a cock and bull story
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- Published: 2007-04-06
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trailer for the Michael Winterbottom film Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
| Name | The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman |
|---|---|
| Author | Laurence Sterne |
| Country | Britain |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Ann Ward (vol. 1–2), Dodsley (vol. 3–4), Becket & DeHondt (5–9) |
| Release date | December 1759 (vol. 1, 2) – January 1767 (vol 9) |
| Pages | 9 vol. |
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (or, more briefly, Tristram Shandy) is a novel by Laurence Sterne. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others following over the next 10 years.
As its title suggests, the book is ostensibly Tristram's narration of his life story. But it is one of the central jokes of the novel that he cannot explain anything simply, that he must make explanatory diversions to add context and colour to his tale, to the extent that we do not even reach Tristram's own birth until Volume III.
Consequently, apart from Tristram as narrator, the most familiar and important characters in the book are his father Walter, his mother, his Uncle Toby, Toby's servant Trim, and a supporting cast of popular minor characters, including the chambermaid, Susannah, Doctor Slop, and the parson, Yorick.
Most of the action is concerned with domestic upsets or misunderstandings, which find humour in the opposing temperaments of Walter—splenetic, rational, and somewhat sarcastic—and Uncle Toby, who is gentle, uncomplicated, and a lover of his fellow man.
In between such events, Tristram as narrator finds himself discoursing at length on sexual practices, insults, the influence of one's name, and noses as well as explorations of obstetrics, siege warfare, and philosophy as he struggles to marshal his material and finish the story of his life.
Though Tristram is always present as narrator and commentator, the book contains surprisingly little of his life, only the story of a trip through France and accounts of the four comical mishaps which shaped the course of his life from an early age:
* While still only a homunculus, Tristram's implantation within his mother's womb was disturbed. At the very moment of procreation, his mother asked his father if he had remembered to wind the clock. The distraction and annoyance led to the disruption of the proper balance of humors necessary to conceive a well-favored child.
I ... deny I have gone as far as Swift: he keeps a due distance from Rabelais; I keep a due distance from him.
One of its many passages that Sterne incorporated is the one about "the length and goodness of the nose". The first scene in Tristram Shandy, where Tristram's mother interrupts his father during the sex that leads to Tristram's conception, testifies to Sterne's debt to Rabelais.
Sterne had written an earlier piece called A Rabelaisian Fragment that indicates his familiarity with the work of the French Monk and practicing Doctor. But the earlier work is not needed to see the influence of Rabelais on Tristram Shandy, which is evident by the generally implausible story line and pervasive satirical, comedic portrayals of everyday life.
The novel also makes use of John Locke's theories of empiricism, or the way we assemble what we know of ourselves and our world from the "association of ideas" that come to us from our five senses. Sterne is by turns respectful and satirical of Locke's theories, using the association of ideas to construct characters' "hobby-horses", or whimsical obsessions, that both order and disorder their lives in different ways.
Sterne's engagement with the science and philosophy of his day was extensive, however, and the sections on obstetrics and fortifications, for instance, indicate that he had a grasp of the main issues then current in those fields.
Today, the novel is commonly seen as a forerunner of later novels' use of stream of consciousness and self-reflexive writing. However, current critical opinion is divided on this question. There is a significant body of critical opinion that argues that Tristram Shandy is better understood as an example of an obsolescent literary tradition of "Learned Wit", partly following the contribution of D.W. Jefferson.
The success of Sterne's novel got him an appointment as curate of St. Michael's Church by Lord Fauconberg in Coxwold, Yorkshire, which included the living at (what Sterne called) Shandy Hall. The medieval structure still stands today under the care of the Laurence Sterne Trust after its acquisition in the 1960s. The gardens, which Sterne tended to during his time there, are daily open to visitors.
Tristram Shandy has been adapted as a graphic novel by cartoonist Martin Rowson.
Michael Nyman has been working off and on Tristram Shandy as an opera since 1981. At least five portions of the opera have been publicly performed and one, "Nose-List Song", was recorded in 1985 on the album, The Kiss and Other Movements.
The book was adapted on film in 2006 as A Cock and Bull Story, directed by Michael Winterbottom, written by Frank Cottrell Boyce (credited as Martin Hardy, in a complicated metafictional twist), and starring Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Keeley Hawes, Kelly Macdonald, Naomie Harris, and Gillian Anderson. The movie plays with metatextual levels, being a mockumentary about a supposed movie adaptation of the book, with various actors playing fictionalized versions of themselves.
Spanish writer Javier Marías translated the novel into Spanish. In the prologue he stated his enthusiasm for the novel and deemed his translation "my best novel, by far". It was translated into Italian in 1958 by Antonio Meo, under the title of "La vita e le opinioni di Tristram Shandy, gentiluomo", with a foreword by Carlo Levi. It was translated into Hungarian in 1956 by Győző Határ under the title of "Tristram Shandy úr élete és gondolatai".
Category:1759 novels Category:English novels Category:Novels by Laurence Sterne Category:Satirical books Category:Self-reflexive novels Category:Metafictional works Category:Picaresque novels
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