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queue. Tonight we'll read the opening to The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy gentleman by Lawrence Stern and

published in 1759. As its title suggests, the book is about Tristram's narration of his life story, but it is one of the

central jokes of the novel that he cannot explain anything simply, that he must make diversions to add interest to his

tale to the extent that Tristram's own birth is not even reached until far into the book. Its style is marked by

digression, double entendre, and graphic devices.

Let's get cozy. Close your eyes.

eyes.

Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now take a few deep breaths. The opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentlemen, chapter one. I wish either my father or my mother or indeed both of them as they were in

duty both equally bound to it had minded what they were about when they begot me.

Had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were doing then, that not only the production of a rational being was

concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body,

perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind.

And for aught they knew to the contrary,

even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humors

and dispositions which were then uppermost. Had they duly weighed and considered all this and proceeded

accordingly, I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world from that in which the reader is likely to see me

Believe me good folks this is not so inconsiderable a thing as many of you may think.

...