I'm not even done but it's definitely going to be one of my favorite books of all time. I haven't laughed out loud so many times while reading since I first read Confederacy of Dunces, probably.
It is a hard book to describe though. The "plot" progresses in a spiral fashion; or maybe concentric circles is a better metaphor. A character will be interrupted mid-sentence by a digression on the character's personality, history, thoughts, etc. Or by a theological dispute, or a philosophical argument, or a fine grammatical point, all tenuously connected with whatever has been interrupted, or with what follows the interruption; or a Dedication, offered by the author for sale to anyone who wants it, with the promise it will be put in its proper place, with the purchaser's name, on the next edition, etc. etc.
It starts not with the hero's birth but with the unfortunate circumstances of his conception, and it is well into the 3rd volume of 9 before you see him born.
Stylistically it's written in what I call in my head (but not outloud because it sounds faggy and is probably inaccurate) the "breathless style" - like Burton, heaps of clauses, long and broken sentences.
It's the sort of book that doesn't just make you laugh. It actually produces joy.
Mason Morris
I intend to read it here in the coming months. Schopenhauer thought it was one of the four greatest novels written, which is quite a weighty recommendation to me.
Landon King
I have it sitting unread on my shelf because I'm admittedly intimidated by the length.
Noah Fisher
Yeah man you can find respectable critics/authors who can't stand it, too, though.
The most similar work I can think of is actually Petronius' Satyricon, because of the extremely digressive style, the way he both parodies and exults in these extravagant flourishes of pedantry, mixed seemingly indiscriminately with raunchy bathos and physical humor. When I reread a series of chapters, though, I see how there is a higher structure in the author's mind, and the digressive and narrative sections fit together as well as Russian dolls.
I do wish I had an edition with better notes. I forget what I have (not at home now) but it will have a gloss on something you could've googled if you didn't know it, like the name Varro, but very few explanations of the darker points that aren't anchored in some proper name.
Hunter Rodriguez
Sounds like a book you could read for years and not completely exhaust
Noah Butler
It's great, I don't understand why it's so rarely discussed here, like it's some obscure foreign book.
Pic related, the best page of the novel.
Henry Evans
I prefer this one personally.
Lincoln Hall
One of my fav books too
Christopher Long
Another similar work are the five novels of Rabelais, more so than the Satyricon who's more random and linear at the same time.
Some things in Tristram Shandy shouldn't be explained with tedious notes, and are better when mystery-clad:
>In all reason, quoth the king — she will christen him Francis, or Henry, or Lewis, or some name that she knows will be agreeable to us. Your majesty is deceived, replied the minister — I have this hour received a dispatch from our resident, with the determination of the republic on that point also. — And what name has the republick fixed upon for the Dauphin? — Shadrach, Mesech, Abed-nego, replied the minister. — By Saint Peter’s girdle, I will have nothing to do with the Swiss, cried Francis the First, pulling up his breeches and walking hastily across the floor.
Nicholas Howard
How much would I lose if I read a translation?
Jeremiah Brown
Man, if you can't understand it in its native language just read a translation, shit god damn
Daniel Wilson
I've read +500 pages non-fiction books in English before, I'm not sure if I can pull it off with a 18th century heavy stylized novel though.
Cameron Russell
I have the Norton Critical Edition, and those assholes printed that picture in monochrome. I didn't even know it was in color.
I enjoyed it. It felt weirdly like a pomo novel, with the weird digressions and "gags" (getting circumcised while peeing out the window, for instance).
It's an awful lot to digest, though. I'll have to read it again sometime.
>can't hear hobbyhorse without thinking of this book
Jose Garcia
With Shandy? Probably not that much. IMO all of the modern, western Euro languages (German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, English, etc.) are so similar that ceteris paribus any prose work can be pretty well translated into any of the others.
I'm not saying there's not a big difference between the languages, there's are big differences between all languages, but the differences between these languages are comparatively small, compared to reading in one of them, say, something originally in Arabic, or Russian, or Latin, or Hindi, or Chinese.
Julian Carter
Not too much.
Hudson Richardson
i tried a few years back and i find it more difficult than any other book i've ever read, aside from what i've read of finnegans wake. i think it's the plot structure.
Nathan Myers
Call me a philistine if you Will, but I think Shandy could Be adapted into a god-tier sit-com. Sort of like Seinfeld, but elder god witty stylee.
