Backlisted - The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman AKA Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne is the subject of this years-in-the-making episode of Backlisted. Published in nine volumes between 1759 and 1767, Sterne's cock and bull story has entertained, baffled, enchanted, infuriated and inspired readers ever since; needless to say, at Backlisted we love it. Joining John and Andy to celebrate this great, hilarious, digressive novel - or is it a series of great, hilarious, digressive novels? - are award-winning children's author Katherine Rundell and our friend Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who adapted Tristram Shandy for the big screen in 2005 as A Cock and Bull Story. As a bonus, you'll hear Steve Coogan, the star of that film, read from the book(s) - exclusively for Backlisted listeners. Also in this episode, Andy enjoys a "relentless excursion into style" with Fun in a Chinese Laundry (1965), the autobiography of film director Josef von Sternberg; while John takes a sounding of Jennifer Lucy Allan's fascinating new book The Foghorn's Lament. Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)07:53 - Fun in a Chinese Laundry by Josef von Sternberg12:42 - The Foghorn's Lament: The Disappearing Music of the Coast by Jennifer Lucy Allan21:33 - The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Catherine where are you? I'm in Camden and looking out over blue skies Catherine, where are you? I'm in Camden and looking out over blue skies.

And I have two copies of Tristram Shandy with me because one of them is very accurate and the other one is a sort of free jazz one. So I thought I'd have both. A free jazz Tristram Shandy? That's a free jazz. Well, not free jazz, like a jazz, jazz arrangement. Exactly.andy that's a free jazz well not free jazz like a jazz jazz exactly it's actually too much jazz it's slightly annoying so it's they've instead of getting a marble page it's a picture of someone's pouting lips it's annoying but it's the one i had

to hand is that and is that specific to camden is that only available in Camden? Yeah, it's NW1 only. Yeah, I thought so. I thought the metropolitan elite would be involved somewhere. There's a terrible, terrible Camden log essay on understanding joke there that I'm just... Oh, I... Put it in a footnote. Frank.

Hello, Frank. Oh, yeah. Hello, Frank. that's a nice room you're in is it yours yeah it's my this is where i write this is my room at the top of my house in liverpool and if you could see out the window over the roofs of the house next door i can sometimes see the funnels of ships go by which is quite nice oh wow what part of the mersey sound are you near then foghorns that's lucky that's lucky isn't it johnny that may come in relevant let's hope let's hope so well i think we should start because this is you know this this this novella you've chosen is uh you know i'm worried we won't have much to say. Let's take it away.

Hello and welcome to Backlisted, the podcast that gives new life to old books. I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher of Unbound, the platform where readers crowdfund the books they really want to read. And I'm Andy Miller, author of The Year of Reading Dangerously. And today we are joined by two guests, one new and one returning, Catherine Rundell and Frank Cottrell-Boyce. Hello to you both. Hey, welcome. Catherine is our new guest. She is in Camden today, but don't let that distract you. She's a fellow of All Souls College Oxford, where she works on Renaissance literature and John

Dunn. Dunn? Dunn. Dunn. Dunn. Thank you. And the author, I mean, I know who he is. I'm just clarifying with an expert the pronunciation. Right. Is it because of Van Morrison's terrible rhyme,

Rave on John Donne? It is. Nearly played a bit of that today, but we're boycotting Van at the moment, aren't we, because of his views. So, oh, look, we've digressed already, everybody. But this is the conceptually immaculate. Catherine is the author of half a dozen books for children,

among them Rooftoppers, which in 2015 won the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, the Blue Peter Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and the Explorer, winner of the Children's Book Prize at the 2017 Costa Book Awards. Catherine also writes a series for the Carnegie Medal and the Explorer, winner of the Children's Book Prize at the 2017 Costa Book Awards. Catherine also writes a series for the London Review of Books about endangered animals and has been learning for the last few years how to fly a very small plane.

What a slacker. Why a small plane? It's the only one I have access to. I'm very gradually working my way up to ones with more sort of bits, but this one just has a joystick and a window and a lot of hope holding it up. What kind of plane is it? It's a 1945 Piper Cub. Of course. This is what our guests always do. They always do this kind of thing. So are you training to get a pilot's license or something, Catherine? Very, very slowly, yes. Quite a few of my family were pilots. And so I thought it would be fun to

continue, but I lack hand-eye coordination, a sense of direction and a driving license. So the odds are stacked against me. I can fly, but I can't drive. Yeah, but only a small plane. Like a moped is okay without a driving licence. And we're also delighted to welcome back Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who previously joined us on Backlisted No. 79 to discuss Torve Jansson's...

