How do we recognize that one sentence is like another?
I saw this sentence on Twitter, in a thread of favorite first sentences. I immediately thought, "That's inspired by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." I had only the sentence to go by.
In Catherynne M. Valente's acknowledgments for the book Space Opera, she clearly states that Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy inspired that book. What is it about her first sentence that told me that? Here it is: "Once upon a time on a small, watery, excitable planet called Earth, in a small, watery, excitable country called Italy, a soft-spoken, rather nice-looking gentleman by the name of Enrico Fermi was born into a family so overprotective that he felt compelled to invent the atomic bomb."
The first sentence of Hitchhiker's is: "Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun." (See my previous blog post for more details on how that sentence works.)
Both sentences have multiple adjective-laden phrases. Both choose slightly unexpected details. For example, Adams uses "unregarded" and "unfashionable" for objects in outer space, while Valente calls both "Earth" and "Italy" "small, watery, and excitable." Those bring the absurd flavor of Adam's sentence into Valente's. Although Valente's first phrase, "Once upon a time," places the sentence in time, her next two, like Adams' second and third phrases, place the action in space. They both take a wide perspective. In Valente's case, it is speaking of our entire planet as "small."
And both sentences end on a surprise. In fact, "bomb" is a more direct surprise than "sun." Valente's sentence may in fact push farther than Adams' sentence does. Her sentence is longer, with more phrases and more adjectives per phrase. His stops when it has well-defined a place. Hers adds a person, his upbringing, and his invention.
The two sentences have a similar humor, with absurdity and twists in perspective, a similar galactic perspective, and both use the comedic technique of ending on a surprise.
What a surprise Valente's sentence holds! We expect someone with an overprotective childhood to grow up anxious and afraid to try new things. Instead, she tells us that Enrico Fermi went to the other extreme: inventing a bomb that destroyed cities, lives, and our understanding of the world. It's an explosive ending.
The first sentence of Space Opera, by recalling and exceeding Hitchhiker's, promises that if we liked Adams' book, but think it could have been more intense, we'll like this one.
I'm happy to report that Space Opera delivers on that promise. If you read Hitchhiker's and Space Opera, you'll find even more ways that they share a flavor and ways that Valente takes her story in her own direction. It pleases me that first sentences can imply these correspondences, the way a seed contains the information for an entire plant.
I'm also happy to report, that with the longer sentences and more vibrant descriptions, Space Opera is well-served by Valente's deployment of that great new invention, the comma.