Yesterday, the Pulitzer committee, for the first time since 1977, did not award a prize for fiction. Perhaps it was because literature today just doesn’t measure up to that of yesteryear.
With that in mind, I’d like to give you a sentence from what many believe is the greatest novel ever written.
Go ahead and read it, but first a word of warning. Not out loud, because unless you’re a star underwater swimmer, you’ll pass out long before you get the to end. Here goes:
“Universally that person’s acumen is esteemed very little perceptive concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitably by mortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of that which is the most doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of that in them high mind’s ornament deserving of veneration constantly maintain when by general consent they affirm that other circumstances being equal by no exterior splendor is the prosperity of a nation more efficaciously asserted by the measure of how far forward may have progressed the tribute of its solicitude for the proliferent continuance which of evils the original if it be absent when fortunately present constitutes the certain sign of omnipotent nature’s incorrupted benefaction.”
Just rolls off the proverbial tongue, doesn’t it?
Then again, if someone were to ask you to come up with a sentence that’s pure highfalutin gibberish, could you do a better job . . .
. . . than . . .
James Joyce?
Yep. That’s from Ulysses. I know what you’re thinking, I took it out of context. That’s why it doesn’t make sense.
Trouble is, in Ulysses there is no there, there. Honestly, with apologies to Gertrude Stein, there’s way more there in Oakland.
Sure, you could whip out your dictionary, your scholarly texts and first decipher, then resolutely deconstruct that sentence.
But . . . why?
My point is that often what passes for great literature is really the emperor’s new clothes. It’s scary to point out that there’s really not much, um, there. So instead we pretend to see great merit in it, and as a result we don’t actually see it at all.
And when we’re walking around blind, we make all kinds of mistakes. That might be what motivated the American Book Review to proclaim that the all time best opening sentence of any novel is:
. . . wait for it . . .
“Call me Ishmael.”
Really? Really?
Think about it. The goal of an opening sentence is to lure the reader in. To suggest that all is not as it seems, to arouse our curiosity.
Would that sentence do that? Of course not. It’s a name tag. So why did they pick it then? Because, sheesh, Moby-Dick is a classic. My guess is that they picked it because they’d already read the book, and much more important, knew of its undeniable stature.
But let’s reflect on this for a minute. Can you image an aspiring writer opening her debut novel with, “Call me Nimrod,” and having agents read no further than that before calling her to say: “Oh my god, that opening sentence, it’s brilliant. It might be the best-written first sentence ever! Where do I send the million dollars?”
All kidding aside, beware the towering so-called importance of Great Literature. Sure, some of it is splendid, but a whole lot of it isn’t. If it leaves you cold, chuck it.
Why not pick up Gone With the Wind instead. Which, back in 1937, actually did win the Pulitzer. I’m just saying . . .
What do you think? And, if you want to deconstruct that sentence from Ulysses, please do!
Here here! On my blog, I once asked why “Call me Ishmael.” was considered such a great opening and no one had an answer. I’m still mystified.
As for the quote from Ullysses, with all the wonderful stories I could read, I’ll not waste my time trying to decipher what is apparently written for the equivalent of a private circle jerk.
Emperor’s New Clothes indeed.
Yes! I must admit (okay out loud even) that your description — “the equivalent of a private circle jerk” — sums up my thoughts so precisely that one of us is clearly reading the others’ mind!
Modern literature has more to ‘compete’ with than classics akin to Moby Dick and Ulysses. The biggest speed bump is the wave of attention span, so brittle an incoming email or text can derail a reader quicker than Ishmael can say his name.
It’s not unusual for literary journals to offer contests for writing pieces no longer than 2,000 words, and many publications now have flash-fiction and short short story categories. The on-line news venues have gone the same route. No more 5k word articles. A couple hundred words max (…and it’s surprising how many people think they’ve got the complete story, but the trend is shorter is better.)
I think it was Charles Baxter who said something like “there’s literature, and then there’s books you buy at the airport.” Maybe the once ‘second class’ style of book is taking over. A sign of the times? We just ain’t the readers we used to be, but likewise, lots of new novels and stories fall from favor as quick as they got on a best seller list.
(I couldn’t get through the Cliffs notes for Ulysses much less the bona fide book.)
You could be right — although I don’t think it’s necessarily that our attention span is getting shorter, but that so much information is being thrown at us every day, that it feels as if we have to keep hyper vigilant, always on the look out for Something That Changes Everything. You know, so we don’t accidentally make a fool of ourselves.
Statements like “there’s literature, then there’s books you buy at the airport” are so glib that it makes my teeth hurt, and then I can’t think straight. So I won’t say more. You know, and risk being seen as a fool.
I agree 100% about that first quote. But I’d like to respectfully disagree on the second one. “Call me Ishmael.” It’s more than a name tag, and it’s different from “My name is Ishmael” in subtle but important ways. We may not even notice it working on us, but it does. It pulls us in, and we can’t resist.
“Ishmael’s” careful choice of words suggests that this might or might not be his real name, but that for now he’d like us to call him that. Why? Why doesn’t he want to reveal his real name? Who is he, and what happened to him? Or… What has he done? What’s his story? And if this is indeed an alias of some sort, why “Ishmael” in particular?
I suspect Melville’s choice was not random. Ishmael is a minor character in the Old Testament, and most people read their Bibles a lot more back then than they do now. I had to look this up, but back then the average reader would have recognized the allusion immediately. “Ishmael” would instantly suggest a bastard child who had good prospects for a time, but then was cast out and cursed to a life of wandering in the wilderness. He’d almost die, but narrowly escape and have many stories to tell. Ishmael.
