well, i'll tell you.

the jane chord is a literary theory with dubious origins that says the first and last words of a novel can be put together to form a phrase or sentence fragment that emphasizes the true meaning of the work.

nobody, to my knowledge, has come to a complete agreement on where the theory came from. the first story i heard, and therefore the one i tell people when they ask, has to do with an english professor at a renowned northeastern college (i'm not going to say which one, but it's harvard) who taught an entire class on "the great gatsby," and one of his students wrote of this idea in a term paper. of course, the student didn't call it the jane chord, but for some reason the professor did, and furthermore took credit for it.

typical.

but anyway, the jane chord for "the great gatsby" is "in past," or "in the past," if you cheat a little bit, and since the entire novel is essentially about the gaity and tragedy of youth, it seemed mysteriously apt that fitzgerald would begin and end the novel with these words. an examination of other novels was undertaken. you can do this yourself each time you finish a book, though it doesn't always work.

some examples:

a clockwork orange (anthony burgess): "what's right?"

the stars, my destination (alfred bester): "this awakening."

v (thomas pynchon) "Christmas day."

when bret easton ellis wrote "glamorama," he knew that he wanted the first word to be "specks" and the last to be "mountains." however, according to the theory, this intentional jane chord is insincere and calculated, as the jane chord is supposed to be a manifestion of the writer's subconscious vis-a-vis his or her own work.

so there.

and, of course, many times it doesn't work at all. some examples:

the catcher in the rye (j.d. salinger): "if everybody."

1984 (george orwell): "it Brother."

ulysses (james joyce): "Buck Yes." (of course, it should be noted here that most of what joyce wrote didn't immediately make sense.)

it is an interesting idea, if completely hit or miss, neither thorough nor consistent.

just like me.