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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by [Laurence Sterne]

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Laurence Sterne

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Kindle Edition

by Laurence Sterne (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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The bawdy and satirical eighteenth-century novel: “A comic tour de force whose humor, of observation and incident, explodes on to every page” (The Guardian, “The 100 Best Novels”).

Written in 1759 and published in nine volumes, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman was a literary sensation. An experimental, fictional autobiography, it broke the traditional rules of chronological storytelling. Tristram tells his tale his own way, peppering in opinions and random anecdotes throughout the events of his life—starting from his almost interrupted conception. The novel features such memorable characters as Tristram’s parents, his tender uncle Toby, the “man-midwife” Dr. Slop, and pastor Yorick.

“Tristram Shandy and its author, Laurence Sterne, are so intensely modern in mood and attitude, so profanely alert to the nuances of the human comedy, and so engaged with the narrative potentiality of the genre that it comes as something of a shock to discover that the novel was published during the seven years war.” —The Guardian, “The 100 Best Novels”

Print length

799 pages
Language

English
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On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Open Road Media
Publication date

April 21, 2020
File size

3826 KB
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Laurence Sterne
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Sterne was the greatest impressionist of his time." - Joseph Conrad --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Laurence Sterne --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B087439FGN
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media (April 21, 2020)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 21, 2020
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3826 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 799 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #629,654 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #530 in Classic British & Irish Fiction
- #1,275 in Satire Fiction
- #1,729 in Classic Literary Fiction

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52 ratings

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Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5

52 global ratings

5 star		58%
4 star		13%
3 star		8%
2 star		6%
1 star		15%

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Robert W. Piedrahita

Wild, idiosyncratic, charming, delightful book. The ...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 21, 2015

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Wild, idiosyncratic, charming, delightful book. The digressions were fascinating with the author returning, chapters later, to the point he wished to make. A rambunctious read.

2 people found this helpful

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drollere

innovative, anarchic novel

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 2, 2016

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this three volume original printing of the florida edition of "Tristram Shandy" is considered the definitive text. if the price doesn't appeal and your interest in the book is casual, you can find the text as a penguin paperback.

this is one among the most revolutionary works of fiction ever written. it is still, today, an enormously innovative book. as a story it is mere "cock and bull" -- it says so in the last sentence -- but as writing it is over the top anarchic. if there exists any rule of fiction, or of rhetoric, or of writing, or of reader expectations, or chronology or description, then sterne goes out of his way to violate, disappoint, parody, misuse or flout it. i had to read over a quarter of the book before i realized that the writer was much more intelligent than i was giving him credit for. initially there is the confusing distance of language and historical references and patron dedications and such that makes you wonder, "is that supposed to be funny?", but i stopped sneezing at the book when i realized the author was continually throwing pepper in my face, and laughing while doing so.

there is a precedent for TS in the gargantuan humor of rabelais, and in the rabelaisian method of distorting narrative consistency and scale; toby's military models might easily be the work of a giant. and there's a transparent tribute to cervantes in the character of dr. slop, riding around on a small horse like sancho panza on his mule.

but a huge amount of the content of the book is in the orthography of font faces and dashes and rows of asterisks, blank pages or marbled pages or entirely black pages, squiggly lines and chapters one sentence long. the work was originally published as eight volumes with separate chapter numbering in each; it has typically been republished with modernized spelling and punctuation, loosely reproduced orthography, with chapters numbered continuously. all this brings into focus that a lot of sterne's innovations are technical, and he was a scrupulous proofreader of every first edition.

the florida edition restores all of that, or claims to, and my only complaint about the volume 3 of notes is that it came in a different binding, a uniform coarse blue cloth rather than leather spine and decorative hard cover. i've accepted it as a happenstance example of life's whimsical anarchy, mr. sterne would understand.

22 people found this helpful

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Dated, mostly incomprehensible, TORTUROUS

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 31, 2017

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You either love it or hate it, apparently. As for me, is there some way I can get back the hours I spent reading this awful...er, OFFAL? Let me save you who may be of like mind some trouble: Tristram DIGRESSES and DIGRESSES and DIGRESSES (mostly about trivialities) through the entire book. He addresses you, the reader, directly. He’s irreverent, a smart aleck. He plays fast and loose with narrative structure and rules (some chapters are blank, others left out). (If I were to get a very long letter like this from a friend, I’d throw it in the fireplace after about 10 minutes of getting no relevant information.) But even so, if it all added up to something meaningful or profound I'd cheer- unfortunately, for me it doesn't. Shandy's life and those of his characters are all meaningless and absurd, and not in a good way, but in a "please shoot me and put me out of my misery" kind of way (me along with the hapless characters).

