Was this book one of the most frustrating reads of my grad school career? Yes. Is it completely baffling that there‘s a film adaptation? Yes. Did I impulsively check out the movie from the library while picking up my holds? Yes. Am I going to watch it? Also yes.
pickThis is a mind-spinning, radical, funny book, one way ahead if its time. Many 20th C experimental writers cite this 18th C book as an influence. It‘s most definitely not for everyone. Sterne largely tosses plot out the window because while Tristram tries to describe his own conception & birth, he gets lost in digressions; but soon we see that making digressions on thinking is the point.This book takes work, but it‘s rewarding & fascinating.
@runswithscissors007 #ispy books with grey covers (although I havent read any of these yet!)
@runswithscissors007 or anyone - can you find books with flowers on the cover?
Had a gnarled B&N edition of Tristram Shandy that I've been looking to replace for a while now, and found this and an Olive edition while out running errands today.
panWhen you pick up a book called The Life And Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, you figure that you‘re going to read all about… well, the life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, who was probably a top bloke. But you‘d be wrong! Laurence Sterne has some fun in store for us, my friend. This is not a classic book for beginners. Full review here: http://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-life-and-opinions-of-tristram-shandy-gen...
pickIt‘s long, exhausting, funny, bawdy, and completely absurd. Did I love it? No. Is it hard to believe this book is 350 years old? Yes? Does it belong on the 1001 books list? Absolutely. It‘s an original for sure. #1001books #1000books
1. On the Come Up, Ship of Magic, and Robert Frost‘s North of Boston (and a few others for church things, on centering prayer and on the Hebrew Bible)
2. Paperback for price, hardback for feel, eBook occasionally for convenience
3. Tagged—I just couldn‘t with Tristram Shandy. Even in a grad school class with one of my favorite professors. Turns out the 18th century is really not my jam.
#weekendreads
Tristram Shandy is an absolutely zany novel that anticipated postmodernism way back in the 17th century. The narrative is hyper-self-aware, as it leaps through time and directly addresses the reader. Don't expect anything to happen.
“The world‘s only pattern, according to Sterne, lies in that web of sympathetic interconnections which links us to our fellow beings, the short-lived representations of that timeless surge of life in which we are united.”
Finished Tristram and now reading the Critical essays. Very insightful and interesting, I‘m having a better appreciation for Sterne‘s work.
Happy #socksunday :)
Lol, I love this book
Tell me about it...
“[...] nor are we angels, I wish we were, — but men cloathed with bodies, and governed by our imaginations...”
Happy Sunday!
“Is it not better to be freed from cares and agues, from love and melancholy, and the other hot and cold fits of life, than like a galled traveler, who comes weary to his inn, to be bound to begin his journey afresh?”
A marbled page, how cool! He refers to it as the 'motly emblem of my work'. I wish I owned a first edition where it is in color and each was unique :) I‘m liking this weird 18th century book.
For more information on it check out this link: https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/240278/
What the heck am I reading? 😂
“Do you understand the theory of that affair? Replied my father.
Not I, quoth my uncle.
But you have some ideas, said my father, of what you talk about.
No more than my horse, replied my uncle Toby.
Gracious heaven! Cried my father, looking upwards, and clasping his two hands together, there is a worth in thy honest ignorance, brother Toby, ‘twere almost a pity to exchange it for a knowledge.”
Ha! Enjoying this quirky book. Photo taken earlier.
“—How could you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last chapter? .... I do insist upon it, that you immediately turn back, that is, as soon as you get to the next full stop, and read the whole chapter again.”
I‘m sorry Mr. Sterne but I‘m not rereading that chapter and I was being attentive! lol
Sick day, not much to do but read.
“I have undertaken, you see, to write not only my life, but my opinions also; hoping and expecting that your knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the one, would give you a better relish for the other: As you proceed further with me, the slight acquaintance which is now beginning betwixt us, will grow into familiarity; and that, unless one of us is in fault, will terminate in friendship.”
So far Sterne has proved to be a master of digression. Been promised since the beginning to learn about the protagonist‘s birth, but then started off telling a story of a midwife which was interrupted to learn more about her benefactor whose story will go on for two more chapters, haha. Not complaining, it‘s been delightfully entertaining!
“As my life and opinions are likely to make some noise in the world, and, if I conjecture right, will take in all ranks, professions, and denominations of men whatever, —be no less read than the Pilgrim‘s Progress itself— and in the end, prove the very thing which Montaigne dreaded his Essays should turn out, that is, a book for a parlour-window...”
Look out, world. I found Tristram Shandy.
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; had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing...Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly, I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me.
I love the movie (and all of the Winterbottom/Coogan/Brydon films for that matter) so this 1935 edition I found at Edward McKay's Used Books & More is definitely on my #ClassicsTBR
#JuneBookBugs
panIf Harry Bingham brings #death to his titles, then the 18th century novel brings #life! #Junebookhugs @RealLifeReading
The truest respect which you can pay to the reader's understanding is to halve this matter amicably, and leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself.
For #DNF for #readjanuary @RealLifeReading
The worst book I ever attempted to read I was assigned back in university in a "Rise of the Novel" class. I just couldn't do it.
I still wrote a paper on it that did well, but I never read more than 1/3 of the book itself.
Maybe I will attempt it again one day...
I don't often do #ThrewItAcrossTheRoom but this book sensed my wrath more than once. I did finish it, though. It was assigned reading for my literature class :/
They even tried to make a movie and failed or lost interest half way through, but eventually made an excellent documentary about filming the adaptation.
My first #booktober post :) The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy Gentleman, which is a relatively long title - all things considered - though, to be honest, not as long as it could be - however, to be fair, I'm sure you agree, it must get some kind of bonus for having some of the longest (and most heavily punctuated) sentences around. Full disclosure: I never actually finished this one...yet #tristramshandy #oneday @RealLifeReading
pickA long and lovable cock and bull story. And I say that with a nudge and a wink. But I digress. And so does this book. Boy, does it digress.
The crowning achievement of British literary humor, and an opportunity for Steve Coogan to be suspended upside down in a massive uterus.
The best thing about spending the night at a friend's house who is a reader: no shortage of reading materials when you wake up before your hosts!
The availability of books is not the same as reading them, nor reading the same as understanding them.
Then I saw this gorgeous little Oxford World Classics pocket edition of Tristram Shandy, and I had to have it. Discovered after that it had all these little bookmarks in left by the previous reader - who only made it to page 153 according to the 'Placemark', a little bit of card that also had 'Death' written on the reverse, ominously.
"Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;--they are the life, the soul of reading..."
"...once a vile name was wrongfully or injudiciously given...but the injury of this, he would say, could never be undone,--nay, he doubled even whether an act of parliament could reach it..."
Don't give dumb names to your kids!
😀 By chapter 14, Shandy has digressed so much in relating his biography that he hasn't yet related his birth.
"Did not Dr. Kunastrokius, that great man, at his leisure hours, take the greatest delight imaginable in combing of asses' tails, and plucking the dead hairs out with his teeth, though he had tweezers always in his pocket?"
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent | 
