…this ol’ Jurassic has many, many favourite novels from my early reading days… a time when as a twenty-sum’thing young man I was beginning to enjoy the glimpses into WURLDS created in the minds of scribbling geniuses’ of the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties… recently I’ve featured the names of some of those, and another wee elaboration here seems in order… particularly the strength of the ‘openers’ employed… the inaudible, but uber-persuasive ‘hooks’ that leaves yeez no choice as a reader but to plunge right in and immerse yerselves in their WURKS… John O’Hara’s first novel, Appointment in Samarra has a prologue lifted from a version of an old Arab tale recounted in W. Somerset Maughm’s 1932 play, Sheppey:
‘DEATH SPEAKS:
There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said…
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