Recommendations from our site
“It’s ostensibly an (auto)biography but it refuses ever to get to the life of the subject. The birth of Tristram Shandy and his actual development as an adult are constantly being hijacked by stories about his parents, about his uncle, Toby, who’s a very charismatic veteran from a war in Europe. There’s also Toby’s servant, the Corporal Trim, who’s a funny character, and the local obstetrician, Dr Slop. There’s Susannah, the maidservant, and Parson Yorick, who’s a very famous, colourful character. There are endless digressions with lots of sex jokes, like when Tristram gets an accidental circumcision after a window sash falls on him when he’s a child. It was denounced as highly scandalous and shocking at the time, including by Samuel Johnson, who famously said, ‘nothing so odd will do long’.” Read more...
Sophie Gee, Literary Scholar
“Including De nasis on my list was, I now realise, my way of getting in Laurence Sterne’s novel Tristam Shandy, which not only was and continues to be important to me, but more importantly is a kind of personal talisman; when the right occasion calls for it, like now, I need it to hand.” Read more...
