McEwan intentionally places certain phrases throughout the opening that capture a reader and therefore provoking a sense of curiosity in the reader that makes them continue reading. The first example is, "The beginning is simple to mark," which is short and basic, but this allows the reader to wonder what is about to happen.
The ideas here are clear and the reader is immediately caught because they are curious to see how these ideas are going to develop.A second example is, "...
we heard a man's shout... and saw the danger. Next thing, I was running towards it," and ".
.. - the event I am about to describe, the fall-... " These segments of the opening leaves out who this man actually is, what the "danger" actually is and therefore, what he's running to; readers keep on reading until they get to the point where they find out what the huge event is, which doesn't come until the last few lines of his opening.
Lastly, "... he last time I (Joe) understood anything clearly at all," and "Knowing what I know now," shows that the even that the narrator is about to share has to be quite large and by the way that he says these things, the reader can see that it has had a significant impact on Joe; suspense is also created here because we want to know why and how everything has changed since this "fall.
" More obviously, the major reason that this opening is effective because of the amount of suspense contained in it. The author is really detailed in setting the scene, such as, "We were in the sunlight under a turkey oak, partly protected from a strong, gusty wind.The amount of detail makes it easy for the reader to visualize the environment or setting in which the action is taking place. Also, the narrator remembers that he was being passed a "1987 Daumas Gassac" specifically, which says that this day was important even before the fall; once again the reader wants to know why. Then McEwan's use of details and saying that "this was the pinprick on the time map," builds up tension and it shows that something huge is about to happen and McEwan is holding the details back and not telling us what is about to come.The author's action of letting the reader know the details slowly, rather than all at once, is another technique to create suspense.
Some examples of the gradual dispensation of details are that McEwan lets us know about the boy, the fall, and the balloon, but still he doesn't let us know fully what is happening or how these tie together; he keeps the details of the story hidden, and then at the end we learn that it's quite a devastating event.Then, McEwan also introduces the characters very basically, with almost no detail, which is effective because the reader wants to learn who these people are and how and why they all are together at this balloon accident. The technique or style of writing that McEwan uses in this opening obviously has an effect on how a reader reacts to the book because it is how he gets the story and points across to a reader, but the way he does it is important to.As before, the details are an example of this, but also the dramatic words such as "enormity," "colossus," "knowable, limited," and "barrier of time," build up curiosity and interest that allows the reader to make some assumptions. Some conclusions that could be made from these words alone are that this event is one that Joe had to react to, but didn't have much choice in how to deal with it because time was short and there was a limit to how much he could do to help the boy and man, and that the event huge one in itself but also has a large affect on the future and what is to come after the event has occurred and gone.
