The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy by Laurence SterneMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
In my quest to "use what I have," a subset of "minimalism," I'm digging back into books that I have read before, but not yet reviewed. I believe I picked up this (now very beat up) copy of Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy as an undergraduate at BYU. I don't exactly remember why I chose this book. I think I just spotted it on a bookshelf in a used bookstore near campus, read the back copy, and decided to give it a try. I was a humanities major as an undergrad, so it behooved me to read "classics," and this was one classic that I had never heard of until that point. I was young and dumb then and didn't have the toolkit to really analyze literature quite yet. I was building that toolkit.
Turns out, for this novel, I didn't need a toolkit.
Because Tristram Shandy defies analysis.
Plot? You've got to be kidding. The main character isn't born until page 170.
Setting? The vast majority of the story takes place on the grounds and house of the Shandy estate, though several pithy journeys wind their way into the narrative. There is a section on France (largely dismissive and with much of the "action" taking place at night, unseen by Tristram himself).
Speaking of which: Action: If you're looking for acts of heroism, you'll hear some referred to, mostly by Corporal Trim, the (extremely lovable and innocent) servant of Tristram's Uncle Toby. These are viewed with a simplistic eye and lack any of the bombast of most modern thrillers. Teh highest levels of excitement are reserved for 1) references to battles in which characters (most notably, Uncle Toby) have been wounded, 2) arguments between servants and, sometimes, their masters, 3) arguments about the birth of the boy and his naming, and 4) philosophical arguments.
Philosophy? The novel is lousy with it, but philosophers are often misquoted (whether intentionally or not is difficult to tell), misidentified, and their words maladjusted to whatever argument is being presented at the time (which is coming from Tristram's father most of the time).
Culture? Here we are hitting something important and, ostensibly analyzable. But who has time to learn all the mannerisms of mid-18th century England? Thankfully, the novel is also lousy with endnotes (and I don't mean "bad" when I say "lousy," I mean "infested, as with lice"). It's a whimsical window to the England of the 1700s. America didn't even know what it was missing.
Structure? Ah, mmm, about that . . . the only structure here is digression. It reminds me of the time as a grad student I had to learn to read French, after having studied German for four years and Swahili for two. French . . . has no structure. Everything is an exception. This drove me absolutely batty. In fact, "French for Reading Knowledge" is the only class I ever failed in college. It doesn't help that the teacher had us construct sentences from scratch for the final, something we were never taught and never instructed to study. We were taught to read, which I could do pretty well. But then the final came and we were supposed to construct a bunch of sentences from nothing in French. I'm still pissed about that one. Anyway, after studying the firm rules of German and Swahili grammar, with a couple of idioms sprinkled here and there (and easily recognizable, for the most part, from context), I was thrust into the spaghetti code of French "grammar", where, I will repeat, everything is an exception, with very few rules that I could fathom.
But as much as I hate(d) French, I love the digressions of Tristram Shandy. And this lack of structure, this worship of the digression, is by design. To quote Sterne:
Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine; - they are the life, the soul of reading; - - - take them out of this book for instance, - - you might as well take the book along with them; - one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer; - - - - - he steps forth like a bridegroom, - bids All hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail.
The heart and soul of the book, then, is The Digression. Not just those used by the author in creating the "story," but also by each individual character in telling tales of yore, quoting philosophers (poorly), and even in the manner in which they read certain treatises and tell certain tales, themselves full of digressions.
And what of the characters? Here is where Sterne hits his highest notes, particularly in the characters of Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim, two grizzled veterans, stout of heart and dedicated wholeheartedly to their "hobby horse" of large-scale reproductions of military campaigns in which they participated. I really fell in love with these two warm-hearted characters and their banter, which, of course, spilled into, yes, even more digressions.
Speaking of the "hobby horse," here Sterne, though a pastor, is far from innocent in his insinuations. This novel is bawdy. Thoroughly so. To the point that I am shocked that Sterne didn't lose his clerical office. As any shrewd Englishman would, however, he hid the bawdiness in euphemism, some of the most clever euphemisms I have ever heard (and I was raised around soldiers who would make you question the physical ability of one to stick one's body parts into the suggested receptacle - the physics are staggering).
So, I say pishposh to all the deep post-modern analysis of the academy. This is a novel that is meant to be read and enjoyed, not dissected and analyzed. It's a morass of facades, innuendo, and false leads, baroque in its segues and sidestreets, and all the more beautiful for its chaotic complexity.
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