Where the Air is Sweet by Tasneem Jamal

Prologue
Apollo Hotel, Kampala
August 1974

The swimming pool is circular, with a platform on one side that juts into the water.

Hooked yet? Didn't think so. With a title like Where the Air is Sweet we know that this is artsy-fartsy. The Artsy-Fartsy connoisseur will adore this opening. Circular swimming pool, you say? Could this be a metaphor for life, an expression of the futile yet malignant obsession of the human spirit to overthrow the cancerous mediocrity that threatens growth and happiness, despite there always being a way...out: A platform. It juts. ...into the water...

I apologize, I'm being facetious. I blame the artsy-fartsy title. My brain reacts violently to them; you know, ones that begin with an ellipsis..., or begin with a preposition or has a pronoun like: A River Runs through IT or a title that begins with 'And'. Then there are the ones that begin with where, when or how. Not that I have anything against artsy-fartsy - I have the prerequisite brain capacity and/or human compassion to appreciate them - it's just that these books tend to be didactic and long-winded with vocabulary that's been excavated from the depths of the armpits of some dictionary, bursting with imagery that tries to reprogram (or scramble) my brain, by making something as simple as the sun look like the last vestibule of hope in the eye of a dying impediment. Moreover, the pacing is soooooooo slowwwww.

The rest of the paragraph mentions a past event littered with sentence fragments, a feature of artsy fartsy.

A concrete peninsula.
In Swahili.
In English.
In Luganda.

Fragments.
If you like you're sentences thus...
Love.
This book.

Paragraph 2 begins with description, a  fashion report before describing a scene of people swimming in the pool. Hooked yet? Yes? No? Good for you.

Paragraph 3 is the artsy-fartsy weather report and I imagine a beatnik Stewie reading this:

A cloud obscures the sun and everything is grey. Dull. Diminished. As though, on a cruel whim, God lifted his hand and smeared the earth with ash.

Snap fingers. Snap fingers.

The fact that it's in present tense doesn't help.

First thing said:

"Again."

Verdict: Fail

In general, artsy-fartsy books aren't written with hooking in mind, so it isn't fair to review them on this blog. I do it though because it's fun. I sometimes wonder if someone's playing a joke on the publishing industry and that Monty Python fanatics are secretly writing these books while spanking each other with fish.

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed

Five a.m.

With a title like The Orchard of Lost Souls one should expect an element of the artsy-fartsy, and one characteristic of the artsy-fartsy is short sentences that are meant as powerful expressions or impressions of the soul. If you disagree, that means you are stupid, lowbrow and need to read more Pynchon and Hosseini or in a pinch Dare Me by Megan Abbott. That will get you in the mood for brief, cutting sentence fragments filled with angst, music, soul. Next line:

Too early to eat.

The only good thing about these opening lines is that they are short. Oops, but the next sentence is long:

There is hardly any light, perhaps just enough to distinguish a dark thread from white, but Kawsar washes her face in the basin inside her bathroom, runs a caday over her teeth and slips into the day's costume without wasting any paraffin.

Someone was obviously paying attention to her creative writing teachers, those failed writers, who drone on about always mixing up the narrative with a combination of short simple sentences and long complex structures. In fact, as this moves on, it is clear it is well written, too bad there is no hook, although someone oiling the knees comes pretty darn close to hooking me.

First thing said:

"What took you so long, saamaleyl?"

There are some foreign words and weird sounding names in this so if you don't mind losing a filling trying to pronounce some words, go for it. Overall, this type of book isn't usually written with a hook (character and conflict, strikingly out of the ordinary) on page 1; instead, they try to put the reader into a trance with beautiful words and images, hoping that they will be hypnotized into reading more. The hook is soft and gentle. Readers won't notice they're even hooked until they are way into the book and unable to put it down. Once they're hooked, they'll wonder: When did that happen?

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Two Soldiers by Roslund & Hellstrom

She's been living here for so long.

Ms. Pronoun doesn't like to move or can't or likes the place she's at. The only question this raises is who cares? Next line:

It's mostly voices.
Maybe footsteps.

Prose that looks like poetry. And  maybe footsteps? That means maybe not; so if not, ignore that sentence then. Perhaps someone is making a run for some artsy-fartsy literary award? What follows is a paragraph with some curiousness. People pass by this pronoun's door and she wants to call them in so they can hold her hand. A little creepy. Then there is a break and more artsy-fartsy sentence fragments that sound like bits from a long lost Beatles' song written in a drunken stupor with Jimmy Savile:

Her face, so strange.
She's sixteen, maybe seventeen, or even eighteen.

