English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Are these two of the best opening lines ever?

Are these two of the best opening lines ever written? I find them both irresistible!

For how  can a reader resist reading on after such greetings? 

Both narrators  sound just ‘right’: both  very  individual voices whom we trust to lead us on into the narrative.

The voices resonate and intrigue! Let’s explore them just a little…..

 

‘Call me Ishmael.”

I love the direct, raw quality of this. Not a word wasted. 

Is this a demand or a plea? If the former, then the tone is commanding, if the latter then one of yearning perhaps- a new start or an unconditional ear? 

What is the real name of the narrator/speaker?  ‘Call me’ suggests that ‘Ishmael’ is an alias or even a name adopted because of a secret hope or  need. The name is precarious and susceptible to debate!

If the name is precarious then identity and self responsibilitty might be significant. 

Why do we need to listen to the speaker and who is HE addressing?

 

 

 

 

 

”Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” 

Where are we in time,  as we read this opening? Is it the Colonel’s best, most tender memory EVER as he recalls ice when he is thinks he is about to die?

The tone seems affectionate, even nostalgic. WHY?

Is this combination ironically incongruent? 

Why is ‘ice’ aligned through memory with the current experience of the   firing squad? What do we feel about the Colonel’s mind? 

There is much in the  writing ‘larder’ here. We have the immediate problem of the firing squad. We wonder why a Colonel is to be executed by a firing squad: treason or betrayal? Why did the Colonel ‘discover’ ice? 

We wonder why (at the moment of death), the Colonel remembers his father and ICE! 

 Juxtaposition bewilders and entices! 

Such an enigma of the SENSES!

Aren’t the commas marvellous?  Such poised suspense…