#tristramshandy — Public Fediverse posts

’TIS a pity, cried my father one winter’s night, after a three hours painful translation of Slawkenbergius——’tis a pity, cried my father, putting my mother’s threadpaper into the book for a mark, as he spoke——that truth, brother Toby, should shut herself up in such impregnable fastnesses, and be so obstinate as not to surrender herself sometimes up upon the closest siege.——

Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Vol II, ch XXXIV)

#LaurenceSterne #TristramShandy

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1079/1079-h/1079-h.htm#chap02

Tristram Shandy … Unglücksrabe oder Von der Bahre bis zur Wiege – Von Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sternes „Tristram Shandy“ revolutionierte den Roman: Ein Werk voller Abschweifungen, Wortspiele und radikaler Erzählexperimente. Statt einer geordneten Biografie bietet es ein labyrinthisches Spiel mit Form und Lesererwartung.

Der Ich-Erzähler Tristram will sein Leben schildern – doch er wird ständig unterbrochen, etwa durch seinen pedantischen Vater Walter oder den kriegsbesessenen Onkel Toby. Mit schwarzen Seiten, fehlenden Kapiteln und verspäteten Vorworten brach Sterne alle Konventionen. Goethe pries ihn als „schönsten Geist“, Nietzsche als „freiesten Schriftsteller“. Lessing wollte für ein weiteres Buch von Sterne sogar “fünf Jahre seines Lebens” opfern.

https://www.swr.de/swrkultur/hoerspiel/tristram-shandy-ungluecksrabe-oder-von-der-bahre-bis-zur-wiege-1-2-hoerspiel-2025-11-02-100.html

#bucher #horspiel #laurenceSterne #literatur #roman #swrKultur #tristramShandy

Über das Recht, sein Steckenpferd zu reiten – oder: Die Höflichkeit der Vernunft – Von Onkel Michael

Es gibt Sätze, die auf den ersten Blick unscheinbar wirken und doch ein ganzes Weltbild tragen. Einer davon stammt aus Laurence Sternes Tristram Shandy:

Solange ein Mensch sein Steckenpferd friedlich und ohne Aufsehen auf des Königs Landstraße reitet und weder Sie noch mich zwingt, hinter ihm aufzusitzen – ei, mein Herr –, was geht es dann uns beide an?

Ein Satz, so leicht wie Tee mit Milch, und doch schwer wie ein moralischer Grundstein. 

https://onkelmichael.blog/2025/11/06/von-steckenpferden-toleranz-und-anderen-fixen-ideen/

#artikel #laurenceSterne #onkelMichael #tristramShandy #vernunft #wissen #zitat

Barry Lyndon is a bit too Tristram Shandy for me (which I read recently). I think I'll have to spread out how often I read such books.

I enjoy them, but an incorrigible, unreliable narrator shouting "Tally-Ho, fellow dudes, let's romp" in your face every ten minutes can be tiring. There's an optimal number of Spring Breaks in a year, and especially for the middle aged that's a low number.

I didn't get that feeling from Moll Flanders, but I might have been distracted by the tiring weird capitalisation and punctuation.

#reading #barrylyndon #TristramShandy

Ich hab die über 800 Seiten des #TristramShandy von #LaurenceSterne ja damals zwischen 24. Dezember 1995 und Ende Januar 1996 quasi weggeatmet – um dann 2 Monate Pause zu machen, weil ich mit dem einzigen abschweifungsfrei erzähltem „Kapitel“ nichts anfangen konnte,¹ aber zeitgenössische Lesys mussten mit einem Veröffentlichungszeitraum von 1759 bis 1767 klarkommen!

—
¹ Endspurt dann 31.3.-5.4.1996

Gibt es eigentlich eine Korrelation, ob #TristramShandy¹ von #LaurenceSterne vor allem von ADHS-lys geschätzt wird?

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¹ »Leben und Ansichten von Tristram Shandy, Gentleman«, Org englisch »The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman«

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/

@johncarlosbaez @RanaldClouston @bookstodon

Bravo, thanks for the link! A great piece by Jess Keiser on Sterne and Tristram Shandy, and on the more anarchic elements in 18th century literature. Encourages me to re-read Swift and Fielding with open eyes (and, of course, to go back to Sterne).

#LaurenceSterne #TristramShandy #HenryFielding #JonathanSwift #literature #modernism #JessKeiser

#FinishedReading my first foray into 18th century literature, although I doubt much of the rest of it reads like this, with its twisted structure, absurd digressions, and typographical jokes. Some of it is incredibly quotable, fresh, and fun; other parts border on incomprehensible as the centuries render the jokes obscure. #Bookstodon @bookstodon #TristramShandy #LaurenceSterne

‘The motly emblem of my work.’ Colourful marbled page from the first edition of Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (1759–67) — these were unique in each copy, representing the element of chance in Sterne’s narrative project. #LaurenceSterne #TristramShandy #books #publishing

Backstory: the extraordinary opening sentence of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne, born in Clonmel #OTD in 1713 #LaurenceSterne #TristramShandy #books

Time to introduce myself since there are now some others in this breakout room !
I was not long on the other app, but while I was there appreciated the remedy to pandemic loneliness it offered. The interests I hope to share with others here include: #bookhistory, #18thcentury, #romanticism, #novels, #victorian poetry (new obsession), #scrapbooks, #pedagogy , #Clarissa, #TristramShandy.