another murdochista here.

i don't think i go for first lines. i know that was what got me with timothy findlay's headhunter, but i can't find the book so i can't transcribe it here.

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definitely can credit my reading moby dick with one sentence that reached out of the the opening paragraph and got me. i really don't have good history with 19th century lit - seem to hate almost all of it. but ishmael had me with the bolded part:

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>''Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodologically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball... I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.''