Tristram Shandy

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.

I have it sitting unread on my shelf because I'm admittedly intimidated by the length.

>>8196861

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.

>>8196876

Sounds like a book you could read for years and not completely exhaust

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>>8196851
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.

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>>8196897

I prefer this one personally.

One of my fav books too

>>8196876
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.

How much would I lose if I read a translation?

>>8196950

Man, if you can't understand it in its native language just read a translation, shit god damn

>>8196955

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.

>>8196906
I have the Norton Critical Edition, and those assholes printed that picture in monochrome. I didn't even know it was in color.

>>8196851
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

>>8196950

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.

>>8196950
Not too much.

>>8196851
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.

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.

>>8197048
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.

>>8196876
Satyricon is random because some parts are missing tho

>>8197048
Obviously directed by Terry Gilliam

>>8197037

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.

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?

>>8197082

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.

>>8197090

Don Quixote is so incredible

>>8197082
>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.

>>8197088
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.

>>8196897
my favorite page is one where you have to draw your dream mistress

>>8197098
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.

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>>8197118

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.

>>8197067
I'm aware of the film. I think it would be better as a sit-com, because that's what it basically is.

>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.

>>8197130
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.

>>8197088
>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.

these are the best threads but they never survive.

>>8198328
/lit/ doesn't deserve nice things

>>8196897
>I don't understand why it's so rarely discussed here
>It's great
There's your answer

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>>8196851
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.

I will not make my boyfriend wind the clocks at inconvenient times.

>>8199795
I see it discussed all the fucking time here.
Why do you guys feel the need to jerk yourselves off over nothing.

>>8196863
>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.