On
http://may-on-the-short-story.blogsp...oetry-and.html there are claims made for the power of sound in short stories.
In "next word, better word" by Stephen Dobyns, the first sentence of Henry James' "The Middle Years" is given a few pages of attention, but not especially for its musicality.
Fish's "How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One" sparked discussions. Of "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." (Fitzgerald), someone wrote - I love how it's so tantalizingly close to iambic pentameter - 5 iambs followed by 4 and 1/2.The cadence carries the reader forward in the first phrase with four staccato syllables. The choppiness of the second phrase brings the current's restraint to life, interrupting the flow of the sentence. The final phrase glides easily, but the missing twentieth syllable leaves the reader anticipating more. One can imagine the novel's last sentence repeating endlessly, beginning again where it left off. And of course that's the point. The art of the sentence is in its structure as much as its words.