François Jullien, Jody Gladding (translator) · 2012 (Entrer dans une pensée); Eng. 2015 · EPUB · Calibre ID 6355
Resurfaced in Only the Incipit (2026-09-30).
Role in the triad
The first sentence as fate: Genesis (creation), Hesiod (generation), Yijing (process); a beginning that ‘opens no account’.
Why this book
Gives the triad its stakes (‘We never exit a first sentence’), contests Calvino’s equation of incipit with story through the Yijing opening, and supplies the two Western openings Kuppner parodies. Note: EPUB drops the Chinese characters; romanizations only. Same translation also held as PDF, ID 11062.
Quotations
Verified against the book’s own text on the day of the reading.
- “We never exit a first sentence.” (ch. 4)
- “At the same time as it arises, it folds the thinkable; that inaugural act, because of its scope, already amounts to completion.” (ch. 4)
- “Such an opening sentence, as we can see, does not construct; it is content with simultaneously unbinding and binding.” (ch. 5)
- “that the infinitesimal can become infinite.” (ch. 7)
- “it is uttered without author and without witness.” (ch. 8)
- “No negative means no ‘story.’ This first Chinese sentence, as we can see, opens no account” (ch. 8)
- “Isn’t it when the book is finished that you write the introduction?” (Preface)
- Excerpt: ch. 4, ‘The First Sentence’ (curtain raiser passage)
- Other: glossary of opening words (yuan, heng, li, zhen, bara’, archometha, genato)
Themes
beginnings · China/Europe · creation vs generation vs process · entering a way of thought · first sentence · Genesis · Theogony · Yijing