In class I stated that I liked the first paragraph of Lily Martindale because of how poetic the language is. I really enjoyed hearing a polar opinion from Taryn. She felt the exact opposite way. Actually, she even thought "Oh no..." after reading the first sentence. After I read the first paragraph I thought, "Wow, I should have started reading this book a week ago."
Although I did appreciate the language in the beginning, I wondered how successful the book would have been had it been written in such poetic language throughout its entirety. I imagine it would have been a very different story if Shartle took the poetic approach. The language she initially used implied a greatness and a fairy-tale-esque tone that painted Lily as an intangible legend of the Adirondacks. This was not the story Shartle told. By the end of the second paragraph, the reader is able to see Shartle shy away from this story line by placing wire and duct tape into the image.
I do wonder why Shartle decided to open the book up in this way if she intended to no longer continue that voice or use of language after the second paragraph. It could be assumed that it was simply to have the contrast of a mythical setting with the factual one she provides shortly after. Although, there were some fairy tale like elements sprinkled throughout the story, such as Lily talking and spending time with animals. Maybe she hoped to constantly use these elements as a contrast to the raw, gritty elements of Lily's story and character.
Really good questions, Kianee. For a while, in the 1990s, it seemed as though every novel I picked up (many by Canadian writers), seemed to work really hard at really poetic prose: short evocative sentences, lots of images and metaphors, lots of evocation rather than description. Like you, I was thrilled at the beginning of those novels, but usually began to feel like there was something missing later on. I suppose this is one of the tensions that all serious novelists have to negotiate--between crafting beautiful and evocative writing, and giving readers enough detail, fact, plot, substance, to keep going. Not that those are necessarily opposed, of course. I think too that there's a pressure on the first paragraphs to do so much that they can be a little over-written. They probably get more revised and re-written than other paragraphs.
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