Tristram Shandy

[ shan-dee ]

noun

1. a novel (1759–67) by Laurence Sterne.

Example Sentences

He was critiquing naturalism; instead, he wanted to frame a counter-history, to move beyond the realistic fiction of Samuel Richardson or Dostoevsky toward the more amorphous whimsy of Denis Diderot or Laurence Sterne, whose 18th century mashup “Tristram Shandy” Kundera admired, characterizing it — approvingly — as “unserious throughout.”

From Los Angeles Times

In 1759, at the beginning of the history of the English novel, Laurence Sterne began publishing installments of his metadramatic novel, “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.”

From Washington Post

The same is true of Laurence Sterne’s classic “Tristram Shandy,” the print version of which includes all sorts of visual mischief: blank pages, blacked-out pages, scribbles, dots and typographical chaos, to say nothing of great gobbets of Latin and French.

From Washington Post

Milan Kundera did something analogous in the 1980s when he imagined Laurence Sterne’s “Tristram Shandy” as “one of those great lost opportunities” in the history of the novel.

From Los Angeles Times

One of Everett’s noted influences is the 18th-century English picaresque “Tristram Shandy,” which interests him not just for its “playfulness” but for its “stalling of gratification of the story” and even “challenging the notion of story.”

From Washington Post