The Sense of a Beginning is the first comprehensive exploration of the openings of novels. With a title that deliberately echoes Frank Kermode s famous book on endings, the book addresses the formal challenge of opening lines, especially in modernism, and illustrates their significance to both literary creation and literary criticism. Niels Buch Leander s approach is wide-ranging, examining how beginnings in fiction relate to beginnings in nature, how they work from a formal and narrative point of view, how modernist self-awareness plays out in openings, and how openings have altered...