Monday, November 12, 2007

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

When I first picked up this book with the intention of reading it, I quickly gave up: it was hard to follow and tedious. Coming back to the book after several months, though, I cannot believe what I was missing. The very parts I found boring and irrelevant are actually wildly funny. One has to be patient with the digressions--indeed the novel is more digression than anything else--but everything comes together much more neatly than one might expect. I also love the innovation in terms of the printing process: Sterne inserted a black page, a marbled page, several blank pages, and "tore out" a chapter. Further, he has very unconventional typesetting, dashes, and other printers' marks. This book demands its readers learn how to read again, and the fruit of the labor is well worth the work.

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