The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy When Sterne came to write The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, the novel was still a relatively young genre. Nevertheless, its main narrative conventions were already firmly established and would prevail well into the following century. When it appeared, Sterne's masterpiece Tristram Shandy audaciously departed from all expectations of what a novel should be. He ignored social themes and deliberately ridiculed the narrative conventions previous writers had worked to perfect. As a result, he was regarded as a frivolous and irrelevant writer by some, while others responded warmly to his exciting experiments with form and his benevolent and tolerant view of human vanity and weakness. Despite the formal anarchy of the novel, certain coherent themes do emerge. One is a critique of the uncontrolled spread of rationality. Sterne seemed to distrust the defining and categorizing spirit of the Augustan Age and, like Swift, he satirized a world where everyone seemed to have evolved a system that held the key to truth. He also realized that as this spirit of rationality advanced, the number of systems and categories would increase and eventually result in anarchy. The anarchy of his novel may be intended as a comment on this tendency in life, something he tried to reflect in a work that is regarded as the first example of experimental fiction. A parody of the autobiographical novel The full title of Sterne's novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy echoes the title of Defoe's great classics: The Life and Strange, Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner; and The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders. Like Defoe's titles, that of Sterne's novel leads the reader to expect a fictional autobiography. This, however, is exactly what we do not get. Tristram is the very opposite of tough survivors and resourceful men and women like Robinson Crusoe and Richardson's Pamela Andrews. Born into a wealthy family, Tristram seems cut off from active life and has no real story to tell. He is one of life's victims, not one of its winners. Nevertheless, his good-humoured acceptance of his misfortunes, his affection for his family and its servants make him an engaging, affectionate and kind soul who wins the reader's sympathies. The anti-novel The last canonical novelist of the 18th-century tradition is Laurence Sterne, the writer who gave birth to the so-called anti-novel. The definition is self-explanatory, meaning that Sterne wrote a work which is quite the opposite of the novel, in the sense of the literary genre which was developing at the time. This genre was usually characterized by a plot, by a narrative and chronological order, by communication, by a progressive sequence of events with a beginning and a conclusion. Sterne, however, chose disorder as his narrative principle, broke all logical links between episodes, interrupted the progression of events with continuous digressions, wrote an "open" work without beginning or end, produced unpredictable characters and introduced non- communicating dialogues long before modern experiments in this manner.

Plot - It is virtually impossible to summarize the nine volumes which form Sterne's masterpiece. We can only try to list the very few major incidents found in each volume. Vols. I-II-III (1760-1761), in spite of many digressions concerning Uncle Toby and "hobbyhorses", are mainly concerned with the circumstances of Tristram's birth, even including the way in which the child was conceived. Vol. III, moreover, contains the Preface to the book, which the author finds time to write while everybody else is busy with Tristram's birth. Vol. IV ( 1761 ) includes a learned discussion on noses. It also describes how the child was baptized Tristram by mistake instead of "Trismegistus". Vol. V ( 1761 ) contains the reactions of various characters to the death of Tristram's brother, Bobby. Vol. VI ( 1761 ) is mainly devoted to battles and to the amorous disappointments of Uncle Toby. It also includes the "breeching" of Tristram, no longer a child, but a young boy who must wear trousers. Vols. VII-VIII ( 1765 ) abandon the narrative in order to describe the author's travels in France and narrate the story of the King of Bohemia. Vol. IX ( 1767) is mainly devoted to the pursuit of Uncle Toby by the amorous Widow Wadman. This sequence of apparently absurd and incoherent incidents is narrated in the first person by Tristram himself who, ranging from the past to the present, remembers particular events of his life and such people as his mother, his father Walter, his Uncle Toby, his uncle's servant Corporal Trim and Yorick, the parson, each of whom, in one way or another, have determined the course of his life. The result is a "rambling and eccentric patchwork of anecdotes, digressions, reflections, jests, parodies and dialogues"1 such as had never been seen before in English literature. Features - As Frederick R. Karl2 points out, Sterne's novel, or "anti-novel", as it is often called because of its anomalous features, derives from the fusion of a new technique with older elements. The older elements are: *the picaresque form, seen in: - the patchwork of episodes and the apparently limitless length of the novel (new volumes could easily have been added if Sterne had lived longer); - the prevailing sense of chance that dominates the work; *the mock-heroic treatment of certain subjects; *the cast of characters, both high and low; *the conventional biographical form announced in the actual title of the novel. The new technique, on the other hand, is based on: *the association of ideas; *a new sense of time. Sterne was not the first to use the technique of "association of ideas": Hume himself had written about it (see p. 241). What was