Call me Ishmael

Let's be honest: "Call me Ishmael." is *not* a very great opening line on its own, and I think as a sentence it doesn't really deserve a spot on any best-of lists. But the whole opening paragraph it easily one of the best ever, and its first sentence is important because the opening would be weaker, more dull, if it started at the second sentence. After the first sentence, it continues:

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 the 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 methodically 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. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; 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.

Without the first sentence, this might be a fairly standard, "David Copperfield kind of crap" opening to a book. "Some years ago..." is such a humdrum opening, applicable to any story, that it would significantly worsen the first impression. And yet jumping from the introductory "Call me Ishmael" to the emotional brain-dump of the rest of the opening chapter sets the scene in an important way. This is not a story told by a narrator who knows the listener well: this is a complete stranger who introduces himself and them jumps right into some really TMI-level emotional stuff right away—like a crazy person, like the Ancient Mariner. In several ways this sets a pattern of sudden intimacy that recurs in the rest of the book.

But what resonant intimacy! Damp drizzly November in my soul? I want to knock the hats off of every person I see? Taking to the sea "is a way I have of ... regulating the circulation"? Why don't you tell us about your mother, and your bowel movements, too? Nevertheless, the first ¶ of Moby Dick has always drawn me in immediately, I think because of my own hypos. The whole first chapter is just an irresistible gem. Well, the whole book, really:

What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain't a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way—either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and be content.

Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid.

There's even an erudite-for-today fart joke before you get past page 5:

Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome exercise and pure air of the forecastle deck. For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim)...

- Orion Montoya