You see, Torve Jansson, I'm an expert in pronouncing. It's just John Don Don, Don, Don. I can't do. Torve Jansson, I'm an expert in pronouncing it. It's just John Dunn, Dunn, Dunn, Dunn. I can't do. Torve Jansson's Movement Valley in November. Frank, a.k.a. Martin Hardy, is an award-winning novelist and screenwriter who started his career as the film reviewer for Living Marxism and went on to write the screenplays for, among others,

Welcome to Sarajevo, 24-Hour Party People, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Sometimes, Always, Never, Doctor Who, and most relevantly to today's business, A Cock and Bull Story in 2005. His best-selling children's books include Millions, which won the 2004 Carnegie Medal, The Astounding Broccoli Boy, Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth, shortlisted for the Carnegie, and most recently, Runaway Robot. Other facts we like. Frank Bates' script for the opening ceremony

of the 2012 London Olympics on the Tempest. In 2018, scored almost all the points for the Keeble College alumni team on University Challenge. They beat Reading 240-0. I'm sure they love to be reminded of that. And also has discussed books with Ian McCulloch from Echo and the Donnymen. Yes.

For those people who don't subscribe to Locklist, Frank, could you just give us that story? When did you meet Mac? Well, I was around, you know, I was in bands at the same time. I knew who he was. He knew who I was. But we were on a train and he was on the opposite side of the car and the train was delayed. And I was reading the short stories of T. Coragason Boyle.

Yeah. And the train was delayed. And he, I just love this as an opening line, right? He sort of grumped about it for a bit. Didn't remove his aviator shades, but looked across the aisle and went, what book are you on? As though it was a reading scheme, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Like, this is books. This, yeah, yeah, Seeker, Aggerson, Boe, comes just after Chip wants new trainers. And he went, yeah, Seeker, Agasson, Boe comes just after Chip wants new trainers. And he went, yeah. Yeah, and I'd have a squint at that. And I had to give it to him and he never gave it back.

But anyway, I don't know where did that come from. Anyway, there you go. It's because I said what an impressionable youth I was in the 1980s and how many of my reading choices were directed from what I believed artists in the NME had read although it may well not be the case oh dear well it's almost a shame to carry on to the main business isn't it after you mean we're already digressing good lord astonishingly the book that Frank and Catherine have chosen to discuss is The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy Gentlemen, better known as Tristram Shandy, by Lawrence Stern,

the book that put novelty back into the novel. It was published in nine volumes through three different publishers, the first two volumes appearing in 1759, the last in 1767. But let me pause here and interrupt myself for no good reason to ask the time-dishonoured question. Andy, what have you been reading this week? Thank you, John. Well, first of all, let me once again remain conceptually on point

and digress into what I've been watching this week rather than what I've been reading this week, which is I've been watching a box set put out by Indicator Films of the films made by Marlene Dietrich and the director Joseph von Sternberg at Paramount Film Studios in the early 1930s. They made a film together in Germany called The Blue Angel,

which was a huge success. And then they were both offered contracts to work in Hollywood. They made half a dozen films together. Morocco, Dishonored, Shanghai Express, Blonde Venus, Scarlet Empress, and The Devil is a Woman, which von Sternberg described Scarlet Empress as a relentless excursion into style.

And indeed, those films, so overwhelming is the triumph of style over substance that they actually give substance itself a bad name. They are the most extravagantly, beautifully restored black and white films. And we are watching those films as a group on Locklisted. And we're going to be talking about those on the next episode a lot listed but as a result of watching those films i've been reading joseph von sternberg's 1966 65 1965 autobiography fun in a chinese laundry and joseph von sternberg very much what you would think of as the film director with the monocle and the imperious attitude. And it's just absolutely, exquisitely, amusingly bitter. And it really ought to be called in the Father Ted style, Now We Come to the Liars, rather than Fun in the Chinese Laundry. And it has his little insights onto,

there's a bit where he talks about filming Marlena Dutrick's face so famously, the way that he would make her up and light her to create this incredible image. He says, monstrously enlarged as it is on the screen, the human face should be treated as a landscape. It is to be viewed as if the eyes were lakes, the nose a hill, the cheeks broad meadows, the mouth a flower patch, the forehead sky, and the hair clouds. Now, I don't think Guy Ritchie has ever read this book, but he ought to, because it would give his films a different type of stylishness than the 90s stylishness they currently have.

And I'm just going to read a tiny bit before we move on, because von Sternberg, you know, very much at the end of his life, taking auteur theory to heart pretty much takes credit for absolutely everything, including everything to do with Marlena Dutri. But it's written in the most appealingly grand delinquent way, this book. It's just every page has something pleasurable and quotable on it. He says here, Previous to my assuming the task of directing, as a projectionist, I had handled more than 100 full-length motion pictures, though I did not look at them except casually to inspect them for laboratory faults. They could no more have influenced me than a praying mantis can influence a duckbill platypus. The most lasting impressions I had from the formative early days of my distant

contacts with film were introduced by an actor-director, a most picturesque individual by the name of Romain Fielding. I seem to remember vaguely that he used his wife, a minister's daughter, as his leading lady, probably in an attempt to reduce costs. This, by the way, is no way to lower the cost of making a film. On the contrary, by this method, not only will money be lost, but also the wife. On the contrary, by this method, not only will money be lost, but also the wife. He was also short of funds, though there is nothing to indicate that when I first met him.