I personally don't like sentences that offer no concrete information and whose only purpose is to further befuddle the as yet blank mind of the readers whose only reason to care so far is the fact they paid money for this book. Plus, it feels like beefing up the word count. Then:

But she looks old.

Eighteen is not old - well, it is if you are nine. Is a nine-year-old narrating?

Mind, these are separate paragraphs, even though they all should be part of one grand paragraph because they are all about one idea. They are separated into paragraph fragments to heighten some intensity that must only exist in the authors' (one?) mind, because I ain't feeling it.

The first two pages are broken up into four parts that on the surface don't have anything to do with one another. Briefly, in the first a pronoun is in a space she's lived in a long time and wishes to ask people in. In the second there is a pronoun who may or may not be dead, hands probing her body and a needle doing something again, again, again before giving up and breaking. In the third a pronoun is in a place with people screaming, there is pain she can deal with like her period, though it's more often and longer and someone had put her in an armlock. The fourth begins with the snowy weather outside a window the pronoun is looking out of where she'd made a snow angel before being dragged back in. There are guards, an ambulance and green uniforms. It feels jumbled and blurred which might be the intended effect, but the only questions this opening is raising is why am I reading this? I can't tell if this pronoun(s) is in an insane asylum, a torture chamber, or at daycare or all of the above depending on the holiday.

Then more short sections like:

Like waves. Like fire.
Something hitting, pressing, forcing. It's happening inside her body. But she has no control.

There is so much more of this style like:

The waves. The fire. The pressure. The pounding. The force.

At this point I've had enough of this pretentious attempt at creating tension and suspense. It reads like a six-year-old on a rampage with a dictionary. On page 5 we learn what this is all about and I laugh out loud.  All that for that? Hint: It isn't kidney stones. The wording doesn't fool me into getting hooked. Corny never hooks.

Her face, yeah, yeah, yeah, so strange, baby.

First thing said:

"Come on."

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

'Til the Well Runs Dry by Lauren Francis-Sharma

The cardboard box trembled.

Four words...that work. As far as first sentences go this gets five stars. Why? It has everything an opening sentence needs in order to succeed. Of course there could be more, like character and setting and tone and mood and theme and simile or heck even an onomatopoeic word or two, but then the line would run the risk of trying to do too much. This sentence does not need all that other junk because this line has the one thing an opening sentence must have: conflict, or to be more precise, the foreshadowing of conflict that raises a question. In this case: What is in the box? It's so simple that this almost sounds like the classic question that all stories should begin with: What is in the box? Being curious creatures, we are forced to read on.

Prior to chapter 1 is the heading: 1943, World War II, No Carnival. I like headings; they save a lot of time. There is also a map of Trinidad just after the title page which further illuminates the setting without me needing to read much. I like this, too.

The next sentence:

The panicked squeals from inside it grew louder as I hurried through the overgrown grass.

Even though by sentence 2 we can pretty much infer, at least in general terms, what is in the box, but whether it be a let down or otherwise, the first sentence has done its job in spades at hooking the reader. The scene that begins with the first sentence is interesting enough (the narrator needs to kill whatever is in the box) to hold my attention, as there conflict a plenty.

First thing said:

"Can't be lucky if you's a coward."

This bit of dialogue occurs on page 1, which is nice, but it is something a character 'had always said', that is, part of some back story. I prefer the first thing said to be part of a forward narrative, not something said once upon a time. On the other hand, the advantage to opening with back-story dialogue is that it is almost never of the superfluous chit-chatty type, but instead reveals plot or character. In this case the later.

The only thing I take issue with is the artsy-fartsy title; you know, the ones that begin with an ellipsis..., or a preposition or has a pronoun like: A River Runs through IT or a title that begins with 'And'. Then there's the ones that begin with where, when or how. They ooze pretentious fiction babble. However, in a way an artsy-fartsy title is a blessing in disguise, for with such a title, at least I've been warned. Not that I have anything against artsy-fartsy; it's just that those books tend to be didactic and long-winded with vocabulary that's been found buried deep in the armpits of some dictionary, bursting with imagery that tries to reprogram (or scramble) my brain, by making something as simple as the sun look like the last vestibule of hope in the eye of a dying god. Whatever.

