Heinrich von Kleist
Recently, in an article from a literary magazine that quoted some of the most captivating opening sentences for short stories, I came across these shimmering lines that are so full of bravado that they end with a flourish guaranteed to persuade the reader to turn the page:In Santiago, the capital of the kingdom of Chile, at the very moment of the great earthquake of 1647 in which many thousands of lives were lost, a young Spaniard by the name of Jeronimo Rugera, who had been locked up on a criminal charge, was standing against a prison pillar, about to hang himself.
This one sentence not only establishes an ominous tone and delivers the sense that the novel is set against a crucial historical backdrop, it encapsulates something essential about the remainder of the work. No sooner had I put down the article did I looked up online tro track down a copy of his short stories--in order to satisfy my brimming curiosity sparkled by these questions in my mind:
1. What happened during the earthquake that involved a tremendous loss of lives?
2. What criminal charge has caused the young man to be locked up?
3. Why does the young man consider taking his own life?
4. Most of all, the idea of a suicide taking place at the split second of the disaster is both appealing and hair-splitting.
So I'm taking von Kleist with me to vacation, for sure.
4 Comments:
That article sounds like something I'd love - is it online at all? Personally, I think Borges has some exceptional first sentences - this one, from 'The Circular Ruins' is very good: No one saw him disembark in the unanimous night, no one saw the bamboo canoe sink into the sacred mud, but in a few days there was no one who did not know that the tactiturn man came from the south and that his home had been one of those numberless villages upstream in the deeply cleft side of the mountain, where the Zend language has not been contaminated by Greek and where leprosy is infrequent.
So many questions raised in a single sentence!
Traveller,
I believe the article was from Atlantic. I agree with you on Borges, whose writing nudges readers to some wonderful terrain of imagination. This particular sentence you quoted reminds me of another book written by Hamsung. I forgot the title but it's about a man who is arriving in Norway without anybody's knowing.
That's certainly an opening sentence that makes you want to read on!
Danielle,
He has grabby opening sentences in all his stories! I can't wait to dive into his world--but I have to save it for my trip which is coming up in less than a week. :)
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