And he goes on to talk about Romain Fielding's eyes. His eyes had a most magnetic quality when used on screen. They held for me all the power and magic the motion picture could contain. To make his history reasonably complete, he used his eyes on me to borrow a few dollars. And when I screwed up enough courage to ask him to repay the loan, he once more turned them on me and said softly,

if I live, I'll pay. As may be guessed, he did neither. So anyway, that is Fun in a Chinese Laundry by Joseph Thorn Sternberg. It's not in print, but it's probably in a few libraries around the place. Absolutely wonderful, funny, unreliable memoir. John Mitchinson, what have you been reading this week? I've been reading a book that I was told about by the author in a pub. It's brilliant. It's a great opening line. I'm writing a book.

What are you writing a book about? I'm writing a book about foghorns. It's The Foghorns Lament, The Disappearing Music of the Coast by Jennifer Lucy Allen. And Jen, if people know her, probably know her because she's one of the presenters on Late Junction, kind of somebody who really knows and understands experimental and underground music. I suppose it's a labour of love. She became obsessed with foghorns, the sound, the kind of visceral quality of foghorn sound. But also there are kind of symbols of the industrial strength of the 19th century,

the peak of British sea power and also American sea power. And now they've been superseded by electronic devices and blipping machines. Fog is such an interesting idea, such an interesting sort of weather form. It's, you know, you don't know where you are. You can't see anything. It's all enveloping. And something that was a kind of started off as an industrial bragging match you know can we find that the technology to do this has ended up being in music and in and in film

in particular a symbol of of something sinister so you get a history of her obsession her finding all these crazy people who are also obsessed with falcons you get a history of the falcon and its invention and its development and its decline. You get a history also, I suppose, of terrifying shipwrecks and the importance of shipwrecks. I'm just going to read a tiny little bit to give you a bit of the flavour, because it's very germane to what we're talking about today. She's furtling around trying to find sound archives. All archives are a bit odd, but sound archives are particularly difficult.

She said, archives do not hold truths. They're always incomplete in one way or another. Within this, all events retain the potential to be told endlessly, like Tristram Shandy. How many words you add to the telling is just about the number of details, thoughts, and witnesses you choose to include and where you decide to stop. Eventually, I found two documents, two rare records as exciting to me as if they were private press LPs gleaned in dusty junk shop corners. These were scientific reports and what they recorded was the

primary information concerning the history of the foghorn, the way it had been tested, sounded and chosen as the sound to mark the coasts. One was a photocopy done by Lord Raleigh and the other is written in the lyrical language of Victorian science of how the iconic white chalk cliffs at the foreland had been transformed into a colossal stage for a durational sound performance. This report, published in 1874, documented sound tests in 1873, conducted by Trinity House's scientific advisor at the time, John Tyndall. Tyndall did

not just test one fork horn at the South Forland, but a chorus line of various horns, bells and guns that sang for an audience of a few privileged men in a boat and the surrounding seascape. The entire clifftop was transformed into a stage for these audacious experiments, a steampunk fantasy in sound and machines. It's completely fascinating and beautifully written. And all it makes you want to do is go out and listen to foghorns. It makes you want to go and find the nearest foghorn and get them to fire it up. Oh, I so hope we were just going to hear one then from outside Frank's house. I still get if it's foggy. I mean, that thing you said about electronics, if you go down to this,

if I walk down to the front at night, it looks like a motorway because the sea lane is so marked. You know, there's so many flashing lights. But once the fog is here, the foghorns go all night and it is always that kind of mournful, rape-rappery sound from the beginning of time. It is really overwhelming. I sit and listen to it, you know. It became quite popular in the foghorn. There's a brilliant bit in the book where she says they've got so many samples of foghorns used in drum and bass tracks

that they started to say the foghorn thing is overdone. We've got to stop the foghorns we've used in drum and bass tracks that they started to say, the foghorn thing is overdone. We've got to stop the foghorns now. Stop it with the foghorns. Anyway, onwards. This is London calling. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP Frank, er, Catherine, name that tune.

Lili Bolero. Lili Bolero? Yes, that's right. That's Lili Bolero, which for many years was used, as it was used there, by the World Service, the BBC World Service. And amongst the less controversial things it's synonymous with

is which character in Tristram Shandy? Uncle Toby who whistles it whenever he's embarrassed and I love the idea that the World Service put it to the same use that they did, if anything embarrassing came up on the news they just played Lilliput Arrow Prince Philip has said do do do do do do do do do

yeah we've got it triggered ready to go for exactly that yes throughout the episode so yes so we're talking about tristan shandy so the life and opinions of tristan shandy gentleman anyone who's read this book or has tried to read it will know that it is enormous in some ways and complicated in other ways and digressive in many ways. And Frank, you said a brilliant thing in the week about this as a giant novel. Is it a giant novel?