Verdict: Cool

The verdict is high on this because of how effective that little opening line is, and how the opening scene unfolds. If the dialogue in this had been forward narrative speak and if the title didn't bug me so much, this would have been a perfect five-star opening.

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon

It's the first day of spring 2001 and Maxine Tarnow, though some still have her in their system as Loeffler, is walking her boys to school.

Not much here, but I really wasn't expecting the first sentence from Gravity's Rainbow, as awesome as that is: A screaming comes across the sky. 

Bleeding Edge leads with season and date, which could have been made a subtitle to the chapter or placed somewhere else. It certainly isn't worthy of beginning a novel with. The season is followed with a character and a slightly unusual idea in that people think of Tarnow as a Loeffler, but we can assume that that is the difference between a married and a maiden name. This may be foreshadowing or a little unobtrusive back story, take your pick, or better yet read on if this hooks you. For myself, I don't much care what it's about, which is a blunt way of saying this opening page does not hook me.

Then there is a subtle mention of weather, so I will add the weather cliche award to this opening.

First thing said:

"Mom?"

The most interesting thing about this dialogue is the punctuation.

Anyway, the bottom line is that as this is Pynchon, he can do whatever the hell he wants. The hook is in the byline. But I don't read bylines.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Landing Gear by Kate Pullinger

I went to Dubai from my home in Pakistan because I heard I could earn good money.

This novel has been timely released  - just after that incident when the kid travelling to Hawaii, I think it was, in the landing gear of a plane.

This opening sentence and paragraph, however, is not very remarkable. What follows is a little more interesting, discussing why this person decided to go abroad to work. At the end of this short one-page opening we learn that ...[it] was not as simple as I thought it would be. Which is a way of using words to replace an ellipsis, which I so desperately want to add at the end.

The chapters are short, the first three are all one page but chapter 4 or whatever it is, is a poem and I jerk my head away. I vowed after high school never to read poetry again (unless it's Rilke) and am annoyed at being tricked into some. I thought I was picking up a novel. I scan through the pages to see how many other poems are here: Not many, but there are more. I prefer my prose like my vodka, neat. I'm sure there are tons of people who would disagree with me and are lining up to buy this one, though.

First thing said:

"Am I dead?"

This is an interesting beginning for dialogue and moves plot forward. It comes at the end of chapter 5 or section 5, which I discover is a prologue as after that begins Part 1:

Later, much later, after it was too late and Harriet had too much time to dwell on it, she realized that it was all the fault of the planes.

Except it was the fault of the volcanoes. This is really preambling exposition, something that is learned and later forgotten after taking some random writing course.

Verdict: Pass 

I will give this a pass, as the narrative in the prologue is short and interesting, filled with conflict as the character gets into the landing gear of an airplane. Despite the poem, the writing is good and should hook.

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The River Burns by Trevor Ferguson

Quite early on a splendid summer's morning, as sunlight shimmied across the treetops or sashayed within a mischief of breezes to brighten patches of farmers' fields and meadows below, while streams navigating the hills remained wholly shaded and residents of Wakefield stayed asleep or tottered through dawn's familiar routines Dennis Jasper O'Farrell caught himself having a moment.

This sentence bugs me. It was hell to write out. The whole time I was thinking what is the point of it all? Sunlight doing this or that, and residents doing this or that. Simply put, this line is overwritten. It reminds me of either the opening to an animated Disney film like Bambi or the opening scene of season 1, episode 1 of Brickleberry.

If we minus the bloated description of setting and just say it was a beautiful morning, the main thing is that Dennis is having a moment. This is were the hook lies. Many people will read on to find out what it means in this novel, to be having a moment.

A closer look at this opening line and I begin to suspect the writer went to extra effort to let the fireworks of language explode here. That is to say, he probably understands the importance of the opening line. Unfortunately, this is an example of reworking a sentence to death. The rest of the first page does not have the same feel as that opening sentence; the lines are shorter with more simple wording focusing on character and conflict and not on a glossy setting.

Next, we learn that Dennis is having a moment while driving. Paragraph 2 begins by telling us how he'd been in bed, awoken by a crotchety alarm, which is to say there is a little bit too much personification in this opening for my taste, what with all the shimmed and sashayed sunlight, the navigating river and now the crotchety alarm. Then we discover he'd been dreaming but that upon waking he'd forgotten what he'd been dreaming about. The only thing this tidbit reveals is that the pace of this story is going to be sloooooooow. Why say someone was dreaming before they woke up? That's what most people do. Unless the dream is important to the plot, but it's obviously not as the character forgets what he'd been dreaming about.

