Murphy

This novel from Nobel laureate (1969) Samuel Beckett was his last in English before he switched to writing exclusively in French and letting, for the most part, others translate his new works back into his native tongue. This extended to his theatrical works. His most famous, Waiting for Godot, was written first in French, and Beckett said that he enjoyed writing in the L2 (this being linguist for second language) because it freed him from stylistic considerations. Murphy is also the last of Beckett's novels to have a discernable plot before his oblique experimental style took over, something that also occurred in his playwriting. Murphy's opening paragraph:

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. Murphy sat out of it, as though he were free, in a mew in West Brompton. Here for what might have been six months he had eaten, drunk, slept, and put his clothes on and off, in a medium-sized cage of north-western aspect commanding an unbroken view of medium-sized cages of south-eastern aspect. Soon he would have to make other arrangements, for the mew had been condemned. Soon he would have to buckle to and start eating, drinking, sleeping, and putting his clothes on and off, in quite alien surroundings.

And this from Chapter 4, where a civic guard (C.G.) breaks up what he thinks is a fight between a teacher, Neary, and his old pupil, Wylie:

They drew up behind the statue. A crowd gathered behind them. The C.G. leaned forward and scrutinised the pillar and draperies.
"Not a feather out of her," said Wylie. "No blood, no brains, nothing."
The C.G. straightened up and let go Wylie's arm.
"Move on," he said to the crowd, "before yer moved on."
The crowd obeyed, with the single diastolesystole which is all the law requires. Feeling amply repaid by this superb symbol for the trouble and risk he had taken in issuing an order, the C.G. inflected his attention to Wylie and said more kindly:
"Take my advice, mister----" He stopped. To devise words of advice was going to tax his ability to the utmost. When would he learn not to plunge into the labyrinths of an opinion when he had not the slightest idea of how he was to emerge? And before a hostile audience! His embarrassment was if possible increased by the expression of strained attention on Wylie's face, clamped there by the promise of advice.
"Yes, sergeant," said Wylie, and held his breath.
"Run him back to Stillorgan," said the C.G. Done it!