No, it's a box set. You know, it came out in installments. You read it. It's nine little books. And you waited anxiously for what the next one would be, to see if you could top the madness of the previous one. And Catherine, do you think if people are going to try tackling this book, because it can be challenging, I'm not going to lie,

is it helpful to think of it as nine instalments rather than a great tome? I think exactly that. I mean, the ideal would probably be to read one a year as a treat at Christmas and just wait for the time that you could start again rather than sort of hefting it in your hand and feeling it coming at you like a rock. John, do you think book nine is like season five of The Wire? Well, it's funny you should mention that because I had a long conversation yesterday with the marvellous Patrick Wildgust, who lives at Shandy Hall. He's the guy who runs the Stern Trust for anybody who ever wants to go to a brilliant place.

anybody who ever wants to go to a brilliant place um i think it's the best writer's museum i've ever been to anywhere and patrick is the most genial host but he was saying there is a peculiar thing the book appears to end it says at the end of of book four finny but it doesn't say that at the end of book nine which is very it's just very shandian uh he also said you know and i think this is absolutely the truth is that it's it doesn't matter rarely was there a book where it really doesn't matter where you start whether you start in volume nine or volume one or you dive into the middle no i don't think it's like series series five of the world well because this is tristan shandy it's like series five of the world. Well, because this is Tristan and Shandy, it's immediately time for a digression.

And that digression is going to be a one-off quiz. So I'm going to ask you all, first person to answer will get this right. Here is a list of authors, and I want you to tell me what two things they have in common. Are you ready? You have to say yes so that people know you're ready. Yes, we're ready, Andy.

Yes, yes. Yes, okay, fine. Oscar Wilde, Brendan Behan, Sean O'Casey, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, Eugene O'Neill, Edna O'Brien, and Lawrence Stern. They're all Irish. Irish, they're all Irish, but there's something else they have in common. Yes, all those Irish authors are all mentioned by Kevin Rowland in the lyrics of Dance Dance,

a.k.a. Burn It Down, the first single by Dexys Midnight Runners from 1980. And Kev, when asked what he thought of those writers, said, I don't know. I've never read any of them. And that's true. But they're Irish writers and he was sticking up for his national pride them and that's true but they're irish writers and

he was sticking up for his national pride so that's what that was about we'll be back in just a sec before we introduce the way we're going to run this particular episode about this is let me do the traditional thing and ask you katherine when did you first read Trish from Shandy or Lawrence Stern where were you what were you doing I tried to read it when I was still a kid at about 14 and someone had told me it was one of the funniest books ever written and at the time I would have said the funniest book ever written was Adrian Mole and they're not that similar um similar. So I gave up quite quickly. And then I read it from top to bottom in a very earnest and goody-two-shoes way at university. Because at the time, I was very invested in reading everything I was told to. And I fell wildly in with it. I

thought it was one of the funniest books ever written. fell wildly in with it. I thought it was one of the funniest books ever written. I worked with a man in a bookshop once who was asked by a customer who was going on holiday to Spain for a lighthearted book they would enjoy. And a fortnight later, the customer returned to the shop and said, I'd like to return this book, please. Your colleague told me this was the funniest book ever written. And they'd taken it all the way to Spain and opened it or cracked it open on the beach and been taken aback by what they encountered.

It is funny though, isn't it, Frank? Trish from Shandy, it is a funny book. The best joke in the world ever in it, which is, you know, where were you hurt? Just there. You adapted it for the screen was that something that you had wanted to do for a long time had you you read it many many many years earlier i was given this book uh when i was in i think fifth form by mr biggs um my english teacher who i know mr big mr biggs is great man And he had this, he was an inspirational teacher.

He liked to do stuff. He liked to make stuff. He made a set of Punch and Judy puppets and a Punch and Judy booth, which is how I became a Punch and Judy man for many years. And he made me a swazzle. And he shared- Are you a professor, Frank?

I put, sadly, I put professor on my UCAS form. You only get, you get to call yourself a professor if you can do it. Bloody right you do. And he showed his delight in books a lot. on my UCAS phone. You only get, you get to call yourself a professor if you can do it. Bloody right you do. And, and he showed his delight in books a lot and he gave me a copy

of Tristam Shandy as though it had just come out, you know, as though it was the new Sven Hassel or Michael Mork. I've just read this, you'll love it.

And obviously I didn't love it. I kind of read it for him and had proper conversations with him about it. But there were Mr. Big's conversations, which were, you know, the correct use of lead weights in sash windows. Could you really make a bridge for a baby's nose out of whalebone?

So, and it's always been that for me. It's always been a practical thing for me. And when it really exploded for me was when I became a dad, because this is the great book about parenthood, about your aspirations for your children, how they will go wrong, how they are ridiculous, but they're also full of love. And that's what I took from it. That's what stayed with me. But if you haven't read Trish from Shandy, or you've tried to read

Trish from Shandy, we thought it would be helpful to read the first paragraph of the novel. So anyone who listens to this has by accident inhaled, started reading Tristram Shandy, your one paragraph down. And Frank very kindly recruited a friend of his to do this for us. So let's just hear. Here's the opening paragraph of Tristram Shandy. The opening. 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 then doing, that not only the production of a rational being was concerned in it, but 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 humours 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 quite a different figure in the world from that in which the reader is likely to see me. Pray, my dear, quoth my mother, have you not forgot to wind up the clock? Good God! cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the same time. Did ever woman since the creation of the world interrupt a man with such a silly question? Pray, what was your father saying?

