Great opening sentences: Bay State edition

(Update 11/11/11: "Part the Third" link is fixed.)

Here are two topics we haven't mentioned much around here for a while: Charlie Pierce and great opening sentences (for example, here, here, here, here, and here--and, of course, here and here. Oh, for pity's sake--life's too short. Just go here.)

I'm happy to report that we have an item this morning combining both. Scroll down to Part the Third, in which Pierce celebrates "the best opening line of any novel ever written about Massachusetts, Moby Dick included."