Novels should not have blurbs on the back

Admire the following opening sentence: High, high above the North Pole, on the first day of 1969, two professors of English Literature approached each other at a combined velocity of 1200 miles per hour. Thus begins the novel Changing Places, by David Lodge. Isn't it a great first sentence? Don't you want to know what the second sentence says? The best openings of books act like an attack of…