Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne is so delightful.
Written in 1760s, it is the wackiest novel you will ever read.
Laurence Sterne, an anglican priest himself, a job that requires you to be serious and
… stern does the opposite, he pokes fun of people, life, but most importantly modernity
or the age of rationality.
In this video I will summarise the novel, and discuss some of its themes.
But first let me tell you a bit about Laurence Sterne himself.
Author Laurence Sterne was born in 1713 in Ireland.
Due to his father’s military career, he lived in many different places as a child.
In 1724 when Sterne was 11 he was sent to live with his uncle in the north of England,
in the town Halifax.
He never saw his father again, as he was sent on a military assignment to Jamaica where
he died of malaria.
Sterne attended Dublin University and later became an Anglican priest in the north of
England, where he lived most of his life.
In 1759 he began writing the Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy the Gentleman in 9 volumes,
and it took him almost years to complete it in 1767.
He also campaigned for the abolition of slavery, which is also mentioned in his novel.
Due to his illness he travelled to France and Italy, which is depicted in this novel.
He died in 1768 at the age of 54 at an inn in London and his body was stolen and sold
to a Cambridge University anatomist.
This does sound like a scene from Tristram Shandy itself.
Sterne wrote many books, often satirical novels about the socio-political climate of his day,
but he is known for one novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy the Gentleman.
Summary The first thing you should know about Tristram
Shandy is that Laurence Sterne was inspired by a few important books, two works of fiction,
Don Quixote by Cervantes, Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais, and a couple of philosophical
books, specially John Locke’s treatise on human understanding.
So Sterne gathered these materials to concoct a new kind of shandyesque cocktail or used
them as a recipe to cook his own original dinner.
Perhaps the most important influence on Sterne was a French novel, The Life of Gargantua
and Pantagruel by François Rabelais published in the mid-16th century and translated to
English in 1690s, which I included in my top 20 French novels.
Sterne was born some 15 years later so he grew up reading the wacky, satirical French
novel full of jokes, vulgar language, and exaggeration.
You see all those things in Tristram Shandy.
It’s also influenced by Cervantes’ Don Quixote, which I discussed in a separate video.
A more philosophical influence is John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding published
in 1690, which questions the adequacy of human knowledge that the rationalists proposed.
The rationalists like Rene Descartes argued that we can understand the world simply by
sitting in our own comfortable chair because we are rational being.
John Locke however belonged to the empiricist school of philosophy which explained that
our understanding of the world comes from experience not prior rationality.
So Laurence Sterne gathered bits and pieces from Don Quixote, Gargantua, philosophical
discussions to cook a new meal.
He philosophy is pretty simple.
Quote: “I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second.”
Tristram Shandy, loosely the main protagonist of the novel narrates his own story.
The novel is divided into 9 volumes, each about 60 pages long.
The chapters are pretty short.
It has a loose plot which focuses on the life of the main character, Tristram but the bulk
of the novel is about other things, thus it is a novel of digression.
According to Italo Calvino, digression in a novel is a device to stretch time and delay
death or the end of the story so the speak.
For example Shehrezad in One Thousand and One Night delays to end the story so she can
live longer.
Every night she ends her story without giving away its ending.
Sterne says: “In a word, my work is digressive, and it is progressive too,—and at the same
time.”
There are two main plots in the novel.
The first is Tristram Shandy’s own life, from conception, his birth, schooling, and
later his travels and writing.
The second plot involves his uncle, Toby, a war veteran injured in Europe, his pursuit
of a widow, and obsession with enacting a battle scene in his own backyard.
Tristram Shandy’s life is a series of accidents.
Just remember that when Sterne was writing this novel, European intellectuals believed
that through science and reason they could understand and predict everything.
So what Sterne does in this novel is to tell us that life is nothing but a series of accidents
and none of them of your own choosing.
The novel begins with Tristram’s conception.
While his parents are copulating, his mother throws a random question asking her husband
whether he has wound up the clock.
Quote: “Pray my Dear, quoth my mother, have you not forgot to wind up the clock?—Good
G—! cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the
same time,——Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with
such a silly question?”
Here we learn that Tristram’s father, Walter Shandy is a pseudo-intellectual, science-minded
person who believes that by focusing his attention during sex, he can create a good, balanced
baby.
But unfortunately his wife distracts him.
So Tristram’s life starts from a very shaky ground.
All because his mother didn’t pay attention during sex.
Sterne pokes fun at us human animals that during sex, we are not conscious about making
a baby.
Quote: “I wish my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty
both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me.”
Tristram’s mother, however, was more preoccupied with the clock, or time.
Tristram promises to tell how he was born in the following chapters but he then gets
distracted by other people.
He tells us about how a clergyman named Yorick sponsored the midwife who helped his birth
to get an education to help the village.
Mr Yorick is a joker and doesn’t take life too seriously but his death is marked in the
novel with a blank page, which is a brilliant storytelling device, similar to the 11th century
Japanese classic, the Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki.
