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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A postmodern tale, 3 April 2007
A line from the movie "adaptation" put it best: this was a postmodern novel before there was any modernism to be post to.
Simply put, Laurence Sterne threw out all the literary conventions of what a novel should be and how it should be arranged, a few hundred years before more recent writers like Calvino, Joyce and Danielewski did. The result is "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman," a gloriously rambling, richly entertaining sort-of-novel.
"I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me." So begins Tristram, who starts his life story with his "begetting," and attempts to tell the story of his birth and life, as well as the descriptions of relatives -- his lovable uncle Toby, his eccentric dad, his patient mother (who's in labor for most of the book).
But as he tries to tell us about his life, Tristram keeps getting sidetracked by all the stories that surround him -- his uncle's romance with the Widow Wadman and the war in which he received a nasty wound in a sensitive spot, the French, the doctor who delivered him, letters in multiple languages, the parson, the personal history of the midwife, and what curses are appropriate for what occasions.
Most novels are pretty straightforward -- they have a beginning, a middle and an end. But "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" totally ignores that, by having a beginning that lasts for the whole book, dozens of "middles," and no real end (it just stops at a suitable spot). All of this is without a real structure.
And he took this postmodern, break-all-the-rules mentality all the way, by including odd little illustrations -- when speaking of the death of Parson Yorick, Sterne includes a black page. Random empty pages. Asterisks instead of important paragraphs. And a bunch of squiggly lines to demonstrate precisely how the narratives in previous chapters looked.
At first glance, Sterne's writing style was pretty typical of his period -- detailed, somewhat formal in tone, and very talky. It takes a little while for Tristram to start dipping out of of his narrative -- at one point, he starts interrupting himself in midsentence. By the middle of the book, he's completely lost control of his own story.
And he twisted it around with lots of bawdy humor (such as poor Uncle Toby's groin injury, which causes quite a few problems), and the continuous comic stumbles of all the characters. On the subject of his own name, Tristram describes his dad's reaction: "Melancholy dissyllable of sound! which to his ears was unison to Nincompoop, and every name vituperative under heaven.")
Life is too rich to be encapsulated in a single story -- that's the problem with "Tristram Shandy," whose story is a classic comic delight of premodernist-postmodern skill.
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41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great value for its sheer scholarly copiousness!, 13 Jun 2001
What Laurence Sterne has given us in 'Tristram Shandy' is a landmark piece of prose writing, and what Penguin have done is to re-package that in an edition of equal status. The text follows the established 'Florida' edition of Sterne's work, and the editor Melvin New is right to acknowledge the scholarly importance of Christopher Ricks introduction to the previous Penguin edition, hence it is reprinted here along with New's up to date and equally copious editor's introduction. Thus we have two critical essays by major scholars covering much of what has been written and said about 'Tristram Shandy' for the last 50 years or so. Add to that a glossary and over a hundred pages of notes and annotations to clarify the text's obscurities and references and you've already got more than your money's worth before you've got to the text proper. And what a text too. It isn't by any means to everyone's taste, and some may think it a complete waste of six hundred-odd pages, but herein lies its charm. Yes, it doesn't really get anywhere, and yes it does do odd things like printing squiggly lines and black pages, but it is just this breaking of convention and questioning of novel writing that gives it its power - and humour. It has long been established that what Postmodern authors have been praised for in the last 30 years or so Sterne was doing in the 1760s. And here it is displayed with such exuberance and wit. This is a very funny book, even now, over 300 years later, and it is easy to see how it caused such a stir in a society which was rapidly becoming affected and prudish, with its sexual innuendo. A must for scholars and lovers of Eighteenth Century writing, humour and curiosities. Incredible value and not to be missed.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent edition, 22 Oct 2005
The vast number of the allusions in 'Tristram Shandy' to all sorts of subjects make it very difficult for a reader to appreciate the novel on its own. Subsequently this edition is invaluable to students &c who want some idea of what Sterne is actually talking about half the time - the notes are excellent and so is Ricks' introduction.
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