ABSTRACT
If that was Laurence Sterne, who was Tristram Shandy? Tristram is Sterne's fictional alter ego and the book is a sort of spoof autobiography. But it is not like any other autobiography you have ever read, mainly because of the terrible struggles Tristram has in getting his story told. As he complains at one point, T have been at it these six weeks, making all the speed I possibly could - and am not yet born.' In fact, it is not until volume three (after a prolonged literary labour and a disastrous forceps delivery) that he finally emerges from the womb. The reason for this delay is that Tristram believes in beginning at the begin ning and omitting none of the details. The details include every idea that occurs to him during the process of telling the story and all the associated ideas that these throw up. The author (whether he is Sterne or Tristram is not quite clear) also keeps stopping to engage the reader in conversation, which is one of the things which make you feel that, although the writer died over 200 years ago, he is alive and well, looking over your shoulder and reading your mind while you read his book. He keeps begging us to be patient with his all-inclusive style and to let him tell his story in his own way. (We family doctors have heard that before, somewhere.) And, like many of our patients, he goes in for lengthy digressions on all manner of subjects. Digressions are very important in this book and Sterne makes no apology for them. On the contrary, 'Digressions', he says 'incontestably are the sunshine, they are the life, the soul of reading; take them out of this book for instance and you may as well take the book along with them.'