Nothing. Thank you, Steve Coogan, who has very kindly recorded us a few extracts of Trish from Shandy to Play on the show. Can I just say, thinking about what Catherine was saying, there's a lot of Adrian Mole in that voice, isn't there? It had not struck me before until hearing it, but that is a very similar tone.

It is. It is exactly. And Catherine, Adrian Mole and Trish from Shandy, all great comic books, novels, voices in fiction get funnier through rereading because the more familiar you become with the character, the more truthful their voice seems if it's done as well as it's done in Adrian Mole and Tristram shandy so is it is it a book that you uh do you dip into it do you like to dip into it for the voice or do you like to binge all nine seasons i love it for its uh sentences It has some of the best sentences.

So like Frank was saying, it has the best joke in all literature. But also I was just scribbling down tiny bits. It's in the same way that Shakespeare, you just wish you could pretend that you'd said that and people wouldn't notice. There's a bit where he's talking about his father's inability to oil the hinges of the door. And he says, his rhetoric and conduct were at perpetual handicuffs. And I just want to have said that myself. I just think that he's just a man who was writing tiny snippets of just sort of liquid vodka joy.

And so I read three pages maybe. I also think that there should be a children's book, Tristram Shandy. Like where is the children's book that has a voice like Tristram Shandy that never ever gets to the point? So maybe one day. Frank? to the point um so you know maybe one day frank i've just had a message on screen from our producer nicky birch saying what is the book about she she does that now traditionally and so um so but this

week nick i'm ready for you i've got that question answered the theme of tristram shanley is a very simple one life is chaotic it's amorphous. No matter how hard you try, you can't actually make it fit any shape. Tristram himself is trying to write his life story, but it escapes him because life is too full, too rich to be able to be captured by art. And his father, Walter, tries to plan every aspect of Tristram's birth, conception, childhood and so on, and his plans all go wrong. Walter puts it this way. Did any man ever receive so many lashes? Walter is indeed the most unfortunate of men, and if his life can be celebrated, then so too can all of ours. What a brilliant summation of Tristram Shandy. I hope that's all clear now, Nicky.

Crystal, written by our guest, Frank, for... That's when I got Stephen Fry to... Yes, for Stephen Fry to play Patrick, who John was just talking about a moment ago. How meta. Yes. Does anyone want to take a stab at the plot of Tristram Shandy? I think it has to be Frank when I try to describe it to people

I say it's about being born and then never getting to the point but I think that Frank can actually give us a summation of what actually takes place But that's Tristram's story isn't it and the book beautifully tells the story of Toby and the Widow Wadman. It's a lovely, there's a great love story in that book

and the story of Walter. Walter is excited to be having a son. I mean, I think what's wonderful is that there are all these grand themes. It is this sort of cosmic battle and with text and meaning and everything. It's really domestic, like Adrian Mull. You know, it's about domestic detail.

It's about the life of a house, an identifiable house with a postcode in which a man and a woman are waiting for a baby to be born. They have aspirations for this baby that include, you know, their birth plan for the baby. All of these things go wrong. And in the meantime, there's this old soldier toby who is clearly suffering from some kind of ptsd he's sort of he's a big gentle soul doesn't want to hurt literally won't hurt a fly but he's constantly reliving this moment of trauma

at a battle but happily is doing it as kind of building a model village yeah on the bowling green like duplo or something which actually turns out to be the biggest disaster of all because it leads to the the castration of our hero see that's pretty good come on who doesn't want to read that immediately yeah well the book was a great sensation when it was first published. Became a bestseller in the terms of what a bestseller meant in that period. I've got a series of comments on Tristram Shandy from around the time of publication or the decades following. This is what Horace Walpole said of it. is what Horace Walpole said of it. At present nothing is talked of, nothing admired, but what I cannot help calling a very insipid and tedious performance. It is a kind of novel called The Life

and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, the great humour of which consists in the whole narration always going backwards. I can conceive a man saying that it would be droll to write a book in that manner, but have no notion of his persevering in executing it. It makes one smile two or three times at the beginning, but in recompense makes one yawn for two hours. So that's a bit mean. And then that's followed by a series of, Samuel Johnson said it wouldn't last. Coleridge couldn't stand it. William Hazlitt doesn't like it. Sir Walter Scott, there's a great peroration against it by Sir Walter Scott.

And they have a go at it because it's frustrating or it's boring or it's scatological or it's plagiarised. or it's plagiarized until the advent in 1879 of the work of the literary critic Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche is amongst the first people to claim Tristram Shandy as a work of authentic genius. And Nietzsche says, in a book for free spirits, one cannot avoid mention of Lawrence Stern, the man who Goethe honoured as the freest spirit of his century. May he be satisfied with the honour of being called the freest writer of all times in comparison with whom all others appear stiff, square-toed, intolerant and downright boorish. You know, and I think that good, not often you say good old Nietzsche, is it?

