Which isn’t to say that, in the writing process, what at first is the opening sentence can’t be done away with, and be replaced by something else, but only that, if the work is to reveal itself, and find its rhythm, and manifest so fluidly that the writer feels not entirely in control of where it is going, which needs to happen if the work is to achieve an unpredictability, though not an implausibility, then whatever is essential at its outset must be imparted, like a ghost, or a reverberation of form, to everything that follows.