The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne (pdf e book reader txt) đ
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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, a fictional autobiography of the eponymous narrator, containsâperhaps surprisinglyâlittle about either his life or opinions, but what it does have is a meandering journey through the adventures of his close family and their associates. The book is famous for being more about the explanatory diversions and rabbit-holes that the narrator takes us down than the actual happenings he set out to describe, but in doing so he paints a vivid picture of the players and their personal stories.
Published two volumes at a time over the course of eight years, Tristram Shandy was an immediate commercial success although not without some confusion among critics. Sterneâs exploration of form that pushed at the contemporary limits of what could be called a novel has been hugely influential, garnering admirers as varied as Marx, Schopenhauer, Joyce, Woolf and Rushdie. The book has been translated into many other languages and adapted for the stage, radio, and film.
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- Author: Laurence Sterne
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âShow me the man, who knows what life is, who dreads it, and Iâll show thee a prisoner who dreads his liberty.â
Is it not better, my dear brother Toby, (for markâ âour appetites are but diseases)â âis it not better not to hunger at all, than to eat?â ânot to thirst, than to take physic to cure it?
Is it not better to be freed from cares and agues, from love and melancholy, and the other hot and cold fits of life, than, like a galled traveller, who comes weary to his inn, to be bound to begin his journey afresh?
There is no terrour, brother Toby, in its looks, but what it borrows from groans and convulsionsâ âand the blowing of noses and the wiping away of tears with the bottoms of curtains, in a dying manâs room.â âStrip it of these, what is it?â ââTis better in battle than in bed, said my uncle Toby.â âTake away its herses, its mutes, and its mourning,â âits plumes, scutcheons, and other mechanic aidsâ âWhat is it?â âžșâ Better in battle! continued my father, smiling, for he had absolutely forgot my brother Bobbyâ ââtis terrible no wayâ âfor consider, brother Toby,â âwhen we areâ âdeath is not;â âand when death isâ âwe are not. My uncle Toby laid down his pipe to consider the proposition; my fatherâs eloquence was too rapid to stay for any manâ âaway it went,â âand hurried my uncle Tobyâs ideas along with it.â âžșâ
For this reason, continued my father, âtis worthy to recollect how little alteration, in great men, the approaches of death have made.â âVespasian died in a jest upon his close-stoolâ âGalba with a sentenceâ âSeptimus Severus in a dispatchâ âTiberius in dissimulation, and Caesar Augustus in a compliment.â âI hope âtwas a sincere oneâ âquoth my uncle Toby.
ââTwas to his wife,â âsaid my father.
IVâžșâ And lastlyâ âfor all the choice anecdotes which history can produce of this matter, continued my father,â âthis, like the gilded dome which covers in the fabricâ âcrowns all.â â
âTis of Cornelius Gallus, the prĂŠtorâ âwhich, I dare say, brother Toby, you have read,â âI dare say I have not, replied my uncle.â âžșâ He died, said my father, as ***************â âAnd if it was with his wife, said my uncle Tobyâ âthere could be no hurt in itâ âThatâs more than I knowâ âreplied my father.
VMy mother was going very gingerly in the dark along the passage which led to the parlour, as my uncle Toby pronounced the word wife.â ââTis a shrill penetrating sound of itself, and Obadiah had helped it by leaving the door a little ajar, so that my mother heard enough of it to imagine herself the subject of the conversation; so laying the edge of her finger across her two lipsâ âholding in her breath, and bending her head a little downwards, with a twist of her neckâ â(not towards the door, but from it, by which means her ear was brought to the chink)â âshe listened with all her powers:â âžșâ the listening slave, with the Goddess of Silence at his back, could not have given a finer thought for an intaglio.
In this attitude I am determined to let her stand for five minutes: till I bring up the affairs of the kitchen (as Rapin does those of the church) to the same period.
VIThough in one sense, our family was certainly a simple machine, as it consisted of a few wheels; yet there was thus much to be said for it, that these wheels were set in motion by so many different springs, and acted one upon the other from such a variety of strange principles and impulsesâ âžșâ that though it was a simple machine, it had all the honour and advantages of a complex one,â âžșâ and a number of as odd movements within it, as ever were beheld in the inside of a Dutch silk-mill.
Amongst these there was one, I am going to speak of, in which, perhaps, it was not altogether so singular, as in many others; and it was this, that whatever motion, debate, harangue, dialogue, project, or dissertation, was going forwards in the parlour, there was generally another at the same time, and upon the same subject, running parallel along with it in the kitchen.
Now to bring this about, whenever an extraordinary message, or letter, was delivered in the parlourâ âor a discourse suspended till a servant went outâ âor the lines of discontent were observed to hang upon the brows of my father or motherâ âor, in short, when anything was supposed to be upon the tapis worth knowing or listening to, âtwas the rule to leave the door, not absolutely shut, but somewhat ajarâ âas it stands just now,â âwhich, under covert of the bad hinge (and that possibly might be one of the many reasons why it was never mended), it was not difficult to manage; by which means, in all these cases, a passage was generally left, not indeed as wide as the Dardanelles, but wide enough, for all that, to carry on as much of this windward trade, as was sufficient to save my father the trouble of governing his house;â âmy mother at this moment stands profiting by it.â âObadiah did the same thing, as soon as he had left the letter upon the table which brought the news of my brotherâs death, so that before my father had well got over his surprise, and entered upon this harangue,â âhad Trim got upon his legs, to speak his sentiments upon the subject.
A curious observer of nature, had he been worth the inventory of all Jobâs stockâ âthough by the by, your curious observers are seldom worth a groatâ âwould have given the half of it, to have heard Corporal Trim and my father, two orators so contrasted by nature and education, haranguing over the same bier.
My fatherâ âa man of deep readingâ âprompt memoryâ âwith Cato, and Seneca, and Epictetus, at his fingers ends.â â
The corporalâ âwith nothingâ âto rememberâ âof no deeper reading than his muster-rollâ âor greater names at his fingers end, than the contents of it.
The one proceeding from period to
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