Realization

I'm a sucker for dialogue on the first page of a novel.

From Julian Maclaren-Ross's Bitten by the Tarantula:

When Armstrong suggested this trip I accepted at once. The idea of staying a month in the mountains appealed to me tremendously. No worries. Nothing complicated. The simple life. That suited me fine.
"Where shall we stay?" I asked him.
Armstrong said, "There's a choice of two hotels. The Royal is the best."
"You've been there before, then?"
"Last year. It was very restful."
"That's just what I need, a good rest."
"You never have anything else."
"Nonsense. My life is a turmoil. I often think of entering a monastery."
"Or a convent," Armstrong said. "Have you never thought about that?"
"A convent would be too complicated."
"Yvonne was brought up in a convent wasn't she?"
"I believe she was."
"How is that progressing?"
"She's away in Geneva."
Which was another reason for leaving.

From Christopher Isherwood's Prater Violet:

"Mr. Isherwood?"
"Speaking."
"Mr. Christopher Isherwood?"
"That's me."
"You know, we've been trying to contact you ever since yesterday afternoon." The voice at the end of the wire was a bit reproachful.
"I was out."
"You were out?"
"Yes."
"Oh...I see..." (A pause, to consider this. Then, suddenly suspicious.) "That's funny, though...Your number was always engaged. All the time."
"Who are you?" I asked, my tone getting an edge on it.
"Imperial Bulldog."
"I beg your pardon?"
[It keeps going in this vein for a while, very funny...]

Wining, Reading, Grading

From Tony Hoagland's "When Dean Young Talks About Wine," in What Narcissism Means to Me:

He says, Great first chapter but no plot.
He says, Long runway, short flight.
He says, This one never had a secret.
He says, You can't wear stripes like that.

This suggets a good writing exercise: Elaborate descriptions for wine.

* * *

Dan Rhodes's Guardian list of his favorite books under 200 pages has been much linked to. (Dizzyheads, any candidates?) Off the top of my head, The Mezzanine would be high on my list, something by Richard Brautigan, and of course something by Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle, probably). Bernhard's The Loser is 183 pages. I'm also, randomly, a fan of Isherwood's Prater Violet...and Muriel Spark's The Girls of Slender Means must be sub-200. . . .

* * *

Here is the Guardian obit for Vonnegut—the Times one is more interesting, I think. His official website is here, and today its splash page features an opened bird cage.

Wikipedia mentions Vonnegut's self-assessment of his books (in Palm Sunday); it reminded me of Nabokov's annotated copy of a collection of short stories, in which most things received C's or lower, except Salinger's "Bananafish" (A+) and...something by VN himself, if I'm not mistaken.

Here's Vonnegut's list:
Player Piano: B
The Sirens of Titan: A
Mother Night: A
Cat's Cradle: A-plus
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: A
Slaughterhouse-Five: A-plus
Welcome to the Monkey House: B-minus
Happy Birthday, Wanda June: D
Breakfast of Champions: C
Slapstick: D
Jailbird: A
Palm Sunday: C

This seems pretty clear-eyed—though I remember seeing this before reading Breakfast of Champions, then thinking BoC must be pretty mediocre...then reading BoC and being pleasantly surprised—the result of lowered expectations? Anyway, what a nice chunk, from Sirens to S-5. Enough for any writer, no?

UPDATE: Excellent set of online Vonnegut resources, compiled by the Mirror Ed.