An Extreme of Postmodern Digression

I recently found myself citing Tristram (1759) as an example of digressive writing done properly, so I was glad to see this novel in the list of available books. In my stylometric study of Tristram, I found that it matched the linguistics of group-F, which was ghostwritten by William Dodd (1729-1777). Dodd was the only ghostwriter (from the centuries I reviewed) who was executed. Dodd was a professional forger, and he died trying to forge a transfer of funds from an aristocrat to himself, while working for this aristocrat. Dodd’s other texts included “Henry Fielding’s” Tom Jones (1749) and David Hume’s philosophy. The move towards absurd convolution was unusual for his canon, but matched his taboo-breaking character.
“‘L-d! said my mother, what is all this story about?—A COCK and a BULL, said Yorick—And one of the best of its kind, I ever heard.’” This quote is judged to be representative of why this novel is great by Penguin’s editors. Indeed, it summarizes that most fiction is insignificant, and pointless, and a lie… “The text and notes of this volume are based on the acclaimed Florida Edition, with a critical introduction by Melvyn New and Christopher Ricks’s introductory essay from the first Penguin Classics edition.” While other books in this series can be published without introductions, Tristram is not one of those. It must be explained, or readers will miss why it is unique in the history of literature. Additionally, since Tristram is available in the public domain, while some pieces by “Woolf” and others in this series is not yet public, a new edition has to include some editorial content, or readers would do better to find the free version on Gutenberg.
“Laurence Sterne’s great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it, with a rich metafictional narrative that might classify it as the first ‘postmodern’ novel.” The term “postmodern” refers to a digressive, and unreliable narrator, disruptions of linear time, and reflections about the art of writing, instead of merely reporting a story from start-to-finish. Tristram meets most of these by constantly interrupting the narrative with digressions and failing to get far from the time of the narrator’s birth without jumping to other times. In fact, “Chap. I.” begins with the time when the narrator’s parents “begot” him. He philosophizes that most “of a man’s sense or his nonsense… depends upon… the different tracks and trains you put them into…” I skip over some words in this passage because it is interrupted with digressions that make this larger point more difficult to grasp. Tristram was a significant literary steps because it was a declaration of rebellion by authors, who now insisted they did not have to execute realistic compositions that made falsehoods appear to be real and consistent. They could instead just digress and chatter about whatever came to mind. Of course, to pull this style off, only interesting things have to come into the writer’s mind. If a writer keeps repeating the same thing in their head, they really should censor themselves. Repeating the same thing is self-plagiarism: it is dull. A good digressive writer manages to find something interesting to relate in whatever the see or happen to think about.
“Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate ‘hero’ Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby, and a host of other characters, including Dr Slop, Corporal Trim and the parson Yorick.” A very lengthy “indenture” marriage agreement is presented where Walter the merchant takes responsibility of his family, with his property at-risk. Dr. Slop is “the man-midwife” who delivered the narrator. His father ponders regarding this that “the Doctor must be paid the same for inaction as action.” Corporal Trim is described as “an excellent valet, groom, cook, sempster, surgeon and engineer, superadded that of an excellent upholsterer too”, as he served as the carpenter of his “uncle Toby’s house”. This list seems strangely long, but it is probably referring to the many pseudonyms of a generalist ghostwriter.
“A joyful celebration of the endless possibilities of the art of fiction, Tristram Shandy is also a wry demonstration of its limitations.” The last point is pretty funny. Indeed, the difficulty a reader has getting through this novel should instruct writers on the limits of digression: if you go too far in this direction, you turn adorable quirkiness into unreadable nonsense. I am glad to have taken this tour into this novel. Good to be refreshed about the extremely of digression to know the lesser degrees of it that appear in pop. Many sections of this book are unreadable, while many others are funny and easy to read. In contrast, the full postmodern Joyce’s Ulysses is entirely unreadable, and is designed to be so.
—Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Fall 2024: https://anaphoraliterary.com/journals/plj/plj-excerpts/book-reviews-fall-2024