The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Name: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Author: Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne · 1759

Sterne deconstructed the novel before the novel even existed as a stable form, in 1759. The narrator cannot tell his story in order. The digressions are the point. Blank pages, black pages, marbled pages serve as metafictional provocations. Borges, Calvino, David Foster Wallace: every postmodern novelist descends from Sterne.

The case against

on the jokes
“many joke-shaped objects were discernable. But they never made me laugh.”
two stars · a Substack review
on the vocabulary
“It is difficult and dense and that’s not even accounting for the vocabulary.”
a Substack review
on keeping track
“the continual going backwards and forwards made it difficult for me to keep track.”
a book blog
on the pace
“a static, stuttering book that was determined to waste its reader’s time.”
a book blog