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This bizarre, generous and idiosyncratic book was written in the 18th Century, but many of its devices seem entirely modern -- not telling things in order, starting with conception rather than birth (and debating at length whether spermatozoa were human and ought to be baptised...), joking with the reader about the book itself rather than the story within it -- there's a completely black page, others are censored, etc, and it is with good reason that it's been called the first modern novel (even if it's none of those three things).

Needless to say, the reader learns practically nothing about the life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, and the treatment is anything but gentlemanly. Sterne was a clergyman, which makes the bawdiness all the more surprising. But he is always sympathetic to human weakness, and that is perhaps what makes Sterne great, in just the same way that Homer shows pity even for the young Trojans (the enemy) before they die. Extraordinary and uplifting.

© Ian Alexander 2004