How effective is the opening of ''Enduring Love'' as an introduction to the novel?

How effective are the first six paragraphs of Ian McEwan's Enduring Love as the opening of a novel?
In his novel Enduring Love, Ian McEwan introduces the reader to an opening chapter intended to be both evocative and somewhat surreal. The first paragraph opens in a way intended to tantalise the reader with minute details: 'Clarissa was passing me the bottle - a 1987 Daumas Gassac', but which also serves to create a sense of foreboding and an awareness of more significant events to come: 'The beginning is simple to mark'. This preparation for something momentous and of great significance to the man from whose perspective the extract is written is further supplemented by the tentative repetition of 'This was the moment, this was the pinprick on the time map'. The paragraph continues in such a way as to inform the reader of the omniscience of the narrator, and also serves to be demonstrative of the regret felt that he acted as he did: 'What idiocy, to be racing into this story and its labyrinths, sprinting away from our happiness...'. Further consideration of this point indicates that the narrator considers himself to have gone through significant, permanent changes as a result of the events which he so eagerly ran towards, as shown by his observation that 'the transformation was absolute'. The writer also hints at the reason why the protagonist is so eager to assist in what appears to be a serious problem: 'a child's cry, enfeebled by the wind that roared in the tall trees along the hedgerows'. The connotations of innocence and helplessness created by the 'child's cry' are further accentuated by the futility of the child's cry being 'enfeebled' by the forces of nature which, the reader learns, are responsible for the predicament.
In his novel Enduring Love, Ian McEwan introduces the reader to an opening chapter intended to be both evocative and somewhat surreal. The first paragraph opens in a way intended to tantalise the reader with minute details: 'Clarissa was passing me the bottle - a 1987 Daumas Gassac', but which also serves to create a sense of foreboding and an awareness of more significant events to come: 'The beginning is simple to mark'. This preparation for something momentous and of great significance to the man from whose perspective the extract is written is further supplemented by the tentative repetition of 'This was the moment, this was the pinprick on the time map'. The paragraph continues in such a way as to inform the reader of the omniscience of the narrator, and also serves to be demonstrative of the regret felt that he acted as he did: 'What idiocy, to be racing into this story and its labyrinths, sprinting away from our happiness...'. Further consideration of this point indicates that the narrator considers himself to have gone through significant, permanent changes as a result of the events which he so eagerly ran towards, as shown by his observation that 'the transformation was absolute'. The writer also hints at the reason why the protagonist is so eager to assist in what appears to be a serious problem: 'a child's cry, enfeebled by the wind that roared in the tall trees along the hedgerows'. The connotations of innocence and helplessness created by the 'child's cry' are further accentuated by the futility of the child's cry being 'enfeebled' by the forces of nature which, the reader learns, are responsible for the predicament.
