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Message: [QUOTE="Jackcatscal, post: 2369000, member: 8336"] An earlier reader quoted the opening line from James Joyce's "[I]Portrait of the Artist[/I]." Here are two more Joyce opening lines that definitely deserve discussion. First, Joyce's [I]Ulysses[/I]: "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.” Sounds a little pedestrian, no? Not so quick. Joyce insisted that the publisher print the opening "S" in VERY VERY LARGE type. In my early edition of the book, the letter "S" takes up an entire page. Here's a second example, from the most unreadable and possibly funniest English-language novel ever written, [I]Finnegans Wake[/I]. "riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs." Again, what's so special? Well, for one thing, the sentence begins with a small letter. And it's not a sentence at all--it's a fragment. So, where's the rest of it? Go to the very last line of the book: "A way a lone a last a loved a long the". And there you go, the beginning of the fragmentary first line of the novel is the fragmentary last line of the novel. One big, nearly happy circle. (Joyce junkies may recognize a theme from [I]Finnegans Wake[/I] in my earlier phrase, "definitely deserve discussion.") [/QUOTE]