The first words here are familiar enough. What could be more traditional than beginning ‘once upon a time’? But what follows was (in 1916) new and strange: the words seem to be said and heard directly from life itself, without planning or purpose, they let silly baby- talk cheapen the language of literature; they make a joke of storytelling customs, and they plunge us directly into an unfamiliar world, without the kind of preparation (scene- setting, introductory explanations) that might normally ease us in. Gone is any welcoming narrator, any clear or ‘objective’ descriptions – any proper beginning. (2004: 2)