Tristram Shandy did not last. But the good doctor was wrong. Tristram Shandy is odd; and it did last. Furthermore, it continues to exert a great influence on successive generations of writers. In the s, magical realists such as Salman Rushdie rediscovered Sterne. The secret of Sterne's hold on his readers is that Tristram Shandy is a comic tour de force whose humour, of observation and incident, explodes on to every page from the hilarious moment, in chapter 1, when Tristram Shandy is almost not conceived in a bizarre episode of coitus interruptus.
An abrupt vitality is Sterne's great contribution to the art of the novel. Adopting Fielding's omniscient third-person narrative, he cheerfully set about subverting any authorial omniscience by humorously reflecting on how little he, the author, knew of his characters or their predicaments.
The critic Christopher Ricks captures Sterne's playfulness when he describes Tristram Shandy as "the greatest shaggy dog story in the language". So what is it about? One depicts Corporal Trim reading a sermon on conscience to the sleeping Dr Slop, Uncle Toby, and Walter Shandy, and the other shown to the left , the baptism of Tristram. Based on a vivid appreciation of contemporary life, these engravings capture the elusive humour of Sterne perfectly. Each text page is characterised by an intricate system of hyphens, dashes, asterisks, and occasional crosses; remarkable use is particularly made of the dash - varying in length, these are often treated as though they were words, while the small type area and generous spacing and margins of the original volumes emphasise their visibility.
But more unusual than a playfulness with fonts is Sterne's frequent manipulation of the page: typical is the blank page shown here where the reader is invited to interact with the book and draw his own portrait of the Widow Wadman.
Such peculiarities draw attention to the appearance of the page and highlight the novel's lack of conventional form; indeed, although written in a conversational style, the enjoyment of the book very much depends upon the reader experiencing it as a physical object.
Regarded as a complex masterpiece today, Dr Johnson famously asserted that its popularity had not lasted because 'Nothing odd will do long'. Having been dogged with ill health throughout his adulthood, Sterne died from consumption a year after the publication of the ninth volume; although it is widely believed that this was intended to be the last volume, it is not known for sure.
Bizarrely, soon after Sterne died, his body was stolen by grave robbers, taken to Cambridge and used in an anatomy lecture. His body, however, was recognized by a fan and quietly returned to its grave. By Mr. To which is prefixed, an account of the life and writings of the author with portrait and 2 plates London, Sp Coll Bo2-m. London, Sp Coll ; Letters of the late Rev. Tristram views his life through the medium of his opinions, and his opinions control the presentation of his reminiscences.
The solution to the problem of the digressions follows from the above discussion of the problems of the identity of the author and the point of the story. Writing about his own life and his opinions, the author, Tristram, frees himself from the standard "life and adventures" approach.
He is introspective about himself and his background and equally about the techniques of the book he is writing.
He is the narrator of the "story," but he is also the conscious artist who is concerned with his ideas, with the ordering and significance of those ideas, and with the impact of those ideas both upon himself as artist and upon his "public.
The digressions of Tristram Shandy are of two distinct types: the first takes the reader from the immediate part of the story to antecedent or subsequent events that supposedly clarify or amplify the story; the second takes the reader from the immediate story to the private views of the author, either on that story or on completely diverse subjects.
But all of these digressions finally have unity in the creative consciousness of Tristram. No matter how digressive he may get, his constant effort — he tells us regularly — is aimed at the harmonizing of these digressions with the "main work"; and no matter how vague the connection is between "digression" and "story," he always finally brings the two together.
In the meantime, how do you organize opinions? Unlike straight-line adventures, they resist coming to attention and forming orderly ranks. Further, how many opinions can fit into the book? As someone once said, "the fragments of the narrative have the appearance of interruptions to digressions.
We finally understand all about Tristram Shandy not only or primarily from the events of his life — his "story" — but from the book whose very structure reflects his mind and his character.
Tristram says near the end of the book, "All I wish is, that it may be a lesson to the world, ' to let people tell their stories in their own way. Tristram Shandy was written in five installments and published in these segments:. The following notes are based on this first London edition, considered the most authoritative. The quotes preserve the punctuation of this edition, an important matter because the great use Sterne makes of dashes gives us a good idea of how Tristram Shandy should sound.
These dashes are more effective for his purposes than the standard use of periods, commas, and semicolons, for as he says, "Writing, when properly managed. Previous Book Summary. Uplift Native American Stories. Add to Bookshelf. Category: Fiction Classics Literary Fiction. Oct 15, ISBN Add to Cart. Buy from Other Retailers:. Hardcover —. Also by Laurence Sterne. See all books by Laurence Sterne. Product Details. Inspired by Your Browsing History. The Europeans. The Longest Journey.
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