First thing said:

"Holy sh--!"

Verdict: Epic Fail

This opens with three cliches on page 1: Weather, car and waking up.

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller

There are songs that come free from the blue-eyed grass, from the dust of a thousand country roads.

I think the author is confusing poetry for prose. In the next sentence we get the rather haughty statement that this story before us is a song that came free from the blue-eyed grass - whatever that means. This is artsy-fartsy at its loudest.

It goes on with some unknown narrator talking about this story and how he came across it with plenty of back story and description. The most exciting thing that happens on these opening pages is that ink spilled onto the paper. Insomniacs- we have your cure here!

Chapter 1:

Robert Kincaid

On the morning of August 8, 1965, Robert Kincaid locked the door to his small two-room apartment on the third floor of a rambling house in Bellingham, Washington.

The first chapter is titled with the name of the person who is then promptly mentioned in the opening line. Sounds a little redundant. Anyway, so this is the inciting event. A character is leaving his home and going somewhere, presumably to the plot of the book. In any case, it is a fairly unremarkable sentence, though in its defense, it does provide some useful data, like a name, a date and a town.

First thing said:

"I might get a dog then."

This Robert says to the setting around him, in other words, he's taking to himself, which I think reveals something about the character, which is something dialogue should do. The earlier the better.

The opening of this short novel (there are toilet paper rolls that are longer) reads more like a series of snapshots than a series of events - which is, when you get down to it, what a story is.

Honestly, I kept reading this to find out what all the fuss is about, and even though it is a very short book, a novella really, to this day, years later, I have never finished it, and as you can see from the verdict below, I never will. I would rather lick a brick.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

In Paradise by Peter Matthiessen

Prologue

He told him this: how as a boy fugitive on a scorched day of wartime, crossing the railroad yards of some defeated city, he is drawn closer by a twitching in the shadow under the last boxcar in a transport shunted off onto a siding.

This opening line of a short one-paragraph prologue is intentionally abstruse I fear. The pronouns, the indefinite articles and indefinite pronoun all contribute to a prologue that needs a preface. It's as if a fog is slowly lifting from the novel.

I assume this has the weather opening cliche in scorched day, unless that means something else. I can't tell; it could mean many different things.

At the end of the day, when all is said and written, the use of rich language shunts off with a scorched shadow of twitching pretension. Though well written, it makes no sense to use pronouns at the beginning like: He told him... Who told who? It's a cheap way to raise a question, and not a question about story conflict but a basic question like what the heck is happening to who - I no good understand. What follows is a little weird, almost like a dream of something twitching in a shadow, a tentacle like a thin tongue and other similes. The emphasis of this opening is obviously on language and vocabulary, which distracts the reader from the story, which is smothered by a writer high on words from sniffing too many newly pressed dictionaries, I imagine.

Chapter 1:

He has flown all night over the ocean from the New World, descending from moon stare and the rigid stars into the murk and tumult of inversion shrouding winter Poland.

What the hell does that last part mean - into the murk and tumult of inversion shrouding winter Poland? I suppose I could stop reading and spend some a few seconds contemplating it, but talk about pulling a reader out of the story. This is, like, so totally overwritten, you know. Can it be any more ambiguous? It's more poetry than prose. I can just imagine the crowd who loves this stuff gathered in their hemp sweaters around their herbal teas in university library cafeterias planning their next protest to ban wooden toothpicks and stroking their chins, snickering at the rest of us meat-eating morons with brains rotting from too much TV as we struggle to grasp the deeper social and philosophical ramifications of Harry Potter and Dr. Seuss.

First thing said:

"Like black icicles!"

The first thing said is a simile? Even the characters are poets.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

I give this a 2.5 stars for all those artistic-fartistic wordsmiths out there. There is a place for this style of writing, but not on my bookshelf.

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

And the Dark Sacred Night by Julia Glass

She saw him through the trees, and she almost turned around.

First off, I don't like titles that begin with ...And. It reeks of artsy-fartsy and honestly sounds pretentious. After consulting my elementary school grammar book, I'm confident to say that and is a conjunction, a joiner and putting it at the beginning of a title makes it impotent. So this title really is: The Dark Sacred Night and the Impotent Conjunction.

