Subject
Re: Transparent Things Group Reading: Chapter I. Hullo (fwd)
Strange novel openings
Strange novel openings
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---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Thursday, July 08, 2004 4:03 PM +1000
From: nitrogen14@australia.edu
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Subject: Re: Re: Transparent Things Group Reading: Chapter I. Hullo
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>
> The beginning of the novel, as Brian Boyd pointed out on more than one
> occasion, is "the strangest beginning any story ever had".
Hyperbole, surely; although I suppose it depends on what you mean by
'strange'. What about The Mystery of Edwin Drood:
AN ancient English Cathedral Tower? How can the ancient English Cathedral
tower be here! The well-known massive gray square tower of its old
Cathedral? How can that be here! There is no spike of rusty iron in the
air, between the eye and it, from any point of the real prospect. What is
the spike that intervenes, and who has set it up? Maybe it is set up by the
Sultan's orders for the impaling of a horde of Turkish robbers, one by one.
It is so, for cymbals clash, and the Sultan goes by to his palace in long
procession. Ten thousand scimitars flash in the sunlight, and thrice ten
thousand dancing-girls strew flowers.
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L
Date: Thursday, July 08, 2004 4:03 PM +1000
From: nitrogen14@australia.edu
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Subject: Re: Re: Transparent Things Group Reading: Chapter I. Hullo
------------------
>
> The beginning of the novel, as Brian Boyd pointed out on more than one
> occasion, is "the strangest beginning any story ever had".
Hyperbole, surely; although I suppose it depends on what you mean by
'strange'. What about The Mystery of Edwin Drood:
AN ancient English Cathedral Tower? How can the ancient English Cathedral
tower be here! The well-known massive gray square tower of its old
Cathedral? How can that be here! There is no spike of rusty iron in the
air, between the eye and it, from any point of the real prospect. What is
the spike that intervenes, and who has set it up? Maybe it is set up by the
Sultan's orders for the impaling of a horde of Turkish robbers, one by one.
It is so, for cymbals clash, and the Sultan goes by to his palace in long
procession. Ten thousand scimitars flash in the sunlight, and thrice ten
thousand dancing-girls strew flowers.
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L