Tristram Shandy. Chapter One.

 

In his foreword to the Modern Library Book edition of Tristram Shandy, Bergen Evans writes "The best of Sterne's humor -- and it is very great -- lies in the antithesis of his characters, in the absurdity of their preoccupations, the ludicrousness of their incongruity, and the pathos of their inability to communicate with each other.  Each illuminates the other's loneliness, the 'salt, unplumbed, estranging sea' that isolates us all."

"He has no superior in the art of presenting the minutiae of daily intercourse, of dramatizing the passing moment, and capturing the nuances of feeling that lend depth and shadow to our small talk."

I have always seen the world as ludicrous and incongruous. As ripe for drollery. And I have read Laurence Sterne's great comic novel twice already. Once on a long bus ride from Arkansas to North Dakota after being red-lighted from the Tarzan Zerbini Shrine Circus. The second time when I was a house husband in Wichita Kansas while Amy taught school -- it was something to do during those long sweltering summer afternoons while Madelaine and Adam were napping.

It seems that I am fated, no matter how hard I try to shanghai the limelight, to remain caught in the web of the 'minutiae of daily intercourse' for the remaining duration of my restless existence. I am in no danger of being hounded by the paparazzi.

 Amy will be working long hours at H & R Block as a tax preparer until the end of April, and so I am left to my own devices. And I prefer those devices to be the humorous written word.

My plan, if you can call such a nebulous conception a plan, is to read one chapter of Tristram Shandy each day, and then put down my thoughts about what I've read and what memories and whimsies it brings to the surface (like pond scum mayhap.) 

So this will be my daily journal, diary, confessional, soapbox . . . what have you.  At least until Amy is done for the 2023 tax season.  And then I foresee a trip and a very long stay at a farm in Idaho.

I will be sending only the link to my daily dispatches, so the recipient may remain blithely unaware of my deep (but narrow) thoughts if they so wish.

As Ben Johnson says in the 1973 John Wayne movie "The Train Robbers," 'Well, it's something to do . . . '

 

Chapter One.

Begins with the begetting of Tristram. Although just how he knows the exact details of the episode is left obscure. He tells the reader he wishes his conception had been under better circumstances. Because he believes how and when and why a man is conceived stamps him with an iron and irrevocable horoscope for the rest of his life.

As the son of a bartender, born into the lower middle class, it seems only natural to me that I was fated to become an itinerant gypsy and drunkard, as well as a subpar father and husband. Even though the Gospel pulled me up beyond myself, it took a long time before I could sustain myself in that airy purview. And the struggle still continues today.

"Pray, my dear, have you not forgot to wind up the clock?" 

This inopportune question by Tristram's mother during his conception is what blights our hero's prospects forever. 

I wonder if my mother asked my father if he had gotten new batteries for the clock radio?