a good beginning

I love a good beginning. It's almost as delicious as a good ending. Take books, for example. You can tell how fantastic a book's going to be by the first paragraph, sometimes even the first sentence. "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Classic. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...." Okay, so I never read that one, but what a beginning. "In the beginning God created the Heaven and Earth..." Now that's promising.

Contrast those happy examples with a book that was recommended to me several years ago. "You've got to read this book, Marianne, you're going to LOVE it," I was told by my over-enthusiastic and painfully unimaginative friend. I took it hesitantly because it was in a genre I don't particularly care for anyway. But try it, I did.

I can't remember the name of the book, but I'm certain it had a cheesy-looking cover, with a strikingly lovely pioneery-looking woman, gazing out over a wind-swept field. Her bonnet was hanging loosely on her shoulders, leaving her hair, of course, flowing in the wind behind her. Cliche and cheesey. It was paperback, and obviously well-loved by its owner, who, truthfully, I didn't really know very well. This was particularly distressing because I couldn't open it confidently with consoling thoughts of "she's never let me down before..."

Alas.

The first line: "It was a good night for dying."

And that's as far as I got. Without a doubt, it was cheesy, cliche, and over-dramatic. Please. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Now that I think of it, I should have flipped to the last page to see if the ending topped the beginning.

Not knowing the ending, I've kindly come up with a few of my own:

"As she lay the posies upon the freshly turned soil, she allowed herself one last tear for the life lived, and the love lost... 'I will never forget. Never,' she vowed. And the wind blew softly across her brow... The End." I hate endings like that.

What about this one: "'And that, Mary Martha, is why I'll never let you outta my sight agin.' And he never did..." No, that's silly, surely this lovely wind-blown beauty would not be named Mary Martha.

In all likelihood, the ending matched the beginning: "Yes, it was a good night... for living" (sniff).

Blast. I'll never know.

Oh well. It's late, and I can't remember the point of this post. G'nite.

I owe you one.