Re: RARA-AVIS: Top Five List

From: George Upper ( gcupper3@yahoo.com)
Date: 04 May 2002


--- Bob Toomey < btoomey@javanet.com> wrote:
> The problem with playing this game is that really
> good last lines don't make
> much sense if you haven't read the story that went
> before them.

I agree, but I think of that as part of the game. I know that this may be shocking on a list where everyone always agrees about definitions, but I think I may have some different criteria in mind when I said
"Top Five," one of which is that the line / passage is interesting all by itself--whether it resonates the same as it would if you had read the book is a different question. Having said that, though, I'll note that I rejected the last lines of Burke's HEAVEN'S PRISONERS and Cain's DOUBLE INDEMNITY for this reason.)

> The best last
> line I've ever read comes at the end of *Rogue
> Moon* by Algis Budrys:
> "Remember me to her."

I haven't read the book, but that sounds like a good one to me. Full of ironic potential, at any rate.

> I like to think my cats would do the same for me.

I would too, but in my heart of hearts I know that after chasing the rats away they'd start fighting over who gets the good parts.

G.

===== George C. Upper III, Editor The Lightning Bell Poetry Journal http://www.lightningbell.org/

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