Friday, May 4, 2012

First Line Friday

If you review my previous First Line Friday posts, you may notice a pattern: I like short, zippy, poignant first lines.  So, in an effort to diversify my preferences, I'm going with a longer first line today:

"It was the summer of 1998 that my neighbor Coleman Silk - who, before retiring two years earlier, had been a classic professor at nearby Athena College for some twenty-odd years as well as serving for sixteen more as the dean of the faculty - confided to me that, at the age of seventy-one, he was having an affair with a thirty-four-year-old cleaning woman who worked down at the college."


That is what I would call an immense first line.  It provides a lot of information . . . a whole novel's worth in one sentence.  But, in spite of my preferences for short first lines, I have a certain appreciation for this first line. It seems to work.  It's somewhat burdensome, to be sure, but all in all, I can appreciate it.

Dost thou disagree?

3 comments:

  1. Hmmm. this rarely happens, but I'm gonna say I'm not too impressed with this opening. I feel like I'm being taken out of the story (already? In the first line?) by everything between the dashes. If I were his editor, I would have broken that puppy in two:

    "It was the summer of 1998 that my neighbor Coleman Silk confided to me that, at the age of seventy-one, he was having an affair with a thirty-four-year-old cleaning woman who worked down at nearby Athena College. He had retired two years earlier, but before that he had been a classics professor at the college for some twenty-odd years as well as serving for sixteen more as the dean of the faculty."

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  2. Great choice, Tucker. I personally loved this book- my first introduction to Philip Roth. I actually love the first line- I feel it flows very well and hooks you right away. Sorry MacEvoy, I think Roth's version is better. I think by stating in the opening Coleman Silk's "background", it really gives more punch to the meaning of the end of the sentence. An old man having an affair is no big thing. But an old, respected retired professor having an affair with the college janitor? Now you've got yourself a story. Gosh, I really liked this book. If you're interested, they did a wonderful movie adaptation with Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman.

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    Replies
    1. This could be why I've never been asked to edit one of Roth's novels.

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