BTW, I read the book after seeing Michael Winterbottom's supposedly clever filming of this novel (a film within a film), curious as to what he may have left out. Actually, he invented several scenes, ideas that weren't even in the book (e.g., reference to Ivan Pavlov and conditioning of dogs, which didn't happen until the 20th century)- disingenuous to say the least. What little interest he managed to engender, IMO had to do with elements unrelated to the book (more about the machinations of making a movie, along with sexual innuendo that he added). The main thrust of the film was the rivalry between actors, which had no correlate in the book. I went to a lot of trouble... saw a mediocre movie and read an awful book to find this out (because I'm a fan of the series The Trip , with the same stars and director, that's why).

Anyway, for me the book contained no bittersweetness, there was no pathos, there wasn’t even any ribald [English] "nudge-nudge-wink-wink", as suggested in the film. For me, no whimsy, irony, humor (not once did I laugh), no clever wordplay (little that's comprehensible in this century, anyway, ditto with the cultural references), nada. For that brand of delightful absurdity, I’d rather re-read Lewis Carroll.

I'm guessing back in the mid-1700's, in a highly religious and repressive society, it was flabbergasting to hear someone say outright that events were random, a matter of chance- why bother to strive for anything (while being mildly sexually suggestive- Ooh!!). Today, ho-hum. One thing reading this will do for you is afford you the opportunity to say casually- "By the way, have you read... Tristram Shandy? WHAT a roller coaster ride! SO post modern!" Yeah right. Maybe of interest to those who love the deconstruction of writing conventions, or to people steeped in the history of the period (though I'm a fan of Jane Austen, from about the same period, and I hated it). $2 for the Kindle version won't break the bank, but I suggest you not shell out bigger bucks for a hard copy until you've at least "had a look inside" the Kindle version and seen if it's YOUR cup of tea.

11 people found this helpful

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Allen R. Levy

A Great Book---You Will Laugh

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 6, 2014

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A wonderful, funny book, as Tristram wants to share his life and opinions with us, but somehow always gets sidetracked into talking about his Uncle Toby, the strange ideas of his father, whiskers, window sashes, etc., so that he makes very little progress. The great thing about the book is that it is a very human document, as Sterne forgives all of his characters (even the critics of his book) for their silly ideas, misconceptions, obsessions----their hobby horses---so that "Tristram Shandy" turns out to be a very generous book, full of a kind of jocular compassion. In one wonderful passage (one among many) Sterne points out that the book is made to stimulate jollity, not bile (anger)......and it certainly does. Highly recommended.

13 people found this helpful

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Orson Welles

One of the greatest novels of all time

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 21, 2018

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I've taught it in senior English classes at UF twice. It's worth it.

2 people found this helpful

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Emma Corby

Awful book design.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 18, 2021

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DO NOT buy this version of the book. Piece of crap. The font is tiny (size 8 at largest), and instead of the original NINE volumes, this book is incorrectly divided into only FIVE. All of the text is there, but whoever thought there was a Chapter 26 in Volume 1 (etc. for the rest of the volumes as well) was horribly wrong. Designing books is not that hard, and it seems like somebody gave the job to a four year old instead of doing it themselves. Very disappointed - had to buy a different version to save my poor eyes from straining to see the tiny text.

One person found this helpful

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Alexander Laws

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 5, 2018

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Included the proper "visual syntax" for a full experience.

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Eleanor Wye

This is one of my favourite books. There is nothing else remotely like it ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 8, 2015

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This is one of my favourite books. There is nothing else remotely like it - it just has to be read...

It influenced other much later writers (such as James Joyce) so clearly I'm not alone

One person found this helpful

Piero Ponticelli

Divertente

Reviewed in Italy 🇮🇹 on November 3, 2021

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L'ho preso perché lo confronto con la versione italiana e confronto le due edizioni

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darou

image rather than text, cannot be read!

Reviewed in France 🇫🇷 on November 30, 2022

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The characters are minuscule, the book can hardly be read. This is because each page is actually an image not text ! One could zoom in principle but very inconvenient. Cannot underline, get translation etc...
I have never seen anything like that.

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