh, no. She uses wit and guile and a devious charm, sinister manipulation and predatory deceit to negotiate Civil War-Reconstruction Georgia. Much like Cleopatra, in a way, as Cleopatra was hardly a looker yet had Caesar and Antony ready to present her The World. Literally.

The opening also makes the reader curious as to what this Scarlett girl had. Since she was about as attractive as a well-bucket, what was it that made even the Tarleton twins go a-swoon over her? Not to mention Rhett Butler.

The reader has to know, which makes this opener a template for setting up a narrative.

This introductory with its three cloying elegies - youth, death, grief - fairly compels the reader to continue in order to find out what happened to the young girl and grieve with the decedent's family and friends. It never occurs to the reader that the opening line intimates there is nothing one can say in this circumstance yet goes on for 131 pages saying just about everything that can be said. Interestingly, Erich Segal first sold the screenplay of rich-poor doomed lovers to Paramount Pictures. The studio then asked Mr. Segal to novelize his screenplay as part of marketing for the film, which he did. Love Story was an overwhelming popular success upon release, spending 41 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list, peaking at #!. 

 It was also nominated for a National Book Award, but was withdrawn when the judges threatened to resign. William Styron, head judge for fiction that year, called it "a banal book which simply doesn't qualify as literature" and suggested that even its nomination would demean all the other novels under consideration.

Whew! That was a single sentence, in case your vision blurred 80 words in and you mistook a comma(,) for a period(.).  Such a prodigious opening line did Laurence Sterne craft that the Brianetics Division of Numbering Stuff, Counting Stuff Up and Vertically Integrated Analytical Index Of Projected Net Sums was once again sent unto the breach for this accounting of the inaugural line to Tristram Shandy, which consisted of:

145 words

650 characters

9 commas

3 semicolons

4 dashes

1 colon

i capitalization that is not a proper noun

So not enough to unseat Mr. Dickens' "...best of times" monolith but worthy of notice. It certainly explains why Shandy took 9 volumes to complete, publishing over 8 years.

It purports to be a biography of the eponymous character. Its style is marked by digression, double entendre, and graphic devices and 

while the use of the narrative technique of stream of consciousness is usually associated with modernist novelists, Tristram Shandy has been suggested as a precursor. 

For more information on Tristram Shandy visit The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Wikipedia