In the beginning there wA-Z...

Another overcast day here in Alexandria.  Curse the day that storm-bringing corgi crossed my path!  Much relieved no die-hard Nolan or Malick fans attacked yesterday's report!  Today's will be focused on sentences, but that doesn't make it any less potentially contentious.  It's a bit wordy, but how can you write about sentences without being wordy?!

The Guardian has put out a list of " The 10 best first lines in fiction," which will no doubt be the subject of much disagreement.  Of course, every such list always is.  "Where is my favorite line?! I call shenanigans!" say the commenters.  But this time, I think they're right.  These selected lines seem weak, many of them only riding on the success of the novel that follows.  Nothing earth-shattering about the opening to Ulysses, in my mind.  Pride and Prejudice is one I agree with, though the opening sentence is one of the few I read in that entire novel... But where is Lolita (light of my life, fire of my loins)?  And Peter Pan and Farenheit 451?  The American Book Review list is better.  And includes one that suggests that maybe we cannot separate the opening sentence from the rest of the novel so easily:  "A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead."

So what do we think?  Is the greatness of an opening inextricably connected to the text that follows?  And what openings do you love that these top countdowns missed?

Interestingly, one reader, without knowing the sentence-based nature of today's Report, provides a fascinating Wikipedia page that is at once entertaining and enlightening.  A pangram is a sentence containing every letter of the alphabet at least once.  You no doubt know the English "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog," but there are so many other great English examples.  I think my personal favorite might be, "Public junk dwarves hug my quartz fox."  But things really get interesting after English... Remember that there are a great many other alphabets, each with their own pangrams that, when translated into English, seem often to be things of beauty reflective of the culture.  Consider the Japanese sentence that contains all kana (containing all kanji characters would be impossible):  "Awaken from dreaming to the voice of the crying bird and see the coming daylight turning the east sky-blue; shrouded in mist is a flock of ships on the open sea."  (That would make a great opening sentence, actually.)  Or the Persian example, which the submitter observes is reminiscent of their mournful poetry: "Zabih's returning after a long time made me forget a lot of my infirmities and pains which had caused a deep scar in the depth of my soft heart so many years ago." 

Of course, some are still just hilarious.  The poor Latvians dealing with the fact that, "Stupid hippies right here are freely trying to taste cellophane boa."  And Portugal describes Java's strangest zoo:  "One-eyed zebras in Java want to fax for giant ladies from New York."  Others are hilariously reflective of things we think about the country.  Poland has a pangramatic way of dealing with problems:  "Come on, drop your sadness into the depth of a bottle!"

Remember to celebrate your freedom to use accurate GPS today; exactly twelve years ago, Bill Clinton announced that it would no longer be restricted to US Military use.  And for those of you about to begin exams, remember:  "The s exy prof gives back no quiz with mild joy."