Carson Sanders
There's a movie about trying to film Tristram as an unfilmable novel. It's called A Cock and Bull Story, but it's a bit more postmodern/Sterne than Seinfeld. It does have Steve Coogan in it though so still sit com related, just a different demographic.
Connor Howard
Satyricon is random because some parts are missing tho
James Clark
Obviously directed by Terry Gilliam
Aiden Evans
I re-read chapters or flip backwards to make such I grasp the thread a lot more often but he's nowhere near as hard to understand for me as, say, At Swim-Two-Birds.
Another Irish novel there. And Sterne himself was born in Ireland.
Verily from Táin Bó Cúailnge in ??? to Virgil Maro in the 6th century to Joyce in the 20th, Ireland has produced the greatest trolls in all the literature of the world.
Jason Reyes
I'm going to be reading this, Don Quixote, (for the second time) Don Juan, Orlando Furioso, Jerusalem Delivered, and Gargantua and Pantagruel over the next couple of months, how happy am i?
Kevin Rodriguez
Well I know that the lacunae are all marked, it's still pretty damn random.
Apuleius is another antient author who's pretty lolrandumz!!! in a somewhat similar way to Sterne.
Jackson Peterson
Don Quixote is so incredible
Zachary Harris
>some parts
You mean 9/10th of the novel (who was 2,000-page long).
But by "random", I mean the way poetry, or discussions on whatever subject, suddenly pop up in the Satyricon with no clear relation with what's going on. That's the charm of Petronius.
Ian Morgan
fucking agreed
hey have you guys seen that there's progress on the terry gilliam Don Quixote film? hope he gets to make it before he dies.
Eli Cox
my favorite page is one where you have to draw your dream mistress
Hudson Jenkins
yeah, the first time i read it, it was abridged, unfortunately, this time i have smolett's translation as well as grossmans if i need a more modern take. i'm very excited to get back into it as i feel i've matured enough for it to be new all over again for me.
Leo Torres
Right on, man. Easton Press has a big edition of it in the Ormsby translation with shit loads of notes at the end of every chapter, that's going to be the one I re-read later on this year, I think.
Camden Howard
I'm aware of the film. I think it would be better as a sit-com, because that's what it basically is.
Jonathan Lee
>The first thirty pages, said my father, turning over the leaves, -- are a little dry; and as they are not closely connected with the subject, -- for the present we'll pass them by: 'tis a prefatory introduction, continued my father, or an introductory preface (for I am not determined which name to give it) upon political or civil government; the foundation of which being laid in the first conjunction betwixt male and female, for procreation of the species-- I was insensibly led into it.--'Twas natural, said Yorick.
Sterne, master of that hybrid trope, the pleonasmic chiasmus.
Jacob Robinson
Steven Coogan was kind of the British sit com equivalent of Seinfeld around the same time. You might like the movie if you give it a chance.
Joseph Nelson
>he's nowhere near as hard to understand for me as, say, At Swim-Two-Birds. This one always trolls me. At Swim makes perfect sense even in its nonsense words. Burgess' made up words are a slightly higher order of hard to grasp for me. I don't know if it's because I'm Irish and so the semiotic style just lines up easier, or if these books are actually hard even with background knowledge. I laughed my way through At Swim though like it was written by someone making jokes at high school student level though.
>trolls Flann best troll. He got letters to the editor about his column banned because he sent the editor so many troll letters, the editor was afraid to print any in case he was actually printing one of Flann's letters to himself.
Parker Johnson
these are the best threads but they never survive.
Xavier Morris
Veeky Forums doesn't deserve nice things
Blake Lopez
>I don't understand why it's so rarely discussed here >It's great There's your answer
Jayden Jenkins
God, just those opening paragraphs alone about winding the clock are gold! Unfortunately I left my modern library edition at my girlfriend's house in England when I visited last. I'll start a thread about it this summer after I retrieve it.
Jaxson Morales
I will not make my boyfriend wind the clocks at inconvenient times.
Nathaniel Hughes
I see it discussed all the fucking time here. Why do you guys feel the need to jerk yourselves off over nothing.
Juan Campbell
>I'm admittedly intimidated by the length. Make sure your mind is well lubricated and take it in slowly. It's always a mistake to just thrust right in, especially at that size.