A review by finlaaaay
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
2.0
I really quite like the idea of a post-modern book written in the pre-modern era, and I know that Tristram Shandy is an interesting concept from the Steve Coogan movie. It's just... why does it have to be so... rambly? and full of self-congratulatory references to contemporary literature?
I'm afraid I couldn't look past the form of it all. Dashes everywhere. More than Emily Dickinson. I soon worked out that Sterne had used dashes to indicate the rhythm of speech and (too many) commas for a purely grammatical function, but that meant that I had to start sounding the thing out in my head for it to make sense to me. Was this normal back then, or something? The copy of the book I had also had a notes section at the back to explain all Sterne's hyperspecific references to wars I hadn't heard of and vocabulary that has utterly fallen into disuse. It was very useful for me, but a pain to have to keep flipping back and forth - and it made me feel like I was in school again.
I think it might have worked better for me as an audiobook. In that format I just let things wash if they don't make full sense.
I'm afraid I couldn't look past the form of it all. Dashes everywhere. More than Emily Dickinson. I soon worked out that Sterne had used dashes to indicate the rhythm of speech and (too many) commas for a purely grammatical function, but that meant that I had to start sounding the thing out in my head for it to make sense to me. Was this normal back then, or something? The copy of the book I had also had a notes section at the back to explain all Sterne's hyperspecific references to wars I hadn't heard of and vocabulary that has utterly fallen into disuse. It was very useful for me, but a pain to have to keep flipping back and forth - and it made me feel like I was in school again.
I think it might have worked better for me as an audiobook. In that format I just let things wash if they don't make full sense.