--Flann O'Brien from At Swim-Two-Birds
<http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2009/12/04>
socialismorbarbarism wrote:
> C Cox: "These were not the last tears she was to shed during their married
> life.
>
> ....
>
> (Someone with eyes might look up the lat sentnce of the Bostonians and get it
> right.)"
>
> Here:
>
> "Ah, now I am glad!" said Verena, when they reached the street. But though
> she was glad, he presently discovered that, beneath her hood, she was in
> tears. It is to be feared that with the union, so far from brilliant, into
> which she was about to enter, these were not the last she was destined to
> shed.
>
> Cox's version is far better--IMHO, of course. That "so far from brilliant" is
> a lead weight hanging from the sentence's neck. For one thing.
>
> On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 6:46 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>> Beginnings & Endings.
>>
>> Surely the finest opening in any poem, novel, or drama in English is that
>> of Rocheeester's A Ramble in St. James's Park:
>>
>> Much wine had passed with grave discourse Of who fucks who and who does
>> worse.
>>
>> Probbly followed by the opening of P&P and the first paragraph of Bleak
>> House. (A whle page without a complete sentence: all subjects followed aby
>> innumerable adjectival or adverbial clauses or phrases, no verbs. The first
>> sentence:
>>
>> London.
>>
>> The finest ending, that of The Bostonians (quoted roughly from memory):
>>
>> These were not the last tears she was to shed during their married life.
>>
>> ---
>>
>> Other candidates for beginnings and endings.
>>
>> Carrol
>>
>> (Someone with eyes might look up the lat sentnce of the Bostonians and get
>> it right.)