Tristram Shandy

This book has been publicized in nine volumes between December 1759 (vol. 1, 2) and January 1767 (vol. 9). The author was an Anglican clergyman who’s first book “The History of a Good Warm Watch-Coat”, describing the little squabbles and intrigues of church dignitaries, was burned upon request of his embarrassed ecclesial superiors, which caused Sterne to develop an aversion for gravitas. Although barred from advancement, the book made him aware of his writing skills and he decided to compensate his failing chances of advancement by pursuing a second career as an author of satiric novels. The first editor to whom he presented his first volumes turned him down at the worst of times; his mother just died and his wife was terminally ill, which probably softened a little his satirical whim into a more comic tune who’s sometimes flirting with tragedy. When the work finally got published, it made him an instant celebrity and he enjoyed it to be fêted into the highest cultural salons of London. But just like his wife he suffered of tuberculosis and died in 1768, a month after the publication of his second novel, “A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy”, at the age of 54.
Tristram starts his narrative by dedicating a whole chapter to the circumstances surrounding his conception. Following his belief the implantation of the Homunculus (A tiny person inside a sperm) was disturbed because his mother asked his father at that precise moment if he didn’t forget to wind up the clock.
So the whole implantation process of the homunculus went wrong ab ovo (narrator citing Horace). Into the first chapter the narrator would give further indications of his erudition by citing the Essays by Montagne, suggesting an intimate knowledge of the works of Locke, Burgersdicius, Ramus, Cervantes, etc…
Another way that the author used to display his erudition is by constantly inserting sentences like” … and then he would break off in a sudden and spirited Epiphonema, or rather Erotesis …“or “… (a name that) was unison to Nincompoop and every name vituperative under heaven…” These examples came from one page somewhere in the middle of the first volume, when I became aware of how many times I’d used the dictionary function of my Kindle.
He spent also a couple of pages on sneering at colorfully dressed nobles making the roads unsafe by speeding along upon their Hobby-Horses (Another word I had to lookup).
Hobby-Horse at the Morris dance; detail of Thames at Richmond, with the Old Royal Palace, c.1620
He also makes fun of the local Parson for a couple of pages by comparing the parson’s horse with Don Quixote’s horse Rosinante. It seems that at that time, the best way to make fun of someone was to ridicule their horse. But later on into the chapter, the parson gets good points because he can join the laughter about himself and his horse and is just like the narrator an enemy of gravity that he describes as a deceit “twas a taught trick to gain credit of the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth”. The parson, his name was Yorick, was gifted with a great wit but little common sense and a mercurial temperament. Just as happened to the author of this book, a couple of times he joked about the wrong persons and they formed a coalition to destroy him and drove him subsequently into an early grave (the author luckily escaped that fate by becoming a celebrated writer; it was his frail health that caused him to die at 53).
We got also introduced to his father’s brother, uncle Toby, a battle maimed army officer and his man-servant, also a crippled veteran, corporal Trim. Further it seems that the author is giving away a lot of storylines; his nose being broken by dr. Slop’s forceps during the birth process, the whole explanation of the reasons why the narrator’s father the name Tristram defined as “unison with Nincompoop” followed by a whole expose of a congress of physicians who decided that in case of an emergency, a baby could be baptized while still stuck into the mother’s womb. And the narrator is even not born at that timeline of the story! Obviously a book written with a dictionary at hand reach by a snob exposing his erudition who wants to make fun of other people, including his readers.
Up to now it didn’t induce any crack of a laughter into me; more a feeling of exasperation of the incapacity of the author to bring an argument to an end without eloping too much. 17th century humor is obviously not spent on me with a narrator who casts himself as a righteous and educated gentleman pushed by an ignorant society into the position of an underdog (you can spot the influence of Cervantes Don Quixote, who’s by the way very often quoted by the author, mostly combined with some touch of self-irony, a trait which I found a little refreshing after a whole barrage of bombastic paragraphs).
The first chapter ends by the mistress of the house lying upstairs in agony, trying to give birth to a child with the men (physician included, the instruments of his trade hanging into a side pocket of the saddle of his into the wild roaming pony, with a servant having the task to fetch both) are listening to corporal Trim giving a sermon about morals, religion, honor and conscience.
A speech who was at best a fairytale dressed up into a philosophers’ vocabulary and illustrated with metaphors extracted from military architecture by uncle Toby (who’s a little monomaniac about the subject). I suppose 17th century scholarly readers will have found it fun; I found it utterly boring. Afterwards it turns out that the sermon has been written by the local parson (who still has to meet his already revealed doom).
This author is collecting anathema like a scavenger, most of them even not having a modicum of literary value. The poor mistress of the house still agonizes upstairs, trying to give birth to the narrator while the Shandies are boring the poor Dr. Slop to dead, the first one with his half-baked philosophies and the second one by relating every sentence to some military tactic or architecture.
The mood of the poor physician didn’t improve when he learned that the future mother dictated that he could only be of assistance when the old midwife didn’t know how to proceed any further.
The only moment when the author got me almost smiling was when he wrote his foreword (half-way the second volume) “- when I sat down, my intent was to write a good book”.
The way to Hell is paved with good intentions.
Finally Dr. Slop with his forceps got involved and since it was a difficult birth the curate was called in for an emergency baptize. Due to a long and complicated birth, the child’s face was black and Suzanna, the simpleminded maid came running down asking for the child’s name.
Trismegistus said his father by the time she ran up it was Tristramgistus there is no such name said he curate; Tristram it must be. Shortly afterwards, the narrators condition improved fast.

Alas, after five chapters of philosophy about noses, I’m done with Tristram Shandy, gentlemen.