The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne (pdf e book reader txt) š
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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, a fictional autobiography of the eponymous narrator, containsāperhaps surprisinglyālittle 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. Sterneās 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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Precisely in this situation, did these things stand for five years; that is, from the demolition of Dunkirk in the year 13, to the latter end of my uncle Tobyās campaign in the year 18, which was about six or seven weeks before the time Iām speaking of.ā āøŗā When Trim, as his custom was, after he had put my uncle Toby to bed, going down one moonshiny night to see that everything was right at his fortificationsā āøŗā in the lane separated from the bowling-green with flowering shrubs and hollyā āhe espied his Bridget.
As the corporal thought there was nothing in the world so well worth showing as the glorious works which he and my uncle Toby had made, Trim courteously and gallantly took her by the hand, and led her in: this was not done so privately, but that the foul-mouthād trumpet of Fame carried it from ear to ear, till at length it reachād my fatherās, with this untoward circumstance along with it, that my uncle Tobyās curious drawbridge, constructed and painted after the Dutch fashion, and which went quite across the ditchā āwas broke down, and somehow or other crushed all to pieces that very night.
My father, as you have observed, had no great esteem for my uncle Tobyās hobbyhorse, he thought it the most ridiculous horse that ever gentleman mounted; and indeed unless my uncle Toby vexed him about it, could never think of it once, without smiling at itā āøŗā so that it could never get lame or happen any mischance, but it tickled my fatherās imagination beyond measure; but this being an accident much more to his humour than any one which had yet befallān it, it proved an inexhaustible fund of entertainment to him.ā āøŗā Wellā āøŗā but dear Toby! my father would say, do tell me seriously how this affair of the bridge happened.ā āøŗā How can you tease me so much about it? my uncle Toby would replyā āI have told it you twenty times, word for word as Trim told it me.ā āPrithee, how was it then, corporal? my father would cry, turning to Trim.ā āIt was a mere misfortune, anā please your honour;ā āøŗā I was showing Mrs. Bridget our fortifications, and in going too near the edge of the fosse, I unfortunately slippād inā āøŗā Very well, Trim! my father would cryā āøŗ(smiling mysteriously, and giving a nodā ābut without interrupting him)ā āøŗā and being linkād fast, anā please your honour, arm in arm with Mrs. Bridget, I draggād her after me, by means of which she fell backwards soss against the bridgeā āøŗā and Trimās foot (my uncle Toby would cry, taking the story out of his mouth) getting into the cuvette, he tumbled full against the bridge too.ā āIt was a thousand to one, my uncle Toby would add, that the poor fellow did not break his leg.ā āø»Ay truly, my father would sayā āøŗā a limb is soon broke, brother Toby, in such encounters.ā āøŗā And so, anā please your honour, the bridge, which your honour knows was a very slight one, was broke down betwixt us, and splintered all to pieces.
At other times, but especially when my uncle Toby was so unfortunate as to say a syllable about cannons, bombs, or petardsā āmy father would exhaust all the stores of his eloquence (which indeed were very great) in a panegyric upon the battering-rams of the ancientsā āthe vinea which Alexander made use of at the siege of Troy.ā āHe would tell my uncle Toby of the catapultƦ of the Syrians, which threw such monstrous stones so many hundred feet, and shook the strongest bulwarks from their very foundation:ā āhe would go on and describe the wonderful mechanism of the ballista which Marcellinus makes so much rout about!ā āthe terrible effects of the pyroboli, which cast fire;ā āøŗā the danger of the terebra and scorpio, which cast javelins.ā āøŗā But what are these, would he say, to the destructive machinery of corporal Trim?ā āøŗā Believe me, brother Toby, no bridge, or bastion, or sally-port, that ever was constructed in this world, can hold out against such artillery.
My uncle Toby would never attempt any defence against the force of this ridicule, but that of redoubling the vehemence of smoaking his pipe; in doing which, he raised so dense a vapour one night after supper, that it set my father, who was a little phthisical, into a suffocating fit of violent coughing: my uncle Toby leapād up without feeling the pain upon his groinā āand, with infinite pity, stood beside his brotherās chair, tapping his back with one hand, and holding his head with the other, and from time to time wiping his eyes with a clean cambrick handkerchief, which he pulled out of his pocket.ā āøŗā The affectionate and endearing manner in which my uncle Toby did these little officesā ācut my father throā his reins, for the pain he had just been giving him.ā āøŗā May my brains be knockād out with a battering-ram or a catapulta, I care not which, quoth my father to himselfā āif ever I insult this worthy soul more!
XXVThe drawbridge being held irreparable, Trim was ordered directly to set about anotherā āø»but not upon the same model: for cardinal Alberoniās intrigues at that time being discovered, and my uncle Toby rightly foreseeing that a flame would inevitably break out betwixt Spain and the Empire, and that the operations of the ensuing campaign must in all likelihood be either in Naples or Sicilyā āøŗā he determined upon an Italian bridgeā ā(my uncle Toby, by the by, was not far out of his conjectures)ā āøŗā but my father, who was infinitely the better politician, and took the lead as far of my uncle Toby in the cabinet, as my uncle Toby took it of him in the fieldā āø»convinced him, that if the king of Spain and the Emperor went together by the ears, England and France and Holland must, by force of their pre-engagements,
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