FROM THE TOP?

posted by James Reel

    LitLine/The American Book Review has posted a list of what it calls the 100 Best First Lines from Novels, and there’s trouble right from the start. What’s the very best line, ever?
    1. Call me Ishmael. —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)
    Now, wait a minute. What’s so great about that sentence? It’s about the shortest sentence in a very long, book, which is amusing, but that doesn’t make it great. In fact, there’s nothing great about those three words; they just happen to launch a great book. Just as a great composer like Mozart did not write only great works, a great book can be full of not-so-great sentences. And that’s one of them. There’s no way “Call me Ishmael” can compare to, say, the item in third place:
    3. A screaming comes across the sky. —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
    Pynchon’s sentence, also short, is arresting. Melville offers a desultory introduction; Pynchon runs up and screams in your face.
    I wish people who make lists like these would actually give some thought to the contents, instead of just looking for an excuse to list their favorite books (including a couple that only an unreformed and probably unemployable lit major would have read).
    I’ve already had my say on first lines, which you can encounter here.