The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

42 pages in and that’s it, I’m calling it. I cannot go on with Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. I don’t care that Virginia Woolf, whom I adore, called it “the greatest of all novels”. It’s just not. It’s terrible. It’s boring, and droning, and hard to follow. I don’t care that the author uses playful devices and visual cues. An enjoyable read that does not make.

I should have taken it as a sign when I realized that my copy (Modern Library Classics 2004 edition) was misprinted in the most ridiculous of ways. Giant chunks of pages are entirely out of order, making this nonsensical work even harder to follow. Page 4 was followed by page 37, 20 by 53, and on and on. It’s like the universe was telling me to give up right from the start. And you know what? I will. Because the universe is a woman, and I believe women.

So there it is. #3 of the abandoned lot on my journey to 1001 books. I’ll never know how it ends, and I don’t care.