Friday, October 10, 2008
Prompt #5 from Melissa Pie
There are numerous characters within Tristam Shandy. Many readers I have spoken to find it easier to relate to a novel when there is one character in particular that that reader can relate to. Are there any characters that you find easier to relate to than others and why? Does it help to focus on this character more than others in understanding what has been transpiring in the novel?
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JJA's Response to Mel's Prompt
I think Tristram is the only character I can relate to because he is the only voice that dominates. I think he intentionally makes his mother and father flat to enhance his brilliance in writing. Even on the infuriating tangents, his voice is the voice that is starting to gain some rhythm. As readers, we are held hostage by Tristram's writing style and plot twists, tangents, curly cue's, loopty-loops and over-unders. While I do not personally enjoy the thrill ride which is his self-proclaimed genius, I am beginning to appreciate just how far ahead of his time Sterne was in creating a narration voice like Tristram.
JJB's response to Mel's Prompt:
For me in any story the main character is always the one I focus on the most and in this story that character is of course Tristram. This is a DA! statement but the main character is always the one character most stories center on the most. As a writer whenever I'm writing a story I have to figure on how my supporting characters influence, shape, and determine the course of my protagonist. For sterne, and any other writer, it is almost the same thing. It dosen't nesscerrily always have to be like that but most of the time it is. In Tristram's case the one character that affects all the characteristics I mentioned above is his mother because of how she was able to not only control the personality of his father but also shape his own by simply going through the process of giveing birth to him. In the grand picture of his life.
Kristine's Response to Melissa's prompt:
While I cannot say there are any characters that I can necessarily relate to, there are those which I focus in on to keep better track of the story. In Tristram Shandy, Tristram is obviously the easiest to focus on. However, I have also followed Mr. Shandy, as I find his insights intriguing. While he is a rather undeveloped character, I find his assertions and opinions interesting and amusing. For example, his opinions about names and his hatred of the name Tristram. I find that Mr. Shandy's digressions make the plot easier to follow at times because they tend to deal with the actual plot itself more than Tristram's digressions. I find myself looking forward to reading more of Mr. Shandy's insights instead of Tristram's rambling.
Question: How far are we supposed to read for Tuesday?
J.J.B response to Kristine Ques.
We are supposed to read from p.112-237.
I haven't really noticed whether I identify more with certain characters or not. Although, recently I have taken a liking to Uncle Toby. Tristram in general describes him in a pretty positive light; Toby's patient, not easily offended if memory serves me correctly, and modest. He seems to be a pretty good natured guy. In general, I think I might relate (maybe not even relate, but like) more so with the characters Tristram talks about than Tristram himself. As he describes everything in excess, his characters seem to be pretty well rounded; at the very least, no one seems to be portrayed as all good or all bad. I think focusing on the characters in general helps understand the story; I get irritated with Tristram's narrative style, for instance and my attention will sometimes waver. I have to reread when this happens and so I try to focus my attention on the people instead the way Tristram is telling the story--this helps me stay focused.
Like Melissa B., I like Uncle Toby. He is always kind (as with Lt. Le Fever and taking in/helping Le Fever's son after the father's death). He is impractical in his hobbyhorse obsessions and certainly militaristic. Yet he seems (outside of real and imaginary battlefields) to be a gentle soul. He is abstracted from practical life, yet is helpful during the crises of others. He loses the thread of others' problems much less than his brother, who is so distracted with the right educational system for Tristram in his very early years, that the child spents his first crucial years being brought up almost entirely by his totally incurious mother. Paula
I personally am drawn to Parson Yorick. He strikes me as a likeable fellow. He doesn't fit the mold of a typical 17th (?) century parson - stuffy, judgmental, self-righteous... He seems kind and unassuming. Sterne/Tristram paints him as something of a nerd and yet he takes his position within the community seriously but not to the point of being pompous or sanctimonious. He is compassionate and caring. Considering I'm no fan of the clergy, that I am drawn to his character says a lot.
Kristine’s Response to Melissa Brooks:
I completely agree that it is easier to the characters Tristram describes more than Tristram himself. His characters are well rounded, as we read more about them than Tristram. I also pay more attention to the characters and what they have to say rather than Tristram’s rambling, as he often makes me confused and bored with the novel. I find his father’s and Uncle Toby’s comments much more interesting and entertaining, and they seem to move the story forward instead of holding it at a standstill, as Tristram’s digressions do.
Kristine’s response to J.J. Armstrong
While I agree that Sterne was ahead of his time in creating Tristram and his rambling narrative, I do not agree that Tristram’s voice provides a rhythm. This is a personal opinion, but I feel that Tristram takes away from the rhythm of the story and only makes it more confusing. When other characters interject, particularly Mr. Shandy and Uncle Toby, I feel as though the story is going back on track and starts to make sense again. What part of Tristram’s writing style do you feel makes a rhythm?