I'm uncertain why anyone does this but I assume it's because it implies that there is more to the title than a dark sacred night and we will need to read on to understand what it is because the author is being stingy so as to create suspense. Another reason may be that authors are now being paid by the title word count and so adding that ...And at the beginning means twenty percent more money. That would be cool. Or maybe it's to ensure that the book turns up first on online book lists?

However, despite this annoyance and my 156 word rant, beginning a title with ...And wouldn't keep me from reading the book.

On the other hand, the pronouns in the opening sentence are more annoying, used to create, I don't know, mystery or melodramatic effect? I put a question mark at the end of the previous sentence because I'm not sure why writers start a novel with a pronoun anymore. It's as if they're holding back the story on purpose because they are stingy with it or something, thinking that by slowly drawing out the plot with unknown pronouns, they're hooking a reader. I just skip those boring parts - or depending on my schedule, I skip the rest of the book. What makes me mad is that I can't skip the opening line; unfortunately, opening lines are unskippable.

Then there is the word almost used before a verb. It almost sounds weird. Why write what a character is not doing? She almost woke and then almost had breakfast before almost going outside for a walk. Then she almost received a phone call, before almost going home...etc. You almost get the point?

The opening paints a scene without much conflict, which is fine for a landscape painting, but this is supposed to be a novel with, you know, that nifty little thing called conflict - that thing that makes a story a story - not the backdrop drawn with words - though important, shouldn't begin a book; it rarely hooks.

Chapter 1:

It is the time of year when Kit must rise in the dark, as if he were a farmer or fisherman, someone whose livelihood depends on beating the dawn, convincing himself that what looks like night is actually morning.

The only conflict here is that someone needs to get up early. While a hellish prospect for some, it's not really that interesting to read at the beginning of a novel. Though, I think its main purpose is more to establish setting than conflict, so it's a sneaky way of beginning with setting. You see, at first I'm thinking this is taking place in a rural area. I am unintentionally associating this way (I always do this with uneventful sentences) because of words like farmer and fisherman, but we learn in the next sentence that this guy must get up early because he is a father. So this novel begins how the creative writing textbooks say it should: with exposition and in bed.

Theo (the blog admin) now forces me to attach at least one compliment to each negative review I give, so here goes: You James Bond fans will be almost disappointed. Not only because this does not start with a bang, but also because it is well written.

First thing said:

"What, not practicing?"

Verdict: A Potent Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Wars by Timothy Findley

She was standing in the middle of the railroad tracks

Thus begins the prologue of this short novel by Timothy Findley. A pronoun with a problem. As a first sentence this one works at hooking, as it present a problem - assuming there is a train somewhere nearby. The paragraph continues to explain that this is a horse on the track. The unfolding scene is one of destruction and war.

Chapter 1:

All of this happened a long time ago.

The rest of this brief chapter reads like a lecture, a commentary of sorts on general state of some characters, which transforms itself into preamble. On the plus side, the chapters are short and read like clippings, a technique I've seen in other of Findley's work which to me feels like a disjointed narrative in places, which is distracting, sometimes hard to follow, making it easy for my attention to wonder to my Facebook news feed.

In the realms of the artsy-fartsy mind, this book thrives. The descriptive writing is precise and vivid.

First thing said:

"Let's go."

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay

The afternoon was so cold, so relentlessly gray, few pedestrians passed the long island of trees dividing Commonwealth Avenue, and even little dogs, shunted along impatiently, wore thermal coats and offended expressions.

So this story opens with yet another weather report; plus, interestingly enough, little dogs fashionably dressed with pissed off, haughty looks, like those annoying rich snobs that don't work for a living. Damn dogs. But they are being shunted. 

The short of it is: Weather offends - though this we know. But does the reader need to be reminded of it before the story starts? Or is this meant to inform us that Russian weather sucks and is a storm of pathos, intense and engaging enough to read about or start a novel about?

From a third-floor window on the north side of the street, above decorative copper balconies that had long ago turned the color of pale mint, Nina Revskaya surveyed the scene. 

Enter character.

Soon the sun—what little there was of it—would abandon its dismal effort, and all along this strip of well-kept brownstones, streetlamps would glow demurely.

The sun makes a dismal effort? That's relative. But I sympathize with the poetic attempt.

