What makes a novel worth reading?, Part II

I made a post two months ago called What makes a novel worth reading? about two lines from John Lawton's A Little White Death.

Here's another such bit, this time from Jo Nesbø's The Snowman. Harry Hole and his colleagues are discussing a character who has been seen near the notorious Hotel Leon:

"They have small rooms which are officially hired out by the day, but in practice on an hourly basis. Black money. Customers don't exactly ask for a receipt. But the hotel owner, who earns the most, is white."

... Skarre grinned at Hagen. "Strange that Bergen Sexual Offences Unit should suddenly be so well up on Oslo brothels."

"They're the same everywhere," Katrine said. "Want a bet on anything I said?"

"The owner's a Paki," Skarre said. "Two hundred kronerooneys."

"Done."

"OK," Harry said, clapping his hands. "What are we sitting here for?"


The owner of the Leon Hotel was Børtje Hansen, from Solør, in the east, with skin as greyish white as the slush the so-called guests brought in on their shoes ...

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

What makes a novel worth reading?

I don't mean all that stuff about a compelling story and vivid characters and giving your protagonist an obstacle to overcome. I mean the bits of verbal champagne that make you want to tell your friends or put up a blog post.

The prologue of John Lawton's A Little White Death, third of his Frederick Troy novels, offers at least two. The first is in the book's very first paragraph:

"She knew revolutionaries. Short men, serious men, men who marked their seriousness physically by being bald or mustachioed or both."

The second follows some amusing byplay between two characters, one of whom is a physician come to the United States to treat John F. Kennedy for Addison's disease who hooks up with his fellow Brit just before leaving the U.S. Here are the lines with which the physician ends the prologue:

"`Fine. I understand. Now why don't you hop in a cab. We can have one last drinkie before I dash to Idlewild.'"

(Read about John Lawton's Second Violin here.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2010