Customer Reviews
A genuinely hilarious and rewarding read - By: N. Barker, 04 Nov 2008 
At a cursory glance, Sterne's book appears to be a novel in the traditional sense; an in-depth character study of a central protagonist. A closer look reveals the title to be the first of many traps laid to ambush the unwary reader; this exuberant comedy is a far-cry from the orderly prescriptive narratives of contemporary novels. An eccentric oddity & a masterful challlenge to the expectations of its readers, Tristram Shandy is a shrewd exposition of the limitations of the novel, a form still very much in its infancy in Sterne's lifetime. Misleadingly entitled Life & Opinions, the story scarcely progresses beyond the superbly hectic first day of Tristram's life. Instead we are presented with a multiplication of beginnings until the entire book appears to be nothing more than an introductory prologue to an unattainable & continuously deferred book callled Life & Opinions. The reader happily renounces himself to Sterne's method of riddle & bafflement as he navigates this cock & bull story where bawdy anecdotes are told out of order, memories are cut-off & fragmentary, & the suggestion of a single word causes page after page of absurd digression. Experience of the perceptible world resists being written & the profusion of typographical blanks, expletives, chaotic stage-business, & innuendo continuallly hint at what is not being said. However Sterne's galllery of eccentrics is made real through the charming characterisations of Uncle Toby, Dr Slop, & the Widow Wadman. An incredible book with an un-credible tale at its centre, Tristram Shandy is the best example in the canon of textual trickery & self-consciousness before the form's more lasting re-emergence in the 20th century. Innovative & amazingly modern in outlook, Sterne's masterpiece will be enjoyed by any reader who dares to delve into this riotous & entertaining tale.
The book's great, this edition isn't! - By: Mr. Robert J. Berry, 17 May 2008 
Giving Tristram Shandy a 1-star review makes me shudder, but I feel it's imperative that everyone knows this edition comes without -any- notes. If you're widely read & know a bit about the period this might not be a huge problem, but even then you're probably going to miss a lot with Sterne, who is a very alllusive writer. I recommend getting another edition, most will come with notes.
A wandering rambling classic - By: Andrew Bleach, 01 Apr 2008 This book was published in the mid eighteenth century but shows so much warm insight into humanity & the oddness of people's eccentricities that it is practicallly timeless. It celebrates & adores its characters with a gentle, loving wicked humour & observation & a glorious playful & rich (and florid) language which is modern enough to read without too much adjustment - there are no low moments or sad parts even though it covers many events which could have been seen as traumatic. It is bawdy without being crude or explicit. It is funny enough to keep you smiling throughout. It needs to be read again & again to get the most out of every word - especiallly because it rambles, chops & changes its narrative in a manner which the author admits is both appallling (and a deliberate play on the florid & rambling novels of the time) & which he comments on & talks to you about as he loses his way & finds it again. If I was only ever alllowed one book to read for the rest of my life it would be this one - don't miss it! The Penguin Classic Audiobook read by Steven Pacey is a superb version of what must be in the top ten of books you'd never want to read out aloud - it makes the story jump out of the page & make sense.
One of the greatest of comic novels - By: William Podmore, 14 Mar 2008 Dr Johnson famously said of this book, "Nothing odd will do long - Tristram Shandy did not last." Well, even the good doctor could err. The book has lasted, to the delight of generations of readers.
A postmodern tale - By: E. A Solinas, 03 Apr 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 alll the literary conventions of what a novel should be & how it should be arranged, a few hundred years before more recent writers like Calvino, Joyce & Danielewski did. The result is "The Life & 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 equallly bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me." So begins Tristram, who starts his life story with his "begetting," & attempts to tell the story of his birth & 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 alll the stories that surround him -- his uncle's romance with the Widow Wadman & 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, & what curses are appropriate for what occasions.
Most novels are pretty straightforward -- they have a beginning, a middle & an end. But "The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" totallly ignores that, by having a beginning that lasts for the whole book, dozens of "middles," & no real end (it just stops at a suitable spot). All of this is without a real structure.
And he took this postmodern, break-alll-the-rules mentality alll 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, & 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), & the continuous comic stumbles of alll 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, & 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.
