The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

At first he wanted to get out of bed with the lower part of his body, but this lower part—which, by the way, he had not yet looked at and which he also could not picture clearly—proved itself too difficult to move. The attempt went so slowly. When, having become almost frantic, he finally hurled himself forward with all his force and without thinking, he chose his direction incorrectly, and he hit the lower bedpost hard. The violent pain he felt revealed to him that the lower part of his body was at the moment probably the most sensitive.

The story of Gregor Samsa is one of the most widely known in the world of literature. From the first sentence, we know we are in a world defined very differently than our own, yet the   settings confirms that this is indeed the world we live in. Gregor has awakened transformed into "an enormous vermin." His exoskeleton and many, waving, "pitifully thin" legs give a hint regarding what kind of vermin he is, a beetle, bug or other shelled critter.

While we expect a tone of horror to accompany one's own discovery of this transformation, what we get instead is a strong sense of humor. Gregor is trying to get out of bed, and in the process strikes the "lower part of his body" on the bedpost.  While great literature is often serious in tone, this cannot be read without a wry smile. It recalls many episodes of America's Funniest Home Videos, the fathers being struck in the "lower part of the body" by a plastic ball bat, a kicked ball, an errant dog's nose. 

In this case, the humor is not Gregor's sense of humor, at least not in the sense that he sees the humor in the situation of himself being transformed into an enormous vermin. Rather, the source of the humor is in Gregor's denial of the reality of his transformation. He remains determined to get out of bed, pack his things, and head off to work. To introduce this pattern of denial, and especially the humor of these denials, Kafka uses that greatest of all physical humor jokes: a shot at a man's "lower part of his body."  

Ouch.

Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. New York: Bantam Classics, 1916.

"A Foreign Body" from We're Flying by Peter Stamm

If he'd been very concentrated and managed to focus his attention on the group, then surely it would be possible to get by without slides, and finally even without words, and just be in the dark and allow time to elapse for an hour or two.

Stamm's collection of short stories includes "A Foreign Body," a story about cave explorer Christoph and, in a way, about how his changed relationship to the caves he loves and explores reflects his relationships with other people.

What makes the sentence above so effective is its placement before we learn of the presentation he is about to give. Once we learn that the slides are pictures taken within the least accessible caves, the caves where even the paying public extreme athletes aren't allowed to go, we can imagine that he means that he could express the nature of the caves, the sense of darkness, stillness, and quiet, just by sitting with his audience in the dark.

However, that is what the sentence means only after we read about the stalactites, the cave floor, and the still air. Its placement before that description allows another reading. Christoph is also expressing both his own isolation in society as well as his desire for shared experience. There is an implied pessimism about this experience, however, as it is one that would be defined by darkness, silence, and the sense of isolation even within a group.

By the end of the short story, Christoph's changed relationship to the caves that are his passion is revealed. Returning to this sentence upon completing the story reinforces this reading that focuses on human relationships rather than on the presentation of the cave itself. 

Stamm, Peter. "A Foreign Body." We're Flying. Trans., Michael Hoffman. New York: Other Pr, 2008.

The Passage by Justin Cronin

When all time ended, and the world had lost its memory, and the man that he was had receded from view like a ship sailing away, rounding the blade of the earth, with his old life locked in its hold; and when the gyring stars gazed down upon nothing, and the moon in its arc no longer remembered his name, and all that remained was the great sea of hunger on which he floated forever—still, inside him, in the deepest place, was this: one year. 

Yes. This is one sentence. One sentence to begin Chapter 15 of Cronin's post-apocalyptic novel. When I teach poetry, I tell my students that everything matters: every word, every capital letter, every mark of punctuation, every choice to use a dash instead of a comma, every choice to make a line long or short, every rhyme, every rhythm. All of these choices invest the poem with meaning. So it is with Cronin's introduction to Chapter 15. 

Our man of the moment, black-ops FBI agent Wolgast, has been confronted with a world-altering event, the specifics of you will learn when you read the first fourteen chapters. That event is not under consideration here, however, except as how it affects the narrative. The pace of the events leading up the moment is reflected in the pace of this one sentence. 

Wolgast experiences an existential confusion, a shattering of his Weltanschauung, a sense that his memories of the old world would now be of little help in the new one, a sense of abandonment, even by the moon and stars. The structure of the long sentence, which meanders, but not aimlessly, reinforces his frantic new search—"the great sea of hunger"—for his place in the world.

There is one more sentence in this opening paragraph to the chapter. The "one year" that will define his place, even as he hungers for something different: 

"The mountain and the turning of the seasons, and Amy. Amy and the Year of Zero."

Cronin, Justin. The Passage. New York: Ballantine, 2011.