You could say it is the first visual or even cinematic novel that gives the reader a new
kind of experience.
Tristram tells us about his parents’ marriage contract made by his mother that she should
give birth in a London hospital, not in some rickety village midwifery.
But as it turns out, this marriage stipulation, instead of helping Tristram’s birth, causes
the second accident in Tristram’s life.
First his conception was ruined by his mother’s question at an inappropriate time.
Second while coming through the birth canal, his nose gets flattened.
Poor Tristram.
Tristram’s mother in revenge for not being taken to a posh London hospital, decides to
refuse the village doctor, Mr Slop.
Mr Slop believes in modern medicine and rejects the traditional midwives.
Tristram’s mother however, asks for a midwife.
As it turns out the cartoonish Dr. Slop despite his belief in modern science, is superstitiously
attached to his favourite chair, from which he falls down, an accident that ultimately
results in Tristram’s nose getting flattened at birth.
Tristram talks about the importance of nose in life and society.
There is a suggestion that nose here might be an innuendo for penis, but Tristram says
no.
The novel also tells us the story of a man with a huge nose who sends a whole city into
frenzy, especially the nuns, which I assume it has some sexual connotation here.
Despite Tristram’s rejection that he is talking about nose, not penis, it is obvious
that he thinks a man’s nose size signifies his penis size.
A flat nose is not a good look for a man.
The novel’s highly suggestive with double meaning.
For example at the end of the novel we find this quote: “Key-holes are the occasions
of more sin and wickedness, than all other holes in this world put together.”
P.547
In the light of Uncle Toby’s groin injury, the crashed nose becomes even more significant.
Before his famous birth, Tristram also tells us about his uncle Toby who was injured in
the 1692 Siege of Namur in modern-day Belgium.
His injury is in the delicate place, in his groin which turned him into a very humble,
nice man, but also a man who fails to remember the battle correctly.
Why?
Tristram speculates that it is not his lack of memory but lack of language.
If you don’t have the words, your memory fails anyway.
This is really interesting idea that our memory is always tied to language.
This forgetfulness leads Uncle Toby to an obsession with maps.
He ends up creating the entire battle scene in his backyard.
A man is always obsessed to create something in order to attract a woman.
Now the nose mishap at Tristram’s birth, forces his father to choose a grand name for
his son to compensate for the the child’s unfortunate crushed nose.
His father believes a decent sized nose was a must for a person to have a good life.
So he names his son Trismegistus, after a legendary Greek figure, Hermes Trismegistus.
But once again, due to a miscommunication with the servant girl, his son is named Tristram,
which basically means sorrowful.
They try to re-name him but because of further mishaps preventing it, the name Tristram remains.
Now his conception, his birth and his naming all were a bunch of accidental mishaps.
Nothing has gone according to his father’s plan.
His father’s scientific or rational ideas did not help Tristram at all.
Toby’s obsession with his military replica is perhaps the closest to anything going according
to plan in this novel.
The storytelling is all over the place.
That’s the least of the problem here.
Now, Walter Shandy’s first plan to have a good conception was ruined by his wife’s
inappropriate question about the clock.
His son’s botched birth gave him a flat nose.
His naming also turned out terrible.
Now the only thing he can do to give his son a good future is by giving him a solid education
to compensate for all those shortcomings.
But as expected there is another accident in his nursery.
The little Tristram has to pee, but his pot is missing, so the boy opens the window to
pee outside.
This is still a common practice among the drunk university students in England.
As he is peeing, the window falls on his nose, I mean penis and circumcises him.
However, life goes on and Tristram grows up, despite all the mishaps in his life.
Tristram then jumps many years in the narrative to talk about his travels in Europe, through
France, a country that has a terrible transport system, as well as Italy.
This mirror Laurence Sterne’s own journey to Europe.
He enjoys his travels and becomes a travel writer.
One thing that Tristram has promised from the very beginning of the novel is to tell
us about his Uncle Toby’s love affair with a widow next door.
But he keeps delaying it and delaying it.
As a reader you begin to question whether uncle Toby is able to make love due to his
groin injury in the war.
Tristram plays with our curious mind and uses this mystery as a device to drag us along
in his digressive journey.
When Uncle Toby moves to the countryside so set up his battle scene, he meets, Widow Wadman,
a woman who advances towards him like an enemy army.
The romantic dance between a man and a woman is like a battle, full of games, strategies,
tactics, seductions and patience.
In fact Uncle Toby and his army buddy and servant, Trim uses their battle tactics in
pursuing the lady in question.
In fact, their war enactment is described in parallel to Toby’s advancement towards
the widow.
She, too, uses the old trick that works on all soldiers or in fact on all men.
One day she asks Uncle Toby for help, saying there is something in her eye.
Uncle Toby rushes to help and notices her beautiful eyes.
