Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 4, 1993 TAG: 9304040267
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
OPENING LINES
Great Beginnings.By Georgianne Ensign. HarperCollins. $15.
This is one of the truly great browsing books of our time.
Georgianne Ensign has collected the opening passages of several hundred novels. Any veteran reader who goes through the book even casually will find "the delight of recognition" that Ensign promises in her introduction. It's not overstating the case to say that almost every page of the book contains some of the best prose that's ever been written in the English language.
However, as the title indicates, these are "Great Beginnings." The novels themselves range from great to very good to overrated. And there are a few glaring omissions, too. But why quibble? All of the usual suspects - Dickens, Tolstoy, Faulkner, Hardy, Melville - are well-represented, and some of the entries are well-chosen surprises.
Here are a few examples that give a hint of the book's range and flavor:
"It came down to this: if I had not been arrested by the Turkish police, I would have been arrested by the Greek police. I had no choice but to do as this man Harper told me. He was entirely responsible for what happened to me."
-Eric Ambler, "The Light of Day"
"A man with binoculars. That is how it began: with a man standing by the side of the road, on a crest overlooking a small Arizona town, on a winter night.
"Lieutenant Roger Shawn must have found the binoculars difficult. The metal would be cold, and he would be clumsy in his fur parka and heavy gloves."
-Michael Crichton, "The Andromeda Strain"
"This March day the vast and brassy sky, always spangled with the silver glint of airplanes, roared and glittered with celestial traffic. Gigantic though they loomed against the white- hot heavens there was nothing martial about these winged mammoths. They were merely private vehicles bearing little alligator jewel cases and fabulous gowns and overbred furs."
-Edna Ferber, "Giant"
"Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence, and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her."
-Jane Austen, "Emma"
"With a single drop of ink for a mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer undertakes to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching visions of the past. This is what I undertake to do for you, reader. With this drop of ink at the end of my pen, I will show you the roomy workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in the village of Hayslope, as it appeared on the eighteenth of June, in the year of our Lord 1799."
-George Eliot, "Adam Bede"
Those are five examples of fine writing, and "Great Beginnings" has many more that are just as good, if not better. But, consider these beginnings and their authors did not make the cut:
"If I had been the hero everyone thought I was, or even a half-decent soldier, Lee would have won the battle of Gettysburg and probably captured Washington. That is another story, which I shall set down in its proper place, if brandy and old age don't carry me off first, but I mention the fact here because it shows how great events are decided by trifles."
-George MacDonald Fraser, "Royal Flash"
"It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars."
-Raymond Chandler, "The Big Sleep"
"Come into my cell. Make yourself at home. Take the chair; I'll sit on the cot. No? You prefer to stand by the window. I understand. You like my little view. Have you noticed that the narrower the view the more you can see? For the first time I understand how old ladies can sit on their porches for years."
-Walker Percy, "Lancelot"
Those passages aren't meant as criticisms; they're more a matter of personal taste. But they could also be taken as suggestions for "Great Beginnings II."
-MIKE MAYO, Book Page editor