Rating: 
Summary: Ranks with the best...
Review: ... works of fiction in the English language. I got to it through "The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas" by the great Brazilian author Machado de Assis, who modeled the novel after TS. He he can be listed along with the other A-list writers like Beckett and Joyce, who were influenced by Lawrence Stern. T.S. is not an easy read because it's nonlinear and the language style isn't what we're used to. But given that, the use of language is brilliant, the characters are endearing, the philosophy subtle and profound and worked into the fabric of the structure. It's also laugh out loud funny. To the guy who gave the chapter by chapter critique: even assuming you are correct, remember that art doesn't have to be perfect to be great. And to the other, one star guy: stick to Clive Cussler. You'll be happier.
Rating:
Summary: A Book of Infinite Jest
Review: A while ago the Washington Post classical music critic Tim Page compiled a list of history's most unique works of art. In this list, which did included Beethoven's "Great Fugue" -indeed history's most unique work of art-, Page mentioned Tristram Shandy. Having the book on the shelf for a decade as part of an inheritance comprising the extensive Great Book's series compiled by the University of Chicago in the early sixties, I decided to spend some time with Tristram.
This book has often been called the great-granddaddy of the post-modern literature, an epitaph that I consider correct. While it would make historic sense to start a survey of this branch of literature with Sterne's tome, readers new to the genre may consider starting with a twentieth century classic before stepping back a few centuries. After some introductory simpler texts and eventual graduation to the two highest peaks of contemporary literature "Gravity's Rainbow" and "Infinite Jest", you should consider yourself ready for Sterne's nine volumes.
It is impossible to describe The Life and Opinions, so let's start with an old joke.
A man comes to a border crossing with a wheelbarrow containing sand. The customs official asks the man "what's in the wheelbarrow?" "Sand", the man answers. Not satisfied with the answer the official has the man empty his wheelbarrow, to find nothing but sand. For a week this scene repeats itself daily. Finally, the frustrated customs officer proposes a deal "From now on I will let you pass the border without questions, as long as you tell me what you are smuggling". With a smile and without hesitation the man answers"wheelbarrows". Reading the previous critiques it is obvious that my predecessors either liked wheelbarrows, or hated sand.
Rooted in Cervantes Don Q., spiced with copious amounts of Erasmus' "Praise of Folly" Sterne has left mankind a remarkable yet uneven work. To me the four first volumes are as good as it gets. Volume five is so, so. The following travel log is ok. The final volumes do pick up some speed again, but never reach the level of the first four. In the first volumes Sterne maintains a four man comedy sketch with Father, Uncle, Doctor and Clergy man continuously performing at Seinfeldian levels. The subject matter is, depending on the reader's point of view, either everything or nothing. A central theme is the equal inability of the rationalist Father and the gentle simpleton Uncle to make any sense of life. Initially, it feels like Sterne exposes the reader to an equivalent of literary anarchy, never ever holding or completing a narrative and endlessly taking side streets, but this anarchy is in many respects just a sham. By playing and shattering the reader's expectations he or she very much becomes part of the action and gets spoon fed with Sterne's Philosophy that little in life makes sense, so you might as well laugh at it.
After four superior volumes, volume five came as a letdown to me. One of the reasons that this and the following ones never reach the level of the first four lies in a reduction of the cast. Only at the very end when the amorous Uncle Toby and his cupidous campaigns become the main subject, does the cast exceed two. The inclusion of the travel log is in itself a novel and interesting self referential ploy, but it never really gels. Similarly, the detailed description of Uncle Toby's sieges has many comical hobby horsical moments, but falls short of the level set in the first volumes.
Yet apart from this sand, the wheelbarrow vision that caries it is what makes book truly unique. Apart from Beethoven's ultimate expression of inductive art I know of very few works that have Tristram Shandy's sense of uniqueness and timeliness. While people may be upset by not only getting lost in a maze, but time after time receiving deceptive instructions from the author, a more objective look reveals an artistic vision that was centuries ahead of his time. While it can be argued that this book is an example of the emancipation of the artist at the onset of the age on enlightment, it takes a special talent to dig up so many new venues in novel writing after Cervantes successful attempt at the first and greatest novel of all time.
I greatly enjoyed this book and was well rewarded for the time invested. It succeeded in the author's intention of making me laugh. Yet in its celebration of artistic freedom it should provide many more generations with food for thought.
Rating:
Summary: Radical even in the 21st century
Review: Composed long before there were rules about what a novel is supposed to look like, "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy" is a visionary piece of literature, a book so original in construction it almost defies genre. Conceived by an Anglican vicar who, under the comic influence of Rabelais and Swift and equally informed by Cervantes and Shakespeare, turned to writing fiction later in his life, it is an inadvertent masterpiece, the product of a writer who just wanted to have fun and entertain his readers and ultimately entertained generations. The book is not a fictitious autobiography, although its narrator Tristram Shandy might have intended it to be; most of the story is concerned not with his life but with his idiosyncratic family and the circumstances surrounding his conception and birth, with many digressions on various related and unrelated subjects. His father Walter, whose conjugal duties coincide with his having to wind the clock the first Sunday of every month, compiles a compendium of information he calls the Tristrapoedia for the education of his newborn son. His uncle Toby, an expert in military architecture, rides a hobby-horse and occupies his time with the science of besieging fortresses. Other characters include Corporal Trim, a former soldier and now Toby's valet and factotum; Dr. Slop, a dwarfish physician who delivers the baby Tristram; and Yorick the parson, who naturally is descended from the infamous jester of the Danish royal court. There are two aspects to this book that distinguish Sterne's style. The first is that he provides several different channels of narration and never really settles on a main plot thread; he interrupts the flow of one narrative with another, delivering narrative flights of fancy like a marriage contract, a sermon, a notice of excommunication from the Catholic Church, a travelogue for France and Italy, and amusing anecdotes about extracurricular characters. In this way he presages the modernism of many twentieth century authors. The second is that he does not restrict his text to English words; he intersperses Greek, Latin, and French passages where he likes, and on occasion he does not even use words at all, but symbols and glyphs to express certain concepts. A cross appears in the print when a character crosses himself; a character's death is memorialized by a black page; a blank page is provided for the reader to draw (mentally or physically) his own vision of the voluptuous Widow Wadman, who has a romantic eye for Toby; long rows of asterisks and dashes are used for things that are better left unsaid. At one point Sterne even draws squiggly lines to illustrate the sinuosity of his narrative, celebrating his own whimsy. "Tristram Shandy" was published in nine volumes over the last nine years of Sterne's life, and whether these were all he had intended is debatable because the narrative is implied to have neither a beginning nor an end; it seems very much like a work in progress. As such, by modern literary standards it may not be considered a novel, but in the sense of its unconventionality, its supply of so many bemusing surprises for the reader to discover, it is as literal an example of the term "novel" as there is.
Rating:
Summary: Radical even in the 21st century
Review: Composed long before there were rules about what a novel is supposed to look like, "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy" is a visionary piece of literature, a book so original in construction it almost defies genre. Conceived by an Anglican vicar who, under the comic influence of Rabelais and Swift and equally informed by Cervantes and Shakespeare, turned to writing fiction later in his life, it is an inadvertent masterpiece, the product of a writer who just wanted to have fun and entertain his readers and ultimately entertained generations. The book is not a fictitious autobiography, although its narrator Tristram Shandy might have intended it to be; most of the story is concerned not with his life but with his idiosyncratic family and the circumstances surrounding his conception and birth, with many digressions on various related and unrelated subjects. His father Walter, whose conjugal duties coincide with his having to wind the clock the first Sunday of every month, compiles a compendium of information he calls the Tristrapoedia for the education of his newborn son. His uncle Toby, an expert in military architecture, rides a hobby-horse and occupies his time with the science of besieging fortresses. Other characters include Corporal Trim, a former soldier and now Toby's valet and factotum; Dr. Slop, a dwarfish physician who delivers the baby Tristram; and Yorick the parson, who naturally is descended from the infamous jester of the Danish royal court. There are two aspects to this book that distinguish Sterne's style. The first is that he provides several different channels of narration and never really settles on a main plot thread; he interrupts the flow of one narrative with another, delivering narrative flights of fancy like a marriage contract, a sermon, a notice of excommunication from the Catholic Church, a travelogue for France and Italy, and amusing anecdotes about extracurricular characters. In this way he presages the modernism of many twentieth century authors. The second is that he does not restrict his text to English words; he intersperses Greek, Latin, and French passages where he likes, and on occasion he does not even use words at all, but symbols and glyphs to express certain concepts. A cross appears in the print when a character crosses himself; a character's death is memorialized by a black page; a blank page is provided for the reader to draw (mentally or physically) his own vision of the voluptuous Widow Wadman, who has a romantic eye for Toby; long rows of asterisks and dashes are used for things that are better left unsaid. At one point Sterne even draws squiggly lines to illustrate the sinuosity of his narrative, celebrating his own whimsy. "Tristram Shandy" was published in nine volumes over the last nine years of Sterne's life, and whether these were all he had intended is debatable because the narrative is implied to have neither a beginning nor an end; it seems very much like a work in progress. As such, by modern literary standards it may not be considered a novel, but in the sense of its unconventionality, its supply of so many bemusing surprises for the reader to discover, it is as literal an example of the term "novel" as there is.
Rating: 
Summary: Left me Flat, better things out there
Review: Having read a fair amount of 17th and 18th century European literature I looked forward to another good experience. Unfortunately Trisham Shandy did not live up to its reputation. Reading others review I saw words like Comical, Capricious and Deceptively Frivolous. I could find only a few pages out of the 500 that would justify these high praises. I found the book to start out slowly and then fizzle out altogether. My advice to those thinking of reading this book is to make sure that you have read all of the Voltaire and Swift that you can lay your hands on and then think of this one again.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious.
Review: I can't believe there aren't any reviews here, yet. At any rate, this is an absolutely fantastic book -- it's more performance art than anything else, really. The narrator's sense of humor captures the reader almost immediately, and there's enough jumping around to keep you interested. This is the Seinfeld of 18th century novels: it's about nothing, and yet it's hilarious.
Rating:
Summary: England's first hobby-horsical novel
Review: If you read and enjoyed Don Quixote, with its endless digressions and ridiculous situations, you are likely to enjoy reading Tristram Shandy. Even if you hated reading Pamela, you may still enjoy Tristram Shandy. "Learned nonsense" describes it very well. The demands it makes on the reader, however, are comparable to those made by works such as Ulysses, Gravitys Rainbow and J.R.. The Penguin edition contains over 120 pages of notes as well as a useful "Glossary of Terms of Fortification" to help the reader along. (You just never know when you might need to know what a "circumvallation" is.) All the same, I first read T.S. in the old Signet Classic edition, ($.95) which contained virtually no annotations, and I still enjoyed it. And then there are the strange neologisms (such as "hobby-horsical"), and the even sillier names. It gets better with repeated readings and it will make you laugh. After T.S., you may want to tackle Anatomy of Melancholy. My only disappointment with T.S.: there was no mechanical duck!
Rating:
Summary: England's first hobby-horsical novel
Review: If you read and enjoyed Don Quixote, with its endless digressions and ridiculous situations, you are likely to enjoy reading Tristram Shandy. Even if you hated reading Pamela, you may still enjoy Tristram Shandy. "Learned nonsense" describes it very well. The demands it makes on the reader, however, are comparable to those made by works such as Ulysses, Gravitys Rainbow and J.R.. The Penguin edition contains over 120 pages of notes as well as a useful "Glossary of Terms of Fortification" to help the reader along. (You just never know when you might need to know what a "circumvallation" is.) All the same, I first read T.S. in the old Signet Classic edition, ($.95) which contained virtually no annotations, and I still enjoyed it. And then there are the strange neologisms (such as "hobby-horsical"), and the even sillier names. It gets better with repeated readings and it will make you laugh. After T.S., you may want to tackle Anatomy of Melancholy. My only disappointment with T.S.: there was no mechanical duck!
Rating:
Summary: A Crazy kinda Greatness. Read it , you'll see.
Review: Reviewer: A reader from Asheville, NC USA
Have you ever wanted to read a book where the author decides to "rip out" one of the chapters, or leaves a blank page for you to 'draw' one of the characters? Would you enjoy an 18th-Century story which takes many chapters before the hero is born? The tale is touchingly told. The characters are real, and constantly fascinating. It's not their fault that their story is frequently interrupted by outlandish "digressions" on the part of an author so creative that his modern descendants are considered to be Joyce and Beckett as well as many others. Would you enjoy a chapter about Chapters? About buttonholes? About whether parents and their children are kin to each other? A chapter on curses? Laurence Sterne has so much trouble getting Walter and Toby Shandy downstairs that he calls in the "critics" to do it. Advice on reading such an unusual, even unique book: read the first several chapters, then stop and reread them. Continue that process and soon the book will feel quite familiar, and that's when the fun starts! Walter loves arguments about anything. Uncle Toby enjoys building military models. Tristram is quite busy just trying to get born and baptized with the correct name. His mother Elizabeth argues with her husband Walter about midwives and their methods. (Their wedding contract is here for you to peruse...it causes some problems itself.) This volume "3" consists of the Notes on the text (which is found in volumes "1" and "2".) Amazon also lists several less expensive paperback editions of the novel, the preferred one being the Oxford World Classics Edition.
Rating:
Summary: The way to write a book is to read it upside down
Review: There is a spirit of Tristram Shandy I am not sure I know how to define it. It is a making a game of everything in life including the writing of novels. It is a spirit of play which finds in the most commonplace things surprising reversals of fortune. It is in people who are stuck in their own character and for whom character is a gesture of repetition. It is for each and every thing not being where it should be, and not being what it should be but something else and different from what we expected it to be. It is an upside down turn around world where the child wonders what its parents were about when they begot him and the parents do not know why and where the clock in their hearts was ticking so fast at that particular moment.. It is much matter confounded with more mind, and above all that kind of surprise which makes us laugh.
As one Amazon reader wrote even Sterne's name is a kind of fitting upside down crazy joke.
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