Free-sampling first chapters is one of the joys of owning a Kindle. I no longer jot down titles suggested by friends or reviewers--I just pick up my little machine and instantly download the sample. It's a great way to find out, without investing a cent, if a book grabs you, and it's also a portal to great sentences, since writers know that to get published they have to leave prospective agents in a state of shock and awe in just a few paragraphs.
I've just sampled the openings of two novels by Irish writer John Banville, who has indeed left me in awe. As one reviewer asked, can this man write a single sentence that isn't beautiful? I love his openings:
"They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide." - The Sea
"Of the things we fashioned for them that they might be comforted, dawn is the one that works." - The Infinities
The first thing I noticed in both sentences was Banville's interesting word order. A more prosaic writer might have said, "The gods departed on the day of the strange tide." Instead Banville starts with the anonynous pronoun "They," hooking the reader by delaying the identification of "the gods" for a milli-second and then drawing attention to it by setting it off as an apppositive.
The second sentence also uses word order to pique our interest. Pared to the bone, it might have read, "Dawn was the best thing we made to comfort them." Banville instead adopts a more formal, almost biblical style, opening with a long participial phrase and holding off the main clause till the end of the sentence. Of course, readers who prize economy might prefer the fewest words possible, but I think even they will appreciate Banville's spare diction and elegant wording.
There's much to admire in Banville's style. I'll be visiting him again.
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