First thing said:

"Yes?"

Which does not reveal character or conflict. With three dramatic adverbs in three sentences we must assume this is artsy-fartsy. So the club of artistic-fartistic connoisseurs should love this - a club that looks down on us herd mentality readers.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Sandrine's Case by Thomas H. Cook

Opening Argument:
The Prosecution

Lost hope conceals a rapier in its gown, Sandrine wrote in the margins of her copy of Julius Caesar.

At first glance this feels like what a first sentence should be: big, lofty, all embracing,  - just plain old epic. It reveals character and hints at conflict; yet, there is a hint of pretentious. The rest of the paragraph is in the same annoying didactic lofty voice.

Things like:

Life should fill our ears with warning...
...she'd penned this little piece...but it falls silent at our infant cry.

Whatever the hell that means. This opening reeks of artsy-fartsy melodramatic sentimentality.

It's hard at first to figure out what's going on. The narrator (secret literary-device Agent Pronoun) is on trial, so in this beginning the only mystery the reader cares about is who Sandrine is - that, and in general what the hell is going on. We're dropped right into the theoretical center of the middle of an elusive plot/life story without much information to construct our imaginations with. Unfortunately, the only thing that can save this is back story and after a slightly satisfying BS dump, by page 2 the plot starts to flex its muscles after breaking away from the sentimental artsy-fartsy sentence lining.

The focus in this beginning is words and general philosophical ideas you can have delivered to your e-mail box by signing up for any number of lofty newsletters. Ultimately, it feels overwritten. I need more than titillating vocabulary and philosophy to pull me into a mystery novel.

Nevertheless, the opening clause grows on one. The emotions of regret manage to make themselves known. Mercifully, by page 2 the writer comes down off his verbose high and tells the story as it should be told, in simple terms - things happening to people.

First thing said:

"You're the proverbial ham sandwich any pubic prosecutor can indict, Sam."

What proverbial ham sandwich would that be? A sam-ham?

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

There was a time in Africa the people could fly.

You have to read it twice and the rest of page 1 to understand that the narrator struggles with English grammar. So the first thing I'm hoping for is that whoever this narrator is, he or she better be a dynamic character, that is, one who changes in the course of a story - the first change being he or she learns how to write properly, or hire an editor. This is just a little too much reality in my fiction. A character being tortured and having their guts skewered over an open fire I can handle, but a narrator speakin' in so bad, ain't no good no how, 'cause it hard take meanin'. The only exception is Pygmy.

Other than the reality of the uneducated style of the narrative voice, this is an effective opening line. Unusual enough to attract attention and works well in conjunction with the title, which is always nice. Not so many opening lines work with their respective titles to create an effective hook.

The rest of the first section on page 1 is fascinating as characters are revealed and we are all reminded of the magic of childhood - that everything is possible.

First thing said:

"Handful, your grannymauma saw it for herself."

I like the name of the narrator, it reveals something about the child, Handful. If I ever have kids I now know what I will call them all.

Verdict: Pass

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Wonder by Dominique Fortier

It was snowing confetti on Saint-Pierre.

Every time authors start a story they must decide how to begin. Many choose to begin with setting to set up atmosphere, mood, and/or tone. To each his own. However, even though these are story elements and important, they are not in themselves the story. So, no matter how one justifies it, the novel does not begin with the story - things happening to people.

Think of it like this: Something happened to you, perhaps you were accidentally pushed from a subway platform onto the tracks and the next day you want to tell your friends what happened - that is to tell the story. How would you begin? It was a sunny day when I walked into the subway station filled with the dank smell of the herd of humanity as it wondered aimlessly through time and space.

Your friends would get pretty pissed, pretty quick if that is how you start your stories. The short of it is, beginning with setting, atmosphere and mood is just not how a story instinctively starts. Well, perhaps that is not entirely correct, mood and atmosphere can be established from word 1 simply in the telling of how conflict unfolds with some setting, which may be necessary, like this: You wouldn't believe what happened to me - I was pushed off the subway platform!

This is much better than: You wouldn't believe what happened to me - I was pushed!

But the setting is only important because it is vital to understanding the conflict.

Anyway, there are many different ways to begin and perhaps in the grand scheme of things, none of them are wrong. All I know is that the opening of Wonder does not hook me.

