#18thcenturyliterature — Public Fediverse posts

I've just finished Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy", which came to me strongly recommended and which I know enjoys a cult following.

That cult won't count me as follower, I'm afraid. On the whole, I did not enjoy the almost 600 pages of rambling digressions, learned satire, and bawdy wordplay. At times I felt I was stuck with the Georgian equivalent of that tiresome elderly relative who insists on re-enacting sketch after sketch of Monty Python. Readers who enjoy "Don Quixote", Rabelais, and postmodern metafictionality will probably derive more pleasure from the book than I did.

Nevertheless, it wasn't all a joyless slog. Like so many readers down the years, I was taken with Uncle Toby, who combines an eccentric passion for military fortifications with a winning kindness; after catching a fly, he releases it saying "I'll not hurt thee, go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee? —This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me".

As well as enjoying some of Sterne's play with ideas about determinism, I was charmed by the narrator's encounter in rural Languedoc with a young woman who has him join a dance with her companions. This delightful pastoral scene made me think I might enjoy Sterne's "A Sentimental Journey".

#Books #Bookstodon #TristramShandy
#LiteratureInEnglish #Literature
#LaurenceSterne #18thCenturyLiterature

Image:Laurence Sterne -- Sir Joshua Reynolds -- 1760 -- National Portrait Gallery, London -- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

I've just finished Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy", which came to me strongly recommended and which I know enjoys a cult following.

That cult won't count me as follower, I'm afraid. On the whole, I did not enjoy the almost 600 pages of rambling digressions, learned satire, and bawdy wordplay. At times I felt I was stuck with the Georgian equivalent of that tiresome elderly relative who insists on re-enacting sketch after sketch of Monty Python. Readers who enjoy "Don Quixote", Rabelais, and postmodern metafictionality will probably derive more pleasure from the book than I did.

Nevertheless, it wasn't all a joyless slog. Like so many readers down the years, I was taken with Uncle Toby, who combines an eccentric passion for military fortifications with a winning kindness; after catching a fly, he releases it saying "I'll not hurt thee, go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee? —This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me".

As well as enjoying some of Sterne's play with ideas about determinism, I was charmed by the narrator's encounter in rural Languedoc with a young woman who has him join a dance with her companions. This delightful pastoral scene made me think I might enjoy Sterne's "A Sentimental Journey".

#Books #Bookstodon #TristramShandy
#LiteratureInEnglish #Literature
#LaurenceSterne #18thCenturyLiterature

Image:Laurence Sterne -- Sir Joshua Reynolds -- 1760 -- National Portrait Gallery, London -- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

I've just finished Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy", which came to me strongly recommended and which I know enjoys a cult following.

That cult won't count me as follower, I'm afraid. On the whole, I did not enjoy the almost 600 pages of rambling digressions, learned satire, and bawdy wordplay. At times I felt I was stuck with the Georgian equivalent of that tiresome elderly relative who insists on re-enacting sketch after sketch of Monty Python. Readers who enjoy "Don Quixote", Rabelais, and postmodern metafictionality will probably derive more pleasure from the book than I did.

Nevertheless, it wasn't all a joyless slog. Like so many readers down the years, I was taken with Uncle Toby, who combines an eccentric passion for military fortifications with a winning kindness; after catching a fly, he releases it saying "I'll not hurt thee, go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee? —This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me".

As well as enjoying some of Sterne's play with ideas about determinism, I was charmed by the narrator's encounter in rural Languedoc with a young woman who has him join a dance with her companions. This delightful pastoral scene made me think I might enjoy Sterne's "A Sentimental Journey".

#Books #Bookstodon #TristramShandy
#LiteratureInEnglish #Literature
#LaurenceSterne #18thCenturyLiterature

Image:Laurence Sterne -- Sir Joshua Reynolds -- 1760 -- National Portrait Gallery, London -- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

I've just finished Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy", which came to me strongly recommended and which I know enjoys a cult following.

That cult won't count me as follower, I'm afraid. On the whole, I did not enjoy the almost 600 pages of rambling digressions, learned satire, and bawdy wordplay. At times I felt I was stuck with the Georgian equivalent of that tiresome elderly relative who insists on re-enacting sketch after sketch of Monty Python. Readers who enjoy "Don Quixote", Rabelais, and postmodern metafictionality will probably derive more pleasure from the book than I did.

Nevertheless, it wasn't all a joyless slog. Like so many readers down the years, I was taken with Uncle Toby, who combines an eccentric passion for military fortifications with a winning kindness; after catching a fly, he releases it saying "I'll not hurt thee, go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee? —This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me".

As well as enjoying some of Sterne's play with ideas about determinism, I was charmed by the narrator's encounter in rural Languedoc with a young woman who has him join a dance with her companions. This delightful pastoral scene made me think I might enjoy Sterne's "A Sentimental Journey".

#Books #Bookstodon #TristramShandy
#LiteratureInEnglish #Literature
#LaurenceSterne #18thCenturyLiterature

Image:Laurence Sterne -- Sir Joshua Reynolds -- 1760 -- National Portrait Gallery, London -- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

I've just finished Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy", which came to me strongly recommended and which I know enjoys a cult following.

That cult won't count me as follower, I'm afraid. On the whole, I did not enjoy the almost 600 pages of rambling digressions, learned satire, and bawdy wordplay. At times I felt I was stuck with the Georgian equivalent of that tiresome elderly relative who insists on re-enacting sketch after sketch of Monty Python. Readers who enjoy "Don Quixote", Rabelais, and postmodern metafictionality will probably derive more pleasure from the book than I did.

Nevertheless, it wasn't all a joyless slog. Like so many readers down the years, I was taken with Uncle Toby, who combines an eccentric passion for military fortifications with a winning kindness; after catching a fly, he releases it saying "I'll not hurt thee, go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee? —This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me".

As well as enjoying some of Sterne's play with ideas about determinism, I was charmed by the narrator's encounter in rural Languedoc with a young woman who has him join a dance with her companions. This delightful pastoral scene made me think I might enjoy Sterne's "A Sentimental Journey".

#Books #Bookstodon #TristramShandy
#LiteratureInEnglish #Literature
#LaurenceSterne #18thCenturyLiterature

Image:Laurence Sterne -- Sir Joshua Reynolds -- 1760 -- National Portrait Gallery, London -- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

@Alex_Wagstaffe When in doubt, go descriptive: #RomanticLiterature and #18thCenturyLiterature #Gothicists #ecocritics #ecofeminists