SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 48

Report by N. K. Boot A prize of f5 was offered for the first sentence of a novel guaranteed to deter the reader from reading any further.

Drastic qualifications had to be applied to reduce the entries to reasonable size. I therefore arbitrarily eliminated anything which hinted at detection or mystery, however banal or horrible, on the grounds that the reading of detective stories is a vice whose addicts cannot be cured by either the incompetence or the fatuity of authors. I also eliminated what might be called the trick answers—sentences misprinted or printed upside-down, strange languages and so forth— though the simple improbability of G. R. Smith's opening deserves a mention: " At the outset let me say that it would be most injudicious of you to read further, as page two has been impregnated with a poison which, if touched, will lead to a slow paralysis of the ,whole body."

This still left a mountain of entries, and it became increasingly 'difficult to select from them. Sometimes, however, although going to great pains to foreshadow the .dullness of matter or manner to come, the introductory sentences tended to have a fascination of their own. I have, for example, always had a certain fondness for novels which begin like this:

In A—shire, on a winter's night in 18—, when, of course, Lord B— was Prime Minister . . . (John B. Longmore). In the end the entries were winnowed down to ten, which seemed to include a representative of more or less every school ; the whimsey, the dialect, the historical, the autobiographic, the jocular, the illiterate and the incomprehensible. When I had reached this stage, the only thing to do was to award ten shillings to each of the ten and to apologise to the many other competitors who, usually for an inadequate reason, were crowded out.

PRIZES

(ALAN WYKES)

The extraordinary, albeit fascinating, circumstances surrounding, or, as my most presumptuously learned older brother, Ccdric, would say if he were asked—which he isn't going to be because this is a humorous book —" circumbient to " the death of Mumsy's uncle, Mercer by name, but not, if 1 may risk a little joke so early in my narrative, merciful by nature (1), who was for many years a "Mountie" in the Poonah Con- stabulary, and had many a sundowner on many a verandah at " tiffin " time (and probably ridin' time too, save the mark!) shall be faithfully, in the pages of the tome you so assiduously hold in your " narled " hands, dear reader, and forthcomingly revealed—if you will grant me space, as it were, to begin, as the Cheshire Cat said in " Alice," by that Master of the " Classic," Lewis Carnal, whose name, let me slyly interpose here, was not Carroll at all (or even Christmassy !) but Hodgson, at the beginning, which takes place in a sort of cabin in the " Ice " Age.

(H. S. MURRAY)

So many of my friends have told me that my life sounded just like a book 1 feel it would be a lack of " savoir-faire " in me not to try and put down some record of it all, although I have never been quick with a pen.

(ELIZABETH VARLEY)

"Nay, Sire," quoth the good Alibot, as Acthelbald the Great laid his :oaken staff aside and adjusted the clasp of his fringed tunic, "The Queen iwots not that Earl Fcodric is slain !

(A. M. SAYER) " Ah mon ! Ye should hae hadclam tassel tae Glumruddoch—ye maun .gae back tae the Whaap an' baud the Whaap till ye coom tae Kedrichan- an' may ye be none the waur for worriecows an' gyre-carlings ! "

(H. S. ActutasisoN)

Au fond, albeit Maureen had somewhat worried herself to death anent the tennis club meeting fracas, she knew her boy-friend and all his protagonists would rally round with phenominally good alibis for her presence at such.

(S. C. BOORMAN)

Life schematically visualized (with what penumbral vicissitudes of the ,

," deeper-than-plummet-sounded " cosmic vision of the New Man, only those whoje mental fingers slip not on the many-stranded cord of the future tale to be presented to our gentle reader can even remotely and with more than protean resilience of the unconscious fully convey across the hinterland that divides the Been from the Not-Been), Life schematic- -ally visualized, we repeat. was far indeed (and yet how near we know not, do we not ? are sometimes those promptings from the great Thither plat come to us in the - silent watches," like fairy fingers caressing our " fevered brows" with ag,tale of the old, the beautiful, yet the dark lore of distant times and cgnes that Man yet wots not of) from the mind of our hero (for so we must call him. friend, for we shall be with him in many straits, learn hc(sv he leaves his " Alma Mater " in shame and disgrace—unmerited, Heaven can witness, but the secret was Another's- how he suffers his way slowly but surely to true nobility of soul, and hears at long last, after many a stony uphill footstep amid "the slings and arrows," the msting-call of his primal manhood answered b- a voice vibrant and low, "a pleasing thing in a woman," and finds in the simple joys of his own hearth-stone That Which He Sought), from the mind of Alaric, that is to say, as he lay, a frown on his pleasant refined featura, in a chair (the gift of his dear mother, and prized as such) rooms, one dark November day in the year 19—, his " oak sport,td" and his whole soul grappling with the problem of his future, a problem which, as we shall see in due season, was shortly tq be solved for him by the rude hand of Fate, clenched even now, in the dark inscrutable Purpose of the After, to " smite once and smite no more."

(N. HODGSON)

[Translated from the Russian] Ivan Ivanovitch, the hero of our tale, was a Stakhanovite.

(RHODA TUCK POOK)

The trees against the green twilight were like the eyebrows of Shegairhe of the Pale Word, and myself not passing the bogeen for the dread of Three beside it (though there would be no need to you to be telling that same to Father McGinn, the White Peace be upon him).

(Nan WISHART)

Three score years and ten !—acd today I have reached the allotted span, and as I hear the kiddies' voices lisping, "Many happy returns, G'anny dear ! " it comes to me that the' story of a humble, uneventful life, with its little joys and little sorrows, filled with the things of every- day, so full of human interest, may perhaps yield some pleasure—dare I hope, some help ?—to others whose journey is yet to tread.

(Mits. J. K. GEMM1LL) In order thoroughly. to understand this story I must ask the gentle reader to retrace with me step by step, back to the twelfth century, the genealogy of one John Smith, of London, who died in 1930, and who was the son of one James Smith, of Manchester, born 1886, died 1926, who in turn was the son of Robert Smith, of Wigan, born 1840, died 1900, whose father was William Smith, of Halifax, born 1799, died 1860, the son of Richard Smith, of Newcastle, born 1715, died 1800, the son of George Smith, of York. . . .