But good old Nietzsche. Don't you think, Catherine, there's something really true about the idea that still, even in the 21st century, people find, one of the things people find about Tristram Shandy is it just won't quite fit how is it literary is it is it funny is it why why can't I understand it you know and people as a result seem to want to slightly dismiss it even now do you think it is I mean I'm going to say to you is it a literary novel or does that sell it short? I think that would sell it so short.

I think I find it one of the most joyful books in the world. As Frank says, it's about love. It's about someone seeing love. But I love that Tristram is able to just see so much and be fascinated by so much. The fact that he never gets the point is one of my favorite things about people who are just constantly entranced or constantly furious, constantly wanting to hit on new ideas. I think that it's a book of just relentless, passionate interest in the world, in the things he sees. and I think that to read it is to feel that you are being held in the presence of this profoundly generous enthusiast even though he is

also the voice is also often extremely annoyed at us and annoyed at the world. I find it one of the most raw delights to read this book. It is just a glory. And I think that to think of it as a literary novel would make very little sense in the same way it would make very little sense to think of John Donne as a love poet. They're both people who are just exploding out of the confines that people have attempted to place them in. I absolutely agree. There's certainly a kind of, there's centuries worth of hostile energy directed against Tristan Shandy for not being literary enough or being too literary. People get so scratchy about what this book is doing to them that they need to push it

away. They can't take it to their hearts. They've got to push it, push it, push it away. Frank, so much of it is the voice, isn't it? It's interesting that Walpole said performance because it's trying to break that wall of the page, isn't it? It's trying to be a record of a performance. It's a piece of stand-up. So it's got all be a record of a performance it's you know it's a piece of stand-up so it's got all this notation there these are the pauses and and he's you know stern was before he became a famous writer well but at the same time there's a great and this goes to catherine's world as well a great deliverer of sermons yeah you know so he was a performer if you step into that that little church in coxwells you can see

that that this power pulpit and he was paid to go and speak in york and he became this great dinner guest so this is table talk isn't it this is in a way that quite a lot of those irish writers that you mentioned this is this is literature as talking and those great comic writers have that voice pg woodhouse does it sort of takes you by you know puts his hand on your shoulder and says well i've missed a bit i'll go back to the beginning as though you're in the room with him you know conversation is right table talk is right exactly right frank i think so in a minute um we i keep saying this is really is like tristram shandy i keep digressing from the from the beginning of the show right in a minute we're going to get to the beginning of the show but we were talking about how successful la Lawrence Stern was. This was a big bestseller. And there were racehorses named after Tristram Shandy. And there were bootleg copies around. It was a phenomenon within its times, including, we have here a recording of the first couple of verses of an 18th century ballad, the Ballad of Tristram Shandy, which is sung here by the great Wesley Stace.

Have you not read a book called Tristram Shandy? If not, look into it quickly, I pray. His precepts are sweeter than sugar candy. It would do you good to taste his curds and whey. Jenny O'Donnelly likes him so bonnily, vows that forever with him she could play. She takes him each night to her bed and swears that with her he shall lay. For none but dear Shandy, she said, should dance upon her covered way.

He tells a story about his homunculus, so droll no maid can help grinning at him. Then he runs on, ma'am, about his avunculus poor uncle toby and corporal trim enter poor doctor slop his head within does pop dalmahoy wig and countenance prim but old uncle toby laughed out at the doctor's broad dutch bottomed arse and said mother shandy would pout if a man came so near her four stars oh i'd love to hear kevin roland do that um so what we've done today is we've all brought uh a thing or something to do with tristan shandy or an element of the novel that we really love it's our favorite thing about the novel and um so i'm going to ask each of you in turn to to tell tell present to the group what

you have chosen as our favorite thing about tristan shandia we're going to start with you mitch what is your uh what is the thing that you love above all others about this novel my favorite thing amongst many things that i love is that what i voice is important, but also no one has made you feel the importance of the physical object in your hand like Stern does with Tristram Shandy. He fills it with all kinds of tricks. But the one printing trick that I particularly love as a publisher or hate as a publisher is in Volume 3, he puts in a marbled page. So is the marbled page your object of choice?

That's my object of choice. And let me just a quick explanation why. You can't print marble. You couldn't put it on a printing press in the 1760s. You can't do it in the in in the in the 21st century either so what they had to do was they had to hand stamp these pages so um so why put a marble page in end papers were marbled but why put a marble page what he's saying i think with this is a publisher do, because the point of this is,

he calls it the motley emblem of my work, because you can't penetrate the mystery of the marble page. Every single copy of Tristram Shandy's first edition had a slightly different marbled page in it. He was, way ahead of his time, he was personalizing every version of the book for the reader and saying, you know, if you can see a meaning in this pattern, your meaning is going to be different from my meaning, it's going to be different from the next meaning. This is a pretty profound way of thinking about fiction and the relationship between your physical book in your hand and the story that's being told. That's just one example of many, many of the extraordinarily difficult things he made his various publishers do. And the entrepreneurial side to him as well, we were talking about the sermon earlier, that's the sermon that he puts into volume one is so successful that he gets Doddswell, his printer, to publish the sermons

of Parson Yorick. And that sells even more copies than Tristram Shandy. It's like a kind of subtweet. You know, he kind of takes a sort of a whole different line and makes, I mean, brilliant, brilliant and funny. And again, all done in this extraordinary, you know, they're serious sermons, but it's put in the book in a very, very comedic context.

