I am told that writers used to be interesting. For a brief, golden period, they called each other names, fell out bitterly and publicly with members of rival circles, left husbands and wives for other husbands and wives who were summarily abandoned in turn, and gleefully alienated editors or reviewers whom it would have been far more strategic to impress. Sometimes, they even came to blows. In 1968, Gore Vidal goaded William F. Buckley Jr. into threatening to punch him on live television; three years later, Norman Mailer headbutted Vidal as recompense for a negative review. The writing that all this turmoil produced was, for the most part, seething with extravagant incaution.Things have wilted considerably in the intervening decades.
Now That's an Opening
In a review of a book I won't read by an author I don't care about, a great opening paragraph.
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2 comments:
Even further back than that, H Allen Smith & Frank Tolbert had a feisty little feud going over putting beans (and other vegies) in chili, which as every right-thinking person knows, makes it a bowl of stew instead of a bowl of red!
It is true that many people believe that; although my father put beans in chili, being originally from Tennessee where beans are cheap and beef less plentiful. Appalachian poverty both excuses and gives rise to many modifications.
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