Tristram Shandy (abridged) by Laurence Sterne

 (Book Review)

I had never heard of this book before, and I don’t think I would have ever have read it except:
A) A friend loaned it to me
B) It was on audio Disc.
The friend who loaned it to me was British, and I from other conversations I’ve had with other Brits out here, I think this work might be much more well known in Britain than in the States. Or than again maybe it’s just me. So I’ll throw it out to the blogosphere. Have any of you heard of/ read “Tristram Shandy” before?

Ordinarily I tend to avoid abridged works like the plague. Even if a work needs abridging, I can’t stand the idea that someone else is making the cuts and I don’t know what I’m missing. So, for example, with a book like “Les Miserables” which contains many long and pointless digressions, I am much happier to have the complete novel in my hands, and then I can decide for myself which parts I want to skim over.

However with audio books sometimes it can’t be helped. I found the following description from the jacket notes pretty interesting:

“Sterne’s visual tricks posed a challenge for the creators of this audio book version. ‘Tristram Shandy’ is after all a typesetter’s worst nightmare: one page is black, another marbled, a third left blank, to give the reader the opportunity to draw the image of his fantasy woman. (Sterne here anticipated the interactive meida of our era, in more senses than one!) Several pages set out an elaborate Latin curse and a parallel English translation. There are a number of wonderfully expressive squiggles too. We have attempted to provide aural equivalents for most of these playful tricks.
It is astonishing that so avante-garde a work should have been published so early in the history of the newly emergent English novel. Contemporary readers were amazed; subsequent students of literature no less so.” [“Tristram Shandy” was published between 1760 and 1767].

I must count myself among those who were so amazed. Reading this book reminded me a lot of my Shakespeare class I took at Calvin. At first it was like reading a foreign language. But then you got used to the words, and pretty soon you were able to read it just like any other book (well, almost anyway).
And then you were like, “Hey, that’s actually pretty funny. I didn’t know people could be that funny back then!” (Assuming you’re reading a comedy of course). “I mean, update the wording a little bit, and these jokes could be part of my favorite prime time sitcom.

At least that’s how Shakespeare was for me. And “Tristram Shandy” progressed much the same way. The first disc I didn’t have a clue what he was going on about. Once I got used to it though, I found it really funny and surprisingly bawdy. After I finished it, I went back and re-listened to the first disc, and enjoyed it much more the second time.

There’s a lot of sexual humor and innuendos, as well as a lot of black humor. Much of the humor seems derived from people acting irrelevant in very tragic situations. The funniest part of the whole book is when his brother dies, and the father is furious because the son didn’t have permission. It reminded me a lot of “Monty Python”.

Link of the Day
The militarization of America's youth is the U.S. military's strategic device for recruitment into the armed forces.

Through authorization by the Supreme Court the military engages youth in middle schools and high schools through the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC). A spokesperson for the Committee Against the Militarization of Youth (CAMY) reports that the Middle School Cadet Corps program proliferates a culture of militarization because it "…indoctrinates boys and girls (ages 11 - 14) to use rifles and play video games." As a result, the program is a discipline of teaching kids violence.
(link of the Day)

Video Version