Department of Last and First Lines

Often the most important part of a book is that first line. Immediately you know if you are in good hands if the first or opening lines grab you and propel you forward. The opening can instantly set the scene or the mood with a few deft strokes. It can give you a character, who you just have to know. A situation that you must see through to the end. Some times a few lines can open a theme or start a train of though that will build like a symphony, but it is those first few notes (to continue the musical analogy which I will now, mercifully, drop) that hook you and lead you on to a hopefully satisfying resolution.

And resolution is what last lines are all about. You have made the journey, stayed the course, seen the sights (to start a travel analogy which I will not belabor) and at the end of the road you need a summing up, a conclusion that will put the whole story in perspective, or perhaps give it one final twist. Or maybe you need a philosophical reflection to leave you satisfied with the outcome of the story; something to mull over when you close the cover. Maybe the author doesn't want to give you that catharsis. Maybe you will be left with some bitter irony to chew on. Still a good ending should feel right, satisfying, but should also send you off on your own to ponder what you have just read. It is a start as well as a finish.

In the best books you are in dialogue with the author. He or she gives you something that he thinks is worth your while. Worth your time. Worth your money even. But in return you can take off from there. Bring something from your life, your experience, your sensibility, and make it your own, more personal, more significant to you, however intangible it may be.

Sometimes, even though I can remember almost nothing particular about a book I have read, the reading of it still exists for me as a whole thing. Not solid or tangible, but still real. A noun or a verb, I'm not sure which, like a color beyond the visible spectrum that you can't describe in words, but is there all the same. An event that has formed you, and in turn also been formed by you.

OK, enough of that airy nonsense. What I really meant to do was introduce a new feature in to the Weblog. One day I will give you the first and last line or lines from a book. You can play "Guess the Title"if you like. The next day I will give you the title, and perhaps say something apropos of the book and/or the quotations. Some lines may be well known, or at least from well known books. Others will almost certainly be obscure, and no one needs to feel dumb because they didn't know from whence they came. This is meant to be fun and entertaining. Please, no wagering.

Today's lines are from a classic science fiction work by a British author.

First line: "Observe now your own epoch as it appears to the Last Men."

Last line: "For we shall make after all a fair conclusion to this brief music that is man."