From a purely technical point of view, for descriptive writing, it is wonderful and the author obviously exhibits a talent for writing - a real wordsmith. Sometimes I wonder though, if that is the only purpose for such flowery and descriptive openings- to show off the chops. Don't get me wrong, good writing is important, but by itself, it does not hook. Character and conflict do.

First thing said:

"I am ridiculous."

This is on page 2 when we are introduced to a character describing himself, so the descriptive preamble does not last too long, though there is still vivid description between things said. So, if you like verbose description then this should be right up your dandy alley.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Longbourn by Jo Baker

There could be no wearing of clothes without their laundering, just as surely as there could be no going without clothes, not in Hertfordshire anyway, and not in September.

This opening sentence is trying to be unusual but falls short. The only problem that follows is someone has to do the dirty laundry old style, by hand on a cold morning. A problem but not one that hooks. I was thinking to add the weather opening cliché label to this one but the cold weather is part of the boring problem and not obtrusively described, so I'll let it go.

The third paragraph interrupts the forward narrative as it tries to paint a picture of a setting with flowery language like:

Sheep huddled in drifts...
Birds...fluffed like thistledown...
...cows huffed clouds of sweet breath... [Ugh, I can't get my mind to buy and sell that one.]

And that's just a taste; it goes on and on. Definitely on the overwritten side of purple. The paragraphs are long, thick and crowded.

First thing said:

"You don't know how lucky you are, Hill."

Obviously there is a fan base and market for this kind of book or it wouldn't exist. So hats off to that world.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

A Final Reckoning by Susan Moody

Until the screams began, the house was quiet, wrapped in an expectant pre-Christmas hush.

So begins a prologue, though it's not identified as being anything. It's all in italics, which is annoying. The scene that unfolds is disjointed with chaotically inserted bits and pieces of dialogue like:

Don't! Stop! Mum! Please, Mummeee, oh don't! Ouch!...etc

Dialogue continues from various disembodied voices, interspersed with various forms of footsteps. It's effective because it feels like the reader is in a dark room when all this is occurring, creating a sense of confusion, always a necessary ingredient for fear.

Chapter 1:

Where do you begin a story like this one?

Not like that. This is preamble and is actually a really stupid question. Why is the author asking the reader about a story the reader has no idea about? Of course, I suspect it's a rhetorical question, but what's the purpose of being rhetorical? To introduce a narrator that has no idea how to tell a story, making an excuse up to ramble? If that's the case, I'm ready for closure - next book.

Next line and paragraph:

Do you start with your characters, build up a portrait of them, small accretions added for the reader: who they are, what they do, where they're're going, what they want?

Ending with:

That way, you make them known,...which holds the attention even before you launch into your story.

Um, wrong. Just because a writer shows there is a character in the story does not guarantee the reader's attention is held. I meet lots of real people, who actually bore me - people I insist on avoiding. So it's more likely than not that as soon as I get to know a character and all their cliches, I will be turned off. And whether you like to admit it or not, we all have these misanthropic tendencies towards strangers.

The next paragraph begins:

Or do you begin in medias res, plunging slap, bang into the defining events from which your narrative springs?

More preamble. All of this is to say basically there is a story that will start soon, but remember it is only a story. So thanks for wasting my time with musings on creative writing which reveal nothing.

Only after the first three paragraphs do we get the inkling of a story (things happening to people):

I was nearly thirteen when my sister died.

So the writer decides to begin with neither character portrayal or in medias res, but instead with a huge back story dump. Ah, I hope it felt good writing that out. From this point one realizes that one must shore oneself up for a long bout of back story dumping before a forward narrative presents itself - if at all.

Fortunately, I will never find out.

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Extraordinary by David Gilmour

What?

What? That's it? That's the first line? Either it's the epitome of epic fail or it's pure genius. Maybe I'll flip a coin later. Anyway, next line:

You didn't know I had a sister?

How could I know? I don't even know who the hell this narrator is who's trying to talk to me.

Yes, Sally, a half-sister really.

Anyway, what follows is back story that is about as boring or fascinating (depending on your perverse tendencies) to read as going through a stranger's photo album. Then there are the attempts at profound thought:

Do the dead forgive us? I wonder. I hope so. But I suspect not.

Duh. Do you think? Anyway, I like the imagery in the next line:

I suspect they do nothing at all, like a spark flying from a burning campfire...

So even though there's a didactic undertone here, it's mildly entertaining and is written in an unpretentious narrative voice, though despite the familiar tone of the narrative, it still reeks of artsy-fartsy. Anyway, nice try, though.

