The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne (pdf e book reader txt) 📕
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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, a fictional autobiography of the eponymous narrator, contains—perhaps surprisingly—little 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. Sterne’s 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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The women would set them up; and when they had done, they would dance round them (and the men for company) till they were all blind.
The wife of the chaise-vamper stepp’d in, I told you, to take the papilliotes from off her hair⸺the toilet stands still for no man⸺so she jerk’d off her cap, to begin with them as she open’d the door, in doing which, one of them fell upon the ground⸺I instantly saw it was my own writing⸺
O Seigneur! cried I—you have got all my remarks upon your head, Madam!⸺J’en suis bien mortifiée, said she⸺’tis well, thinks I, they have stuck there—for could they have gone deeper, they would have made such confusion in a French woman’s noddle—She had better have gone with it unfrizled, to the day of eternity.
Tenez—said she—so without any idea of the nature of my suffering, she took them from her curls, and put them gravely one by one into my hat⸺one was twisted this way⸺another twisted that⸺ey! by my faith; and when they are published, quoth I,⸺
They will be worse twisted still.
XXXIXAnd now for Lippius’s clock! said I, with the air of a man, who had got thro’ all his difficulties⸺nothing can prevent us seeing that, and the Chinese history, etc., except the time, said François⸺for ’tis almost eleven—Then we must speed the faster, said I, striding it away to the cathedral.
I cannot say, in my heart, that it gave me any concern in being told by one of the minor canons, as I was entering the west door,—That Lippius’s great clock was all out of joints, and had not gone for some years⸺It will give me the more time, thought I, to peruse the Chinese history; and besides I shall be able to give the world a better account of the clock in its decay, than I could have done in its flourishing condition⸺
⸺And so away I posted to the college of the Jesuits.
Now it is with the project of getting a peep at the history of China in Chinese characters—as with many others I could mention, which strike the fancy only at a distance; for as I came nearer and nearer to the point—my blood cool’d—the freak gradually went off, till at length I would not have given a cherrystone to have it gratified⸻The truth was, my time was short, and my heart was at the Tomb of the Lovers⸺I wish to God, said I, as I got the rapper in my hand, that the key of the library may be but lost; it fell out as well⸻
For all the Jesuits had got the cholic—and to that degree, as never was known in the memory of the oldest practitioner.
XLAs I knew the geography of the Tomb of the Lovers, as well as if I had lived twenty years in Lyons, namely, that it was upon the turning of my right hand, just without the gate, leading to the Fauxbourg de Vaise⸺I dispatched François to the boat, that I might pay the homage I so long ow’d it, without a witness of my weakness—I walk’d with all imaginable joy towards the place⸺when I saw the gate which intercepted the tomb, my heart glowed within me⸺
—Tender and faithful spirits! cried I, addressing myself to Amandus and Amanda—long—long have I tarried to drop this tear upon your tomb⸻I come⸻I come⸻
When I came—there was no tomb to drop it upon.
What would I have given for my uncle Toby, to have whistled Lillabullero!
XLINo matter how, or in what mood—but I flew from the tomb of the lovers—or rather I did not fly from it—(for there was no such thing existing) and just got time enough to the boat to save my passage;—and ere I had sailed a hundred yards, the Rhône and the Saôn met together, and carried me down merrily betwixt them.
But I have described this voyage down the Rhône, before I made it⸺
⸺So now I am at Avignon, and as there is nothing to see but the old house, in which the duke of Ormond resided, and nothing to stop me but a short remark upon the place, in three minutes you will see me crossing the bridge upon a mule, with François upon a horse with my portmanteau behind him, and the owner of both, striding the way before us, with a long gun upon his shoulder, and a sword under his arm, lest peradventure we should run away with his cattle. Had you seen my breeches in entering Avignon,⸺Though you’d have seen them better, I think, as I mounted—you would not have thought the precaution amiss, or found in your heart to have taken it in dudgeon; for my own part, I took it most kindly; and determined to make him a present of them, when we got to the end of our journey, for the trouble they had put him to, of arming himself at all points against them.
Before I go further, let me get rid of my remark upon Avignon, which is this: That I think it wrong, merely because a man’s hat has been blown off his head by chance the first night he comes to Avignon,⸺that he should therefore say, “Avignon is more subject to high winds than any town in all France:” for which reason I laid no stress upon the accident till I had enquired of the master of the inn about it, who telling me seriously it was so⸺and hearing, moreover, the windiness of Avignon spoke of in the country about as a proverb⸺I set it down, merely to ask the learned what can be the cause⸺the consequence I saw—for they are all Dukes, Marquisses, and Counts, there⸺the duce a Baron, in all Avignon⸺so that there is scarce any talking to them on a windy day.
Prithee, friend, said I, take hold of my mule for a moment⸺for I wanted to pull off one of my jackboots, which hurt my heel—the man was standing quite idle at the door of
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