The First Three Words Of Tommyknockers, The Stephen King Book
They say that opening sentences in books carry a lot of weight, and I tend to agree. In this review, however, I chose to actually focus only on the first three words, rather than the full sentence. However, please note that I do plan to review everything, so eventually there should be a review about the full opening sentence. I will link it here as soon as I get to it.
Also, for this review, I will focus on the text itself and ignore the foreword and dedication. I understand that that is a controversial decision, and I invite you to express your annoyance by sending me a dead rat on the mail. Once I get that rat, I will eventually review, so look forward to that!
“For want of”. Those three words are a promise of what’s to come. From the get go, the mystery is already there. For want of what? Who are the person with wants? What will be the next word be? King is a master at creating suspense, and he makes it very clear very fast. If you read on, you will find that the next word is actually (SPOILERS!!!!) “a”. Clever readers, of course, would have been expecting that already. Of course, it could have been “prosecution”, but that would have been strange since it didn’t start with “dismissal”. It could have been Fish, but King wrote Tommyknockers long before Octopath Traveler named their achievement...
King is here capitalizing in the many years of education that English speakers have to hint at the fact of what that the next word would be, and when he delivers, we can’t help but feel rewarded.
That’s mastery of the craft, right there.
All in all, these three words are great at setting the tone of the rest of the book. I feel it surpasses better known openings such as “It was the” from Tale of Two Cities, or “It was the” from The Crow Road or even “It was a” from Fahrenheit 451.
Not as good as “Take my camel” from The Towers of Trebizond, though.
7/10
Also, for this review, I will focus on the text itself and ignore the foreword and dedication. I understand that that is a controversial decision, and I invite you to express your annoyance by sending me a dead rat on the mail. Once I get that rat, I will eventually review, so look forward to that!
“For want of”. Those three words are a promise of what’s to come. From the get go, the mystery is already there. For want of what? Who are the person with wants? What will be the next word be? King is a master at creating suspense, and he makes it very clear very fast. If you read on, you will find that the next word is actually (SPOILERS!!!!) “a”. Clever readers, of course, would have been expecting that already. Of course, it could have been “prosecution”, but that would have been strange since it didn’t start with “dismissal”. It could have been Fish, but King wrote Tommyknockers long before Octopath Traveler named their achievement...
King is here capitalizing in the many years of education that English speakers have to hint at the fact of what that the next word would be, and when he delivers, we can’t help but feel rewarded.
That’s mastery of the craft, right there.
All in all, these three words are great at setting the tone of the rest of the book. I feel it surpasses better known openings such as “It was the” from Tale of Two Cities, or “It was the” from The Crow Road or even “It was a” from Fahrenheit 451.
Not as good as “Take my camel” from The Towers of Trebizond, though.
7/10
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