Great beginnings; every novelist’s envy. From Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities to Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible and, of course, Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Where vibrant imagery and simplicity meet in a marriage of literary genius to create works that time can only give more life to. The start of each of these masterpieces is enough to let the reader know that some profound journey awaits them beyond the horizon of that first page. Yet… what is it that makes a great beginning great? How does one suggest profundity without the penning of deep and impressive prose line upon line? In this, the second post in the Grammar & Romance series, I will look at possible answers to these questions by going through the opening lines of each of the above three works, in turn.
Having been seated at the table you specially requested for the occasion, while enjoying your chosen apéritif, you take the menu from your waitron and peruse the Starters section. It holds a selection larger than most, so your first choice must regard which kind of starter you would like. Something rich and reminiscent of the ocean like blue cheese escargots, or a light watermelon salad? Perhaps a venison carpaccio or creamy mushroom and black pepper soup? Whichever you choose, your choice would be better made if made with the rest of your meal choices for the night in mind (and the drink you chose upon entering)…
A Tale of Two Cities
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.” – Charles Dickens (1859)
This dual of perspectives satisfies the mental appetite like a dish of unfamiliar parts that somehow just work. How unexpected the combination of ingredients, and yet how obviously meant to be together when tasted in a single bite. I especially like how this introduction is seasoned by the capitalised Light, Dark and Heaven. It gives the reader an idea of the struggle between joy and sorrow that the pages ahead hold, and an inkling of the victor; the paired Light and Heaven are surely strong enough to overcome the lone Darkness– the partner of whom is diminished at the start by a rank-less reference to the other way. The simplicity here is in naming opposites- a child could do that with about as much success. The vibrancy is in the special choosing of those opposites and their relation to the story as a whole. The genius is in the undeniable truth of each paradoxical statement. How could it be both Spring and Winter? How could Foolishness and Wisdom walk hand-in-hand? Embark upon the journey of this book. There, in the pages, Dickens will show you.
Poisonwood Bible
“Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened. First, picture the forest. I want you to be its conscience, the eyes in the trees. The trees are columns of slick, brindled bark like muscular animals overgrown beyond all reason. Every space is filled with life: delicate, poisonous frogs war-painted like skeletons, clutched in copulation, secreting their precious eggs onto dripping leaves. Vines strangling their own kin in the everlasting wrestle for sunlight. The breathing of monkeys. A glide of snake belly on branch. A single-file army of ants biting a mammoth tree into uniform grains and hauling it down to the dark for their ravenous queen. And, in reply, a choir of seedlings arching their necks out of rotted tree stumps, sucking life out of death. This forest eats itself and lives forever.” – Barbara Kingsolver (1998)
Clearly, this is an indulgent dish. The richness of language and the full-flavoured imagery it presents can only be compared to that guilty pleasure item on the menu (did someone say salmon with oyster velouté?). The thing that stands out most in this extract is the personification of each aspect of the forest, as if the choir of seedlings are on some holy quest against death and every one of them has a say in where they would grow. Purposeful. This forest eats itself and lives forever. As with Dickens’ paradoxical truth statements, the truth in this line is that final topping, the jus that completes and brings together the dish, the sense amidst the chaos. The dance between life and death in this forest is delivered in every image; the frogs war-painted like skeletons who are busy with the perpetuation of their species, the vines intent on parricide to bathe in light, the unwitting monkeys and their slithering executioner, the tiny devils tearing down a colossal life-force, only to feed one a fraction of the size, in short, the game of sucking life out of death that kills in order to live. The forest is its own sacrificial lamb, its own Christ, and is its own path to eternity with God.
The Hobbit
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.” – J.R.R. Tolkien (1937)
I absolutely love this beginning. It’s like a homely soup or freshly baked bread. Tolkien has a way of pulling flavour from the simplest of ingredients in a way that people, who have cooked with only those exact ingredients all their lives, experience something new and hitherto untasted. We all know perfectly well what a hole in the ground is- or do we? Tolkien says that we do not. He takes an almost child-like image, and the first thing he shows his readers is that what they think they know is wrong (or, at least, limited). Once the reader’s world-view is thus shifted, they are putty in the hands of the writer, show me anything; I will believe, and Tolkien shows them an entirely new world. The genius of this starter is in that first act. Without first making it clear that these pages are not like other pages one may have read, indeed they are the uncharted waters right at the start of mapping the earth, the mind would not be open enough to accept the raging ocean of fantasy that awaits. Tolkien’s way of disguising his first, most important blow to the imagination (a blow that gives more than it takes), is in simplicity. He does not lend his pen to deep prose and witty inversions. He does not even follow that recipe for truthful paradox that readers seem to love so well. Instead, he offers a simple setting, like a chef offering a bowl of that well-loved soup, with a twinkle in his eye, knowing that the first bite will set the reader on a journey they could never have expected.
These great starters are all packed with flavour for different reasons, and many more flavour-combinations worthy of mention exist. The trick is to find the combination that works for you as reader or as writer. Whichever you are (and especially if you are both), these three rules are bound to add something to your experience:
– Keep it simple
– Keep experimenting
– Keep it consistent
That’s all from me in this post. Next up in the Grammar & Romance series; Wine (mmmm, my favourite).
If you missed last week’s post, you can find it here.
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