Anyway, first thing said:

"I'm leaving you."

Though these spoken words are part of a back story dump and not part of any forward narrative, so I have no idea what this story is about on page one. Anyway, the life stories of the characters might draw some people in, but I'm thinking this could be a memoir so I'd better stop reading.

Random useless sentence smoldering with tone and attitude:

Anyway.

It's just too obvious.

Anyway:

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes

October 1916

I was dreaming of food.

So we finally encounter the infamous dream opening cliché. It's probably the biggest clichéd opening going and the one most modern writers make an effort to avoid. Despite this, it's inclusion here was inevitable.

To be fair this opening doesn't embrace the dream cliché in all its irrelevant glory. After reading this beginning, I realized there are two types of dream openings (or am I splitting nose hairs here?): The first is the dreamer actually dreaming a forward narrative of sorts - though nothing to do with the novel's actual story arch, and the second is the dreamer recalling a revealing dream like a fading synopsis. The first is worse and a big no-no. The second is only slightly better, deserving just one "no". Overall, one wonders what effect the writer intends when employing such a cliché.

Oh, and with the date inserted before the opening line, the reader's forced to make an inference that this person hasn't been dreaming about food for the whole month of October. Forcing a reader to make such an inference so early should please English teachers.

The next sentence describes the dream:

Crisp baguettes, the flesh of the bread a virginal white, still steaming from the oven, and ripe cheese, its borders creeping toward the edge of the plate.

This line started to make me hungry until ...the flesh of bread a virginal white... That's just weird. So I read on, as perhaps this dream isn't really about food after all...you know, flesh of bread, steaming oven, ripe creeping cheese...are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Of course the bed opening cliché is a must with the dream opening cliché and in this case the bed setting overwhelms the senses when later the character thinks, still in bed: I could taste the cheese.

If I had that sensation in bed, I'd be concerned.

Nevertheless, one wonders if the decision (never an easy one) to begin a novel with a dream is for the purpose of revealing character, perhaps Sigmund Freud style? That might work if the reader agreed with Sigmund Freud's theories - or hell, even understood them, but if not...well, what then? In any case, if this is the purpose, then this character seems to me to be a cross between Homer Simpson, always dreaming about food, and a dream E.L. James might have - if you use 2.68% of your imagination.

First thing said:

"Get off."

This comes at the end of the first paragraph so that's encouraging - though, it doesn't really do anything except announce the dream is over.

Verdict: Fail

I'm tempted to give this an even peevin' 2.5 stars or maybe 3, but there are the clichés, and so I can't in good conscience...

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Life after Life by Kate Atkinson

November 1930

A fug of tobacco smoke and damp clammy air hit her as she entered the cafe.

This is a fancy way of saying: Ms. Pronoun walked into a room. On the surface there seems like a lot of information here: date, person, place, and weather...but in fact it's barren with no conflict or no problem - in short - no story. And I sense a weather report in the pangs of birth.

Second sentence:

She had come in from the rain and drops of water still trembled like delicate dew on the fur coats of some of the women inside.

A poetic weather report does not a better weather report make; in fact, it makes it worse. Mind, if a weather report is placed somewhere else, anywhere else, except at the very beginning, it goes unnoticed. Why anyone would begin their awesome story with a weather report is beyond me. Perhaps to create atmosphere, you say? But can't that be done as the story, the problem, the conflict unfold with characters doing and saying things? It almost never matters if it's raining at the beginning of a book. In this one, it definitely doesn't matter. Rain doesn't hook. I suspect the writer understands this, so overcompensates with an attempt to hook using the ornate-language approach.

The short of it is, Mrs. Pronoun (or Ms. or Miss) enters some place to meet Mr. Pronoun. There are lots of German words used, one presumes to establish a sense of place and more atmosphere.

The next chapter also begins with weather:

An icy rush of air, a freezing slipstream on the newly exposed skin.

Am I the only one who thinks this sentence is unfinished? Perhaps the author had a deadline to meet and hopes we'll figure it all out, or more likely, this is born from the school of artsy-fartsy. Anyway, it's about another pronoun caught in bad weather.

First thing said:

“Guten Tag, gnädiges Fräulein."

Which is German. My German is not so hot, but I think this means: Gluttonous skin tag and g'nagging frown line. So I'm a little confused.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird