The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
First published 1759 · English · 308 pages
- Novels
This comic novel presents itself as the autobiography of Tristram Shandy, who sets out to explain his life and opinions but keeps getting distracted. He cannot even reach his own birth without long detours into the history of his family and the habits of those around him. We meet his father Walter, a theorist with strange notions, his gentle Uncle Toby, obsessed with military fortifications, and the loyal Corporal Trim.
The book is a game with the form of the novel itself, full of digressions, blank and black pages, and jokes about writing. Yet it is also tender and humane. It matters as one of the great early experiments in fiction, and it is still very funny.
Quotes
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.
Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world, though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst, the cant of criticism is the most tormenting.
hints. 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;
A man should know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad.
Chapter myself · Project Gutenberg #1079 (opens in a new tab)