[lit-ideas] Re: Opening lines

I haven't read _Earthly Powers_ (perhaps the length
put  me off, perhaps there were some bad reviews) but
if I'd decided to, the first line wouldn't have made
me stop reading.  (I'm not quite sure why it would,
why it would be thought off-putting.  I suppose if it
were the first line of a novel by a new writer or an
established writer I didn't like, it might, though
I've never, I think, stopped reading just because of a
first line, as opposed to a very boring long first
paragraph.)

Judy Evans

--- John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> "It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday,
> and I was in bed with my
> catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had
> come to see me."
> That's the opening line from *Earthly Powers* by
> Anthony Burgess. Would you
> continue reading?
> 
> John



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