Now the widow has ensnared Uncle Toby even more.
But they go back and forth as well the narrative moves around.
Finally we get to the last scene of them coming together to confess their love.
The widow asks the question on everyone’s mind, including we the readers, about the
nature of Uncle Tobe’s injury and possible future children.
She asks where is the injury exactly.
Instead of pointing at his groin, Uncle Toby brings the map of Namur and points at the
location where he was injured, which is really funny.
It becomes clear that Uncle Toby’s injury is the main concern as there is a rumour that
he might be impotent.
The widow doesn’t get a clear answer so she ends the romance.
The novel ends without Uncle Toby being able to succeed in his pursuit of the widow.
However he does succeeds in his war scene.
I guess he is the only gentleman in the novel, humble and very nice.
However, being nice doesn’t get him the woman he wants.
Analysis As I discussed in my video on Cervantes’s
novel Don Quixote, the age of reason meant people were embracing modern scientific discoveries
and rational thinking.
However, Laurence Sterne, a religious priest himself, perhaps embraced modernity but also
saw its shortcoming in explaining the human animal that we are.
Despite all the scientific discoveries helping our lives, when it comes to important stuff
we have no say, for example in our conception and birth.
Once we are born, we don’t walk on clear path, instead we tumble, drift, meander in
time and space and somehow make it to an adult like a drunk person going home from the pub.
The novel’s style of writing mimics how we live, full of digression and distractions.
But life’s accidents continue to shape, lead and determine our future.
Modern science and reason promise predictability but Sterne in this novel celebrates and laughs
at life’s unpredictability and chaos that little accidents, beyond our own control,
have huge consequences in our lives.
People want a safer, more comfortable and predictable life, but they end up living a
more improvised life.
No mater how much we plan our lives, a small storm or surprise can derail things for us.
Today we are meant to plan and control our lives, which adds to our sense of anxiety
and distress.
The only world where you don’t want interruptions to your plan is when you’re telling a story.
Quote: “Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be interrupted
in a story...”
Laurence Sterne was a critic of Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, a book promoting the
idea that being ignorant is better than being educated.
Sterne’s issue with the book was that Burton relied on numerous quotations to prove a point.
Instead of saying what he believed, he provided you with tons of ideas from other people to
support his argument, like a scientific paper that has more citations than substance.
Sterne makes fun of the over-the-top academic, bookish or learned type people.
Don Quixote read a lot chivalric romances, while Tristram’s father read a lot of science
theories, so Sterne pokes fun at the academic and formal type people.
He says: Quote: “I am pursuaded of it, madam, as much as can be, That both man and woman
bear pain or sorrow, (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a horizontal position.”
p. 194.
Irish Mischiefism Laurence Sterne wrote the novel in England
but he was born in Ireland.
You can find the same king of Irish mischief among modern writers like James Joyce.
Irish literature is one of two extremes.
On the one hand we have what’s called Irish miserbalism, novels about the miserable lives
of people on the island, be it because of English colonialism or the catholic church.
However in Tristram Shandy, as well as in Joyce’s Ulysses, we see the other extreme,
taking the piss of everything sacred or important.
The whole thing is a joke.
A botched book, a botched life, and a botched writer.
This novel celebrates that Irish mischief.
Again it has to do with the church being a stern ruler over the Irish people for centuries,
so you need a venue to express yourself.
Irish people are known for their huge repertoire of swear words.
Tristram Shandy is about sex, birth, penis and nose.
This is remarkable for a novel so postmodern written more than 250 years ago.
Machado de Assis’s Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas published in 1880s, is a masterpiece
of Brazilian literature that was influenced by Tristram Shandy.
A while back I discussed the novel about a man who writes his autobiography after his
own death.
It too has short chapters, full of funny and ironic scenes.
Tristram Shandy is a delightful novel that celebrates life through laughter.
Life’s digressions Why we digress?
As Italo Calvino said, digression slows time and delays death.
Life has no meaning.
Instead of despair, we digress every day, every moment, by distracting ourselves with
something, work, entertainment, friends, drink or food.
Animals do it better than humans.
Digression allows us to get out of our head and be in the moment.
Instead of arriving at your destination, or reaching a point, or understanding something
completely delay the process.
Maybe in life we’re meant to focus on the process.
Not the outcome.
Maybe life is not about reaching somewhere.
Life is meant to be here and now.
Tristram’s father always worried about his son's future.
Despite his best effort, his son’s life was nothing but a series of botched accidents
which he desperately tried to prevent.
But failed.
Tristram’s Shandy’s life is a perfect metaphor for our life.
No matter how much we plan things, accidents tend to rule our lives.
Instead of going in a straight line, we meander in life.
Quote: “Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;—they are the life, the soul
of reading;—take them out of this book for instance,—you might as well take the book
along with them;”
So the message is life is meant to be digressive.
Laugh at every moment of it, even if it’s tragic.
Thank you for watching.