The reader in the text
How could you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last chapter? I told you in it , That my
mother was not a papist – Papist! You told me no such thing, Sir. Madam , I beg leave to repeat it
again, That I told you as plain, at least as words, by direct interference, could tell you such a thing.
– Then, Sir, I must have missed a page. No, Madam, you have not missed a My pride , Madam,
cannot allow you that refuge . – Then I declare I know nothing about the matter. – That,
Madam, is the very word. – Then I was asleep, Sir. –fault I lay to your charge; and as a
punishment for it, I do insist upon it, that you immediately turn back, that is, as soon as you get to
the next full stop, and read the whole chapter over again.
I have imposed this penance upon the lady, neither out of wantonness or cruelty, but from the best
of motives; and therefore shall make her no apology for it when she returns back- ‘This to rebuke
a vicious taste which has crept into thousand besides herself, - of reading straight forwards, more
in quest of adventures, than of the deep erudition and knowledge which a book of this
cast, if read over as it should be, would infallibly impart with them.
Laurence Sterne The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent.(1759-67)
Laurence Sterne , narrating under the light disguise of Tristram Shandy, plays all kinds of games
with the narrator-narratee relationship.
In the passage quoted, the Lady, is sent off to re-read the preceding chapter “as soon as you get
to the next full stop”. We who, as it were , remain with the author are made to fell privileged by
his confidence, and invited to distance ourselves from the “ vicious taste which has crept into
thousand beside herself” , of reading a novel just for the story.
Sterne anticipated Joyce and Virginia Woof in letting the vagaries of the human mind determine
the shape and direction of the narrative. One of the slogans of modernist novel is “Spatial Form
“, which means giving unity to a literary work by a pattern of interconnected motifs that can only
be perceived by “ reading over” the text in the manner recommended by Tristram.