True, the rest of the book would be a tough sell these days. “Sprawling. Incoherent. Heavy-handed symbolism. Too long. Let’s trim all those digressions about whaling technology and knots. Etc…” But I still like the first line.
Can I write a whole blog post on this? I love it! One clarification: I didn’t mean to imply that I don’t like the first line of Moby-Dick. It’s just I can’t for the life of me see why anyone would call it the all time best first line of a novel.
For me, there’s not much difference between “my name is” and “call me.” In fact, I’d be more likely to be pulled in by “my name is” because “call me” sounds like a command, and makes me think, why would I want to call you anything? So I might not get to the very astute point you make — that perhaps Ishmael isn’t his real name. (I’m actually chagrined to admit this, because I’m reminding myself of those people who say, “No one can tell me to buy health insurance!” and so never get to the logic/truth/meat of why it’s utterly necessary on myriad levels. Sheesh.)
As for the biblical reference, you’re absolutely right — and for me, that’s more proof that this can’t possibly be the best opening sentence ever, for two reasons. First, as you point out, it was written at a time when many more people grasped biblical references at a clip than would now (not to mention that far fewer people were literate, and fewer still read novels, making Melville’s average reader very different from today’s). Since “all time” means, well, all time, for many readers now the name “Ishmael” wouldn’t have the nearly same punch or meaning as it did when it was written. After all, an opening sentence is meant to pull us in, not send us to the dictionary or the Bible.
Which brings me to the second, and more important, reason. I think that something that is the “best” must also be accessible in the sense that it instantly touches us in a very human place, not one in need of a scholarly prerequisite.
Thanks for the debate! Feel free to rail back!
Agree with you that the quote is gibberish. But Joyce wrote it that way because he wanted to satirize blowhard public intellectuals who can’t put a meaningful sentence together. (There were a lot of them around even in 19.) It’s “gibberish”–i.e., stream-of-consciousness writing without a single meaningful or even coherent thought–because that’s the whole point.
As for the book in general: As Gertrude Stein knew very well, there is a there there. But it’s located, as we Star Trek types like to say, in subspace. If you’re willing to put in the work and take it slow (Stuart Gilbert’s JAMES JOYCE’S ULYSSES: A Study, is essential for understanding what’s going on, though kind of a pain in the butt), reading it can come as close to a three-dimensional literary experience as you’re likely to get without using LSD. Is it worth it just to have that? As Molly Bloom says at the end of the book: Yesyesyesyesyes.
This makes for a great debate, and an interesting question: is a novel synonymous with a story? I believe it is, and that ULYSSES is not a story at all. It’s an intellectual exercise — as you point out here — which may have value, but a very different one than a genuine story bestows.
I don’t need anyone to show me what a blowhard is like (we have enough of them in politics these days), what I’d turn to story for is to illuminate something beneath that — for instance, why people can be taken in by blowhards, or what makes a blowhard, blow hard. The question this leaves me with is: why do we need someone to make a point of the fact that blowhards can’t put a single meaningful coherent thought together? We already know that. In other words: what’s the point?
I suspect the reasons two ULYSSES made such a big splash are that, first, it was so different from everything else, that it drew attention — the way BLAZING SADDLES was much, much funnier in 1974 than it is now, because back then what it was satirizing was so all there was out there, so we had a very clear point of reference. And, when it comes to ULYSSES, there are the dirty bits . . . which surely spurred a lot of people to wade through the gibberish in search of.
Forgot to put in the pub date (1922)!
Lisa, as your fabulous blog has taken up the matter of opening sentences, can anyone tell me why Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s opening line, “It was a dark and stormy night,” is supposedly the worst opening line ever written? (a href=”http://www.bulwer-lytton.com”>The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest)
Here’s the entire opening to Paul Clifford, the novel in question:
<blockquote cite="It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”
The winner of this year’s contest was just announced. Always makes me feel sorry for Bulwer-Lytton, who was just doing the usual Victorian thing. (They got paid by the word.) Making allowances for that, I still think it’s a pretty good opening line–what will happen on that dark and stormy night, at least after we get through the first sentence?
So I’m curious: who would be your nominee for a Contemporary Worst Opening Line contest?
I TOTALLY agree with you on this one! Especially since one of my favorite all time novels, A WRINKLE IN TIME, starts with “It was a dark and stormy night.” I read it when I was nine, and it changed the course of my life. When I went back and read it to my kids I was stunned that that was the opening line, because by then I knew of its standing as “the worst opening line.” For a spilt second I wondered if Madeleine L’Engle was making a wry joke. Naw.
It’s just a great opening line. My sense is that (as with what made them choose “Call me Ishmael” as the best opening line) it was what came after it, rather than the line itself, that earned it said dubious distinction. Sure, you could use it to set up an over-the-top overwrought story. Or, it could open the swiftly tilting door to one of the greatest novels of all time.
It reminds me of a great line from Preston Sturges’ film, CHRISTMAS IN JULY. A black cat crosses the protagonist’s path, and he asks a nearby sign painter, “I can’t remember, is that good luck or bad luck?” To which sign painter replies, “Depends on what happens next.”
Nope. I agree that this one worked better back then than it does now.
Wait! Meant that comment for yours re: Melville. For poor Edgar B-L… Ha! I never knew that. Not such a bad opening line after all.
I know! And well said on all counts!
And I thank you for enlightening me as to who Ishmael was, Biblically-speaking. It feels good to “get it.” Much appreciated!