The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Ostensibly the autobiography of its narrator, Sterne’s wildly inventive comic novel almost never gets around to actually telling Tristram’s life story, digressing instead into a glorious chaos of anecdotes, black pages, squiggly lines, and shaggy-dog jokes about his eccentric family. Playful, bawdy, and centuries ahead of its time, it toys with the very form of the novel, delighting in interruption and misunderstanding. Its experimental daring makes it a favorite ancestor of modern and postmodern fiction. Endlessly funny and formally revolutionary, Tristram Shandy is one of the most original and influential comic novels ever written—a book about the impossibility of ever telling the whole story.