J.J.B's response to Kristine:
I agree that Mr. Shandy is a very entertaining charcter. His opinions, as well as his reactions to other people's opinions, are humorous and he makes the overall flow of the story seem more tolerable and less boring.
J.J.B's response to Melissa B
I would agree that the story is better and easier to follow when the focus is on the characters and not the narrative. In any story, as with this one, when an author allows their characters to tell the story the reader, for the most part, will grasp a better understanding of where the author is going with the overall plot. I do have to say though that in an earlier response I said that Mr. Shandy's opinions made him a more entertaining character. But, now that I reflect on it more, some of those opinions, at times, cast him in a more negative light than the other characters.
Paula to J.F.
It's the 18th century. The attitudes of British novelists towards the clergy are always really
striking (for instance, Austen is almost always negative towards ministers--in Pride and Prejudice, in Emma. And as the footnotes have told us, Sterne is modeling Yorick partly on the minister in Jonathan Andrews. I like Yorick too.
Paula to Kristine--
As with Blue, we see every character through Tristram's lens, which makes us question his reliability. Consider the joke that Tristram reports on the night of his conception, for instance. Have any of you read Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum where the first chapter is about a clock, a conception, and an embryo who narrates?
Paula to J.J.A--
I am intrigued by your comment about Tristram's "self-proclaimed genius" since Tristram often makes us laugh by pilloring others' genius--his father's crazy ideas, his uncle's crazy ideas, Dr. Slop's crazy ideas, etc.
Melissa B.'s response to JJA
I like what you said that "as readers, we are held hostage by Tristram's writing style..." It's an interesting way to view the author/narrator's relationship with the reader. How we as readers approach a novel will affect the way we experience it. When I don't like a book, I do feel in a sense like a hostage. This happens especially when I am reading textbooks or articles for a class. Because I have to read something that I do not want to, it feels as though both the text and the author have control over me, and I'm at their mercy. Going back to our class discussion, if we approach a text more willingly, and look at it is something to conquer rather than something that will conquer us, we can feel less like hostages.
Melissa B.'s response to JJB
You said you focus on Tristram the most because you tend to focus on the main character. I usually do that as well, and most of the time, it seems like even if the main character does pretty awful things, I can sympathize with them because the author will show us the good side to him or her as well. It has been different for me with Tristram Shandy. Sometimes, I stop thinking of Tristram as a character because we don't often see him interact with the other characters in this book. His role as a narrator is so pervasive that sometimes, it seems like he's irrelevant to the main plot of the book.
I like what you said that "as readers, we are held hostage by Tristram's writing style..." It's an interesting way to view the author/narrator's relationship with the reader. How we as readers approach a novel will affect the way we experience it. When I don't like a book, I do feel in a sense like a hostage. This happens especially when I am reading textbooks or articles for a class. Because I have to read something that I do not want to, it feels as though both the text and the author have control over me, and I'm at their mercy. Going back to our class discussion, if we approach a text more willingly, and look at it is something to conquer rather than something that will conquer us, we can feel less like hostages.
Response to Melissa B...
At the same time, sometimes people who are being held hostage rebel or attempt to escape. I agree that we should see the text as something to conquer in order to reclaim our personal power over it.
Response to Kristine to JJA... I'm with you. There is no rhythm. It's like a free-form jazz piece, you're here, then there, it's helter-skelter. If anything there is an underlying constant which is that he will return to the point from which he diverts in his telling.
JJA's Response to Melissa B.
Conquer a text? That sounds heroic indeed. I guess in a way that is what these interactions with text and storyline have produced this semester. I am on a quest to conquer old Tristram. I feel that the whole "Cock and Bull" angle kind of puts this in perspective. Have you ever sat around after one too many beverages and thought about what you have been talking about all night? That is kind of what Tristram takes us through in his narrative. It is kind of fun thinking of it as an epic battle between us and Tristram. Will we be the heroic victors to conquer this text and understand all of its facets or just another petty scrimmage in the face of Sterne's genius?
JJA's General Response to No One in Particular
I was reviewing my notes and quoted "history of what passes in a man's mind" from Book 2. (I was reviewing the back Table of Contents to remind myself of that.) In a way, Tristram really is relieving his history through his own memories of the stories that have been passed on to him. He is growing on my like rust on my car. It is inevitable I suppose. You spend this much time with a reading and something has to give. I do see how Tristram is a great character just for the sheer audacity of how he tells this story.
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