really new in Sterne, however, was the attempt to set this association within time sequences which were no longer ruled by the clock, but by individual consciousness. In other words, he anticipated by two centuries Henry Bergson's theory of la durée or "duration". According to this concept, each person lives moments and experiences which cannot be measured in fixed periods of time, since the mind has its own temporal and spatial values, distinct from the conventional ones established by the external world (see also Reading Tools p. 76). On the basis of this theory, what is important is no longer a chronological sequence of events (typical of the realistic novel), but what the character feels and thinks: not facts but the emotional implications of facts. This is why Sterne uses first-person narration and bases his book on an overlapping of memories that the protagonist describes in an apparently illogical sequence of progressions and regressions. This is also why great attention has been paid to what Sterne called his characters' hobbyhorses, that is idiosyncrasies, obsessions or ruling passions. Everyone of importance in the book has his "hobbyhorse", since a "hobbyhorse" is not determined by any external reality, but rather by an inexplicable inner drive. The new relationship between "time" and the "association of ideas" is established by Sterne in the very opening pages of his book, as we may see in the following passages. Association of ideas CHAPTER I I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, 1 had minded what they were about when they begot me;2 had they duly consider'd how much depended upon what they were then doing; - that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind,3 - and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost;4 - Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly, - I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world from that in which the reader is likely to see me.5 - Believe me, good folks, this is not so inconsiderable a thing as many of you may think it; - you have all, I dare say, heard of the animal spirits, as how they are transfused from father to son, &c, &c. - and a great deal to that purpose. [...] Pray, my Dear, quoth6 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. Pray, what was your father saying? - Nothing. CHAPTER IV Shut the door. I was begot in the night, betwixt the first Sunday and the first Monday in the month of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighteen. I am positive I was. - But how I came to be so very particular in my account of a thing which happened before I was born, is owing to another small anecdote known only in our own family, but now made public for the better clearing up this point. My father, you must know, who was originally a Turkey merchant,7 but had left off business for some years, in order to retire to, and die upon, his paternal estate in the county of - , was, I believe, one of the most regular men in everything he did, whether 'twas matter of business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen of this extreme exactness of his, to which he was in truth a slave, - he had made it a rule for many years of his life, - on the first Sunday-night of every month throughout the whole year, - as certain as ever the Sunday night came, - to wind up a large houseclock, which we had standing on the back-stairs head,8 with his own hands: - And being somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age at the time I have been speaking of, - he had likewise gradually brought some other little family concernments to the same period,9 in order, as he would often say to my uncle Toby, to get them all out of the way at one time, and be no more plagued and pestered with them the rest of the month. 1 as they... to it: poiché tutti e due vi erano ugualmente tenuti 2 begot me: mi concepirono 3 the very... mind: la forma stessa del suo spirito 4 which were then uppermost: che erano prevalenti in quel momento 5 from... me: da quella in cui mi vedrà probabilmente il lettore 6 quoth: said 7 Turkey merchant: commerciante della Compagnia del Levante 8 which... head: che noi tenevamo in cima alle scale sul retro 9 he had... period: aveva gradualmente portato a coincidere nello stesso giorno un certo numero di altre piccole incombenze familiari

It was attended but with one misfortune, which, in a great measure fell upon myself, and the effects of which I fear I shall carry with me to my grave; namely, that from an unhappy association of ideas, which have no connection in nature, it so fell out at length, that my poor mother could never hear the said clock wound up, - but the thoughts of some other things unavoidably popped into her head - and vice versa: - Which strange combination of ideas, the sagacious Locke,10 who certainly understood the nature of these things better than most men, affirms to have produced more wry actions than all other sources of prejudice whatsoever. But this by the bye.11 Now it appears by a memorandum in my father's pocket-book, which now lies upon the table, "That on Lady-day,12 which was on the 25th of the same month in which I date my geniture, - my father set out upon his journey to London,13 with my eldest brother Bobby, to fix him at Westminster school;" and, as it appears from the same authority, "That he did not get down to his wife and family till the second week in May following," - it brings the thing almost to a certainty. However, what follows in the beginning of the next chapter, puts it beyond all possibility of doubt. - But pray, Sir, What was your father doing all December, January, and February - Why, Madam, - he was all that time afflicted with a Sciatica. 10 Locke: il filosofo John Locke (1632-1704; v. p. 195) 11 But this by the bye: Ma questo (l'ho detto) incidentalmente. 12 Lady-day: il giorno dell'Annunciazione 13 set out... London: si mise in viaggio per Londra

