Rules for Reading Tristram Shandy
1. Zen
Reading. Read slowly. Allow the rhythm of the text to establish
the speed at which you will read it.
Think of yourself as following and perceiving the unfolding of
Tristram's thoughts or speech.
2. Participate
in the conversation. Make inferences
about the direction of the text and check them against what Tristram tells you
(for example, that his mother was not a Catholic).
3. Association
is transition and establishes the subject.
Pay attention not only to digressions (sometimes quite long) but also to
the material from which Tristram is digressing. Digression is never disorder in Tristram Shandy.
4. The
text often jumps from Tristram's past to his present. Make sure you jump with it.
5. The
problem, as Tristram so often tells us, is words. Pay attention to words and to the special meanings they
accumulate (e.g., hobbyhorses).
6. Treasure
the typography. If the meaning of words
is unstable, what is the meaning of typography?
7. Tristram's
sentences, like his novel, are long and meandering. Nonetheless, pay attention to the grammar (as long as there is
grammar to which you can pay attention).
8. If
any passage seems dirty, you should assume that you are intended to read it
that way, although Tristram will usually tell you that you are not. (One of the delights of rereading the novel
is to discover new possibilities for smutty readings.)
9. We
are prepared to laugh at novels, and Tristram Shandy is perhaps the
funniest. But Tristram also expects us
to cry. When? And why? What is the
relation of laughing to crying? Can you
do both at the same time?
10. Tristram
Shandy rivals Tom Jones as a learned novel. Read the notes, but only after you have read
the chapter. (Do not let the notes
break the rhythm of your reading.
Remember Rule 1.)
11. Look
for echoes of your relation to the narrator in the efforts of the characters to
send and receive signals of meaning.
12. If
you cannot figure out what is going on, read two more chapters and see if it
becomes clear. If it does not, turn two
chapters before the point where you became perplexed and read more slowly. It should now be clear.