3 months ago
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Posted On: July 28th 2026, 05:08 pm
Harold Bloom once said, in an interview with the rightly disgraced charlatan of CBS known as Charlie Rose, that all Readers read against the clock. Our lives tick by as we go about (in Vonnegut’s words) farting around. So what we choose to read must be done with consideration of what is the most healing to the soul. These books, in this case OLD books, get an unfair reputation for being boring, humorless, trite and once again boring. Yet, as I’ve come to expect when reading these “great books”. It’s that the best of them are always startlingly fresh in their approach and all encompassing in their humanity, also they’re funny. For the last couple of months, I’ve read the tale of such a person. His name is Tristram Shandy and he is the ingenious invention of the clergyman, libertine, scholar and hobby-horse aficionado Laurence Sterne.
Tristram Shandy is a book about the many odd and funny things that make us human. It is about how we may sometimes feel like we were dealt a poor hand. That something beyond our control has meddled with our fate. In Tristram’s case, it is the very moment he was conceived by his parents. Within the 9 volumes of his autobiography, Tristram is unable to arrive to his main point straightforward. By volume 3 he isn’t yet #born. What do we even learn in that time? Well just about everything else going on in Shandy Hall. The manners and adventures of his father Walter, his Uncle Toby (one of the greatest characters in all of Literature IMO) and the many servants and friends that pop in to say hello and argue over idiosyncratic matters.
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Sterne, via Shandy, is saying that our little pet obsessions, our niches, our “hobby horses” are the defining traits that make us an individual. What gives us our humanity. In Uncle Toby’s case it is the fascination and obsessiveness of siege warfare. How many of us know military history enthusiasts? How often do people online refer to something as their “Roman Empire”?
This, on top of its many experimental pages, is what gives Tristram Shandy its eternal relevancy. As long as they’re are folks around to fall in love, ponder the clouds, eat chestnuts,make water, break wind, conceive
Tristram Shandy is a book about the many odd and funny things that make us human. It is about how we may sometimes feel like we were dealt a poor hand. That something beyond our control has meddled with our fate. In Tristram’s case, it is the very moment he was conceived by his parents. Within the 9 volumes of his autobiography, Tristram is unable to arrive to his main point straightforward. By volume 3 he isn’t yet #born. What do we even learn in that time? Well just about everything else going on in Shandy Hall. The manners and adventures of his father Walter, his Uncle Toby (one of the greatest characters in all of Literature IMO) and the many servants and friends that pop in to say hello and argue over idiosyncratic matters.
SWIPE TO READ MORE
Sterne, via Shandy, is saying that our little pet obsessions, our niches, our “hobby horses” are the defining traits that make us an individual. What gives us our humanity. In Uncle Toby’s case it is the fascination and obsessiveness of siege warfare. How many of us know military history enthusiasts? How often do people online refer to something as their “Roman Empire”?
This, on top of its many experimental pages, is what gives Tristram Shandy its eternal relevancy. As long as they’re are folks around to fall in love, ponder the clouds, eat chestnuts,make water, break wind, conceive
Comments (7)
3 months agogeoffthehuman
Stumbled across an old paperback copy of this book in a local used bookstore a few months back and bought it because it sounded cool. Glad to know I picked up an underrated gem.
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