The author begins his story from the conception of Tristram, showing us his father and mother on the night between the first Sunday and the first Monday of March 1718 (ll. 22-24). The irritation felt by Tristram's father at his being interrupted by his wife's trivial question about the clock (l. 16) has a negative influence in the transfusion of "the animal spirits" from father to son (ll. 13-14). This fact, Tristram says, is certainly responsible for a thousand weaknesses in his body and mind and for several of his mishaps in the world (ll. 42-44). He explains his mother's question by the theory of the "association of ideas" (l. 44), according to which everybody is inclined to associate two ideas which have no natural connection, but are only linked together in the unconscious mind of that individual. Tristram backs up his account by relating events and conversations which he could not have witnessed, or quoting from memoranda and diaries, which he has been able to consult. These first chapters contain several important elements: *breaking the rules of a conventional biographical novel, they begin not with the birth of the protagonist, but with his conception. Sterne concentrates the reader's attention not so much on Tristram as on his parents; *the "time" motif is introduced at once through the discrepancy between clock time (the winding) and subjective time (the sexual act) ; *the interruption of the sexual intercourse becomes a metaphor for the whole subsequent structure of the novel, in which the narration is continually interrupted by digressions and digressions-within-digressions like a series of Chinese boxes; *the reader is personally involved and mode to participate through a series of questions and answers (see the final lines of Ch.l and Ch. IV); *the idea that the parents' behaviour at the moment of conception may influence the foetus, although anticipating Freudian theories about the importance of pre-natal and post-natal events, sounds comic in this mixture of medieval humours and pseudo-genetics. Tristram's breeches We should begin, said my father, turning himself half round in bed, and shifting his pillow a little towards my mother's, as he opened the debate - We should begin to think, Mrs. Shandy, of putting this boy into breeches. 1 - We should so, - said my mother. - We defer it, my dear, quoth2 my father, shamefully. - I think we do, Mr. Shandy, - said my mother. - Not but the child looks extremely well, said my father, in his vests and tunics.3 - - He does look very well in them, - replied my mother. - - And for that reason it would be almost a sin, added my father, to take him out of 'em. - - It would so, - said my mother: - But indeed he is growing a very tall lad, - rejoin'd my father. - He is very tall for his age, indeed, - said my mother. - - I can not (making two syllables of it) imagine, quoth my father, who the deuce he takes after. 4 - I cannot conceive, for my life, - said my mother. - Humph!5 - said my father. (The dialogue ceased for a moment.) - I am very short myself, - continued my father, gravely. You are very short, Mr. Shandy, - said my mother. Humph! quoth my father to himself, a second time: in muttering which, he plucked his pillow a little further from my mother's, - and turning about again, there was an end of the debate for three minutes and a half. - When he gets these breeches made, cried my father in a higher tone, he'll look like a beast in 'em. He will be very awkward6 in them at first, replied my mother. - - And 'twill be lucky, if that's the worst on't,7 added my father. It will be very lucky, answered my mother. I suppose, replied my father, - making some pause first, - he'll be exactly like other people's children. — Exactly, said my mother. - - Though I should be sorry for that, added my father: and so the debate stopped again. 1 putting... breeches: mettere i calzoncini a Tristram 2 quoth: said 3 vests and tunics: vestine e sottanine 4 who... after: a chi diavolo somiglia 5 Humph!: Mah! 6 awkward: goffo 7 and 'twill... on't: e sarà una fortuna se il peggio si riduce a questo

- They should be of leather, said my father, turning him8 about again. - They will last him, said my mother, the longest. But he can have no linings9 to 'em, replied my father. - He cannot, said my mother. 'Twere better to have them of fustian,10 quoth my father. Nothing can be better, quoth my mother. - - Except dimity,11 - replied my father: - 'Tis best of all, - replied my mother. - One must not give him his death, however,12 - interrupted my father. By no means, said my mother: - and so the dialogue stood still again. I am resolved, however, quoth my father, breaking silence the fourth time, he shall have no pockets in them. - There is no occasion for any, said my mother. — I mean in his coat and waistcoat,13 - cried my father. - I mean so too, - replied my mother. - Though if he gets a gig or a top14 - Poor souls! it is a crown and a scepter to them, - they should have where to secure it. - Order it as you please, Mr. Shandy, replied my mother. - - But don't you think it right? added my father, pressing the point home to her.15 Perfectly, said my mother, if it pleases you, Mr. Shandy. - - There's for you!16 cried my father, losing temper - Pleases me! - You never will distinguish, Mrs. Shandy, nor shall I ever teach you to do it, betwixt a point of pleasure and a point of convenience. - This was on the Sunday night; - and further this chapter sayeth not.17 8 him: himself 9 linings: fodere 10 fustian: fustagno 11 dimity: percalle 12 One... death: non si deve farlo morire (di freddo) 13 coat and waistcoat: giacca e panciotto 14 a gig... top: un girello o una trottola 15 pressing... her: mettendola con le spalle al muro 16 There's for you!: Ecco some siete! 17 sayeth not: does