Did someone read: "Tristram Shandy"?

[LindaBode]

Hey together!
Did someone of you read "Tristram Shandy" by Laurence Sterne and can tell me if it is good?

[Dinkleberry2010]

I read it about thirty years ago, and what I remember most about it is the unique style of the writing and the humour of the characters and situations. Tristram Shandy is unique--there's nothing else like it--it stands alone. I'm not saying it's the greatest novel--it's far from that--but it is the most unique novel I've read. Although it was written in the eighteenth century, it has a modern feel and tone. And it's also a very humourous book.

[escapologist]

I just read excerpts for an exam, but I remember it was very easy to read (which I wasn't expecting, having read some prose from the age) and quite funny and light-hearted.

[Barbarous]

It is one of my favorite pieces of literature! I very proud of my mother tongue producing such an important book, not due to its play in the formation of the novel, but due to its ontological musings, learned wit, and its influence upon much of Western literature.

[stlukesguild]

The book is true classic. It is one of my absolute favorites... but I don't think it is quite as easy to read as has been suggested... at least not without some experience with the prose of the period. It also should be noted that Sterne essentially deconstructs all of the accepted elements of the novel. It is a masterwork of meta-fiction... the fictive works that are about fiction and confront the elements and fundamental structures, traits, and mannerisms of fiction. In this sense, many have drawn comparisons with James Joyce... and Joyce is certainly in Sterne's tradition... but Sterne is no where near as difficult. The work is truly humorous... but also touching. The relationship developed between Shandy's father and Uncle Toby is (along with Huck Finn and Jim and Don Quixote and Sancho Panza) among the finest examples of the representation of male friendship.

[dfloyd]

Everyone seems to like this book. It is one of my favorites of the 18th century along with Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, Peregrine Pickle et al. As an autobiography, it starts the earliest of any I know of since the begining is at Tristram's conception when his father forgot to wind the clock. With this rollicking begining, it proceeds onward with full force from the homunculas stage to his birth and onward. I have a very nice copy illustrated by T.M. Cleland whose specialty was the illustration of books written in the 18th century. I understand that Mr. Cleland was a descendent of John Cleland who wrote Fanny Hill.

You'll have to read the book for a further explanation of Tristram's conception and progress in the womb.

[Etienne]

Yes, yes, I can confirm it's great, and it's very, very funny. The part where he talks about how he gets into conversations with an *** had me rolling on the floor.

"Now, 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot bear to strike -- there is a patient endurance of sufferings, wrote so unaffectedly in his looks and carriage, which pleads so mightily for him, that it always disarms me ; and to that degree, that I do not like to speak unkindly to him : on the contrary, meet him where I will -- whether in town or country -- in cart or under panniers -- whether in liberty or bondage -- I have ever something civil to say to him on my part ; and as one word begets another (if he has as little to do as I) -- I generally fall into conversation with him ; and surely never is
my imagination so busy as in framing his responses from the etchings of his
countenance -- and where those carry me not deep enough -- in flying from my
own heart into his, and seeing what is natural for an *** to think -- as well as a
man, upon the occasion."

Surely, if you like Sterne, you must like Rabelais and Diderot.

[stlukesguild]

Rabelais, indeed... but I haven't gotten around to reading any of Diderot outside of his art criticism. (Pulls Jacques he Fatalist down from the shelves.)

[Night_Lamp]

'Bawdy humour', funny but not as entertaining as Tom Jones.

[AuntShecky]

It has been said that Tristram Shandy is a post-modern work before there was even such a thing as "modern."

I was thinking about it, as well as early British novels of the 18th century, and wondered the first book-length works of prose fiction in England (Tristram Shandy, Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, Pamela, etc.)were entertaining, light-hearted, and funny. There were dark elements in Jane Austen's work, but her novels could be
considered the bridge to the Victorian age.

In the 19th century, the era of the so-called "Romantic" poets all that humor vanished in the wake of dark, brooding, melancholic authors such as the Bronte sisters and Hardy. Except for Dickens, who, like Shakespeare,
had the comprehensive ability to hold the mirror up to the entire image of human nature, it's difficult to find a 19th century British novel that's as comic as those of Sterne or Fielding. What do you think caused this huge seismic shift of emotions, this dark cloud across the English psyche? It can't be merely the result of the Industrial Revolution.

[Dinkleberry2010]

I have no idea what caused "this huge seismic shift of emotions," but it is undeniable that it happened. With the exception of Dickens, the British novel seems devoid of humour from Sterne's Tristram Shandy to Waugh's The Loved One--a period of about 175 years.

[dfloyd]

Trollope's The Warden and Barchester Towers were quite humorous. And Waugh wrote comedic novels early on, such as Scoop and Back Mischief, so you don't have to go to the end of his career to find a novel for the funny bone. The cause of realism shown in the 19th century, of course, is the industrial revolution which suffered from such ills as child labor. Dickens showed some ironic humor even in his most depressing novels; however, his Pickwick Papers is sprinkled with humor throughout.