Tristram Shandy

Ito ang nabunot kong nobela na kailangang basahin para sa worlit2 class. Hanggang ngayon, medyo alangan pa rin ako sa pagbabasa nito, kahit na totoong nakakatawa siya( specifically, si Mr. Shandy & Uncle Toby):

Learned men, brother Toby, don't write dialogues upon long noses for nothing.--I'll study the mystic and the allegoric sense;--here is some room to turn a man's self in, brother.

My father read on.--

Now, I find it needful to inform your Reverences and Worships that besides the many nautical uses of long noses enumerated by Erasmus, the dialogist affirmeth that a long nose is not without its domestic conveniences also, for that in a case of distress,--and for want of a pair of bellows, it will do excellently well, ad excitandum focum (to stir up the fire).

Nature had been prodigal in her gifts to my father beyond measure, and had sown the seeds of verbal criticism as deep within him as she had done the seeds of all other knowldege,--so that he had got out his penknife, and was trying experiments upon the sentence, to see if he could not scratch some better sense into it.--I've got within a single letter, brother Toby, cried my father, of Erasmus his mystic meaning.--You are near enough, brother, replied my uncle, in all conscience.--Pshaw! cried my father, scratching on,--I might as well be seven miles off.--I've done it,--said my father, snapping his fingers.--See, my dear brother Toby, how I have mended the sense.--But you have marred a word, replied my uncle Toby.--My father put on his spectacles,--bit his lip,--and tore out the leaf in a passion. (italics mine)

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Naniniwala na ako sa likod ng libro:

Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy is an epic of eighteenth-century Yorkshire life, and perhaps the most capriciously written classic of all time. On the surface this delightfully delirious book has no apparent order. A sentence forms a chapter; chapters begin, are brocken off, or even vanish completely, only to reappear in unnumerical sequence later on.

But beneath this deceptive facade of aimless frivolity is a carefully prepared design, subtle in style and brilliant in execution. In the persons of Mer. Shandy, retired merchant and student of philosophy, and of Uncle Toby, veteran of King William's War and a simple-minded sentimentalist, Sterne has created two memorable characters, as clearly defined as any in literture. The one is abstractly intellectual, the other impressionably emotional. Between these two extremes is embodied the sum of human nature. Their diligent discussions on such unprofound topics as short and long noses (e.g. above quotation), the art of cursing, and the influence that names exert upon the personality are masterpieces of droll humor in the vein of Rabelais and Cervantes.

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Nakakatuwa na nakakapagod basahin. May ilang bahagi kasi na sobrang draggy (dahil sa mga detalye) at malimit makaligaw sa mambabasa ang mga digression ni Tristram. So far, okay pa naman. Medyo kakaiba. Pastiche.

Mukhang hindi kami nagkamali ni chris (kaklase ko) ng impression sa libro. "Nikka, anong nabunot mo?" "Tristram Shandy" "Alam mo ba kung saan tungkol iyon?" "Di ko alam e, pero parang champagne.." "Yah, bubbly."

Minsan, parang nakakalasing.