We're always saying we like books about books on Backlisted. But I mean, this is the greatest book about books, isn't it? This is the greatest book about books ever. We did the Python books on an early episode of Backlisted. And of course, I was thinking today that the Python books, which seemed incredibly avant-garde and daring and brilliant Christmas presents in the 70s, owe so much to Tristram Shandy because so much of Tristram Shandy is to do with what John was saying. The book as an object, the thing that you hold in your hand, the fact that you're not actually hearing a voice

while simultaneously hearing this incredibly distinctive voice. But it's only a book. But it's not a book. It plays games with you all the time. And his novelties, they're never just for the hell of it, I think. There's always something going on. Like I say with the marble page, he's teasing out something really important

about the relationship between the reader and the story. Let me ask our guests, while also insisting this pause is edited out, although you could leave it in because that'll be a Tristram Shandy-like. Look, I can see the asterisk, Andy. Catherine, do you have, I know that you, I know because we talked about beforehand

what you want to bring as your favourite thing, but without totally compromising that, do you have a favorite printer's trick within tristram shandy i think probably one of my favorite things is um partly because it is such proof of how incredibly hard he must have been to deal with as a writer like almost all writers feel a little bit guilty about what we put our publishers through, and it would have been nothing compared to what Lawrence Stern. But there's a gorgeous moment just in terms of typographical pleasure, where Uncle Toby and the corporal are standing outside the widow Wobbin's house, and the corporal is thinking about freedom,

about commitment, and about being an unmarried man. And the corporal says, about freedom, about commitment, about being an unmarried man. And the corporal says, whilst a man is free, and he gives a flourish with his stick. And then there's a swirl that goes three times, maybe five times down the page. And Lawrence Stern insisted that it looked exactly right. And he spent his own money, spent five shillings getting a woodcut of it. And I just love the insistence on detail and on that kind of like that burst of energy. It just gives me such joy, that moment.

Frank, do you think you can read this book on Kindle? Well, yeah, you can, I think. I think that's okay because nobody's like modern publishers have generally not done a great job of reproducing this sort of typographical wonderland Patrick showed me a French copy where the black page came out with like a checkered page like like a formula one flag why I don't know a lot of people do the black page as kind of mini black page so they're just little black square at the bottom. So I think all this, the wonder and the physicality of the book is great,

but the human stuff still stays there without all that. You know? Yeah, Toby's still in there in Trim, and those friendships and that warmth is still there. Well, a few years ago, the cartoonist Martin Rosen, who's also been a guest on Backlisted, I say a few years ago the cartoonist martin rosen who's also been a guest on backlisted uh i say a few years ago about 25 years ago published a um head spinning adaptation of tristram shandy as a graphic novel it is incredible i dug my copy out and reread it for this have you do you have read it for you lee frank oh Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, God, it's so amazing. It's absolutely astonishing.

Forget your Kindle for that, baby. Yeah, no way. No way, yeah. That's a graphic novel about the writing of a graphic novel about adapting Tristram Shandy. And it has all this incredible, and it builds in that sense of frustration as well. But Frank, I found this little clip of Martin talking about the adaptation

and how he approached the visual feeling of it and the characters, which I think you particularly will find interesting. Because it starts with Tristram describing the circumstances of his conception, I just had this vision of the inside of Walter Shandy's scrotum, which would be a huge Pyreneesian ruin, with Tristram as the narrator actually present in the frame and talking in this case He's actually talking to James Joyce and Virginia Woolf and then just goes off for a walk And because Tristram Shandy is the is the first and also ultimate anti novel you could turn it into an anti graphic novel as well So it's about the process of doing a graphic novel of about a novel which is about the process of writing a novel.

Choosing the way the main characters themselves looked was quite fun because Tristram was adhering to the Mickey Mouse protocol. If you're going to draw somebody over and over again, you need to make them quite simple. So he's basically a T. He's got a very wide tricorn hat, and he's got a very thin body.

And you just see his mouth. You don't see his nose, because his nose got squashed when he was a baby, when he was being born. You never see his eyes. But he's a T. He's a kind of tristram. And then there's his father, Walter, who is based on Moominpapa, for no particularly good reason. You'll never read that graphic novel the same way again. Or read Moominvalley in November although he's not in it fortunately uh Catherine would you share with the group please your uh

the the found object from within the pages of Tristram Shandy which is your favorite thing so I think there might be a little bit of overlap but with Frank because I love the love story of the widow Wadman and uncle Toby and I find the way she appears in the book so beautiful and so funny um we don't really get a description of her we are just told that she is most concupiscent. Do you know how to say it? Concupiscible? Concupiscent. It's concupiscible. Concupiscible. I'm going to skip that bit.

I'm just... so i'll start again so the description we have of the widow when she appears instead of being told what she looks like we are offered this to conceive this right call for pen and ink here's paper ready to your hand sit down sir paint her to your own mind as like your mistress as you can as unlike your wife as your conscience will let you, which is all one to me, but please put your own fancy in it. Was ever anything in nature so sweet, so exquisite? Then, dear sir, how could my uncle Toby resist it? Thrice happy book, thou wilt have one page at least within thy covers, which malice will not blacken and which ignorance cannot misrepresent. And the opposite page is black,

your very own doodle of the widow Wadman. And I just, my heart just is entirely stern. Interactive. It's just- Exactly. I mean, it's a mixture of like, choose your own adventure and the idea that your beauty would always be the one that you can imagine. My love for that is very great. I think one of the things that's so impressive about all nine volumes is how he's hacking them out because they're such a huge success. But the invention never flags. you don't get to volume eight and think oh he's run out of steam there's always new stuff that he's doing and also he

builds in the success of the books into what he's then writing about so it becomes like a an ongoing narrative on on its own writing it's head. It's not the fifth series of The Wire. It's the last series of The Prisoner. Where it starts feeding on its own mythos. Yeah, yeah. But creating a real sense of momentum as well, I think, anyway. Don't you also think, one of the things I love about his ability to move from different modes of storytelling, though, as well, because you might think the way we've talked about it, that it's all about jokes and all about typographical tricks and all about.

But the death of Lefebvre is one of the most amazing bits, affecting bits of writing. of writing and Toby, you know, and the way he uses his kind of typographical towards the end, it's one of the most beautiful bits of writing in any novel I've heard. And Patrick was telling me that it's been performed as a sort of, you know, it's been sung on stage, like a kind of great tragic aria. And you mentioned Goethe and Nietzsche before. In Germany, that idea of Toby as a model of how to be a man, of, you know, a gentle, sentimental, brave person, was really huge. And there is a grave for Uncle Toby. You can go and visit Uncle Toby's grave.

You know, he was such a big cult. And there were clubs, there were Uncle Toby clubs, you know, you could learn to be like, you know, that was a way of being a gentleman, which is really, I mean, it's so attractive. I think we're going to talk about Uncle Toby in a minute, but before we leave Widow Woodman, let's hear a clip from a cock and bull story of Steve Coogan being

interviewed by the late Anthony H. Wilson. Steve Coogan, Why Tr the late Anthony H. Wilson. Steve Coogan, why Tristram Shandy? This is the book that many people say is unfilmable. I think that's the attraction. Tristram Shandy was a post-modern classic written before there was any modernism to be post about. So it's way ahead of its time. And in fact, for those who haven't

heard of it it was actually listed as number eight on the observer's uh top 100 books of all time that was a chronological list right if you want to see the epk interview it'll be part of the dvd package along with extended versions of many of the scenes which should acts as footnotes to the main film Steve Coogan Tristram Shanley thank you thank you I was so pleased when I heard you doing this it's my favorite novel yeah I just love it it's fantastic who's playing Widow Wadman it's my favorite character Widow Wadman in the book right she's not in the film no no it's a great love story I know in the book it's a great love story, but there's so much in the book.

So rich. It's sad, I understand. There's loads of stuff in it. So, Frank, I must ask you, we all watched Cock and Bull Story again. Did you know you were going to leave Widow Wobman out? Did you decide that you were going to pretend to leave Widow Wadman out? Did you decide that you were going to pretend to leave Widow Wadman out?

Or am I misreading it completely? That's the best piece of plotting I've ever done in my life, because the story in that is that they're leaving the Widow Wadman out. Steve, aka Tristan Shandy, hears that there's a great love story, campaigns for it to be put in the script, shandy hears that there's a great love story campaigns for it to be put in the script without realizing that it's not his love story it's rob bryden and then he's like and does it in very steve-like manner very plausibly no no it's great should be it's got to be and got to be in and everyone's going god he's so generous building rob bryden's part up so it's very shandy and you know that completely backfires on him but was were you did you set yourself a target of trying to find ways of incorporating all those different things within

the novel did you have a hit list of things you wanted to get in by hook or by crook we just finished making 24 hour party people which was steve and michael winterbottom so it's the same kind of little group and andrew eaton and, you know, Mark as well, Mark Tilsley as well. So the same designer, same little group. So it was sort of an ongoing conversation, really. And weirdly, I had thought 24-hour party people, I thought of that as my adaptation of Tristan Shandy, really.

I'd kind of given up and thought, well, yeah, that'll be, I'll do that. Because it starts, it's very, it's got this very Shandian opening where he says, this really happened, but obviously it's a metaphor as well. And I'll just say, he says, I'll just say Icarus, if you know what I mean, great. If you don't, it doesn't matter, but you should probably read more. um so uh before we move on to uh frank's favorite uh element of tristram shandy we're going Island book. You will hear five different castaways. You all need a pen and paper.

See if you can name them. One book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare and big encyclopedias. Well, for 20 years I carried around the world a copy of a book that I thought had all the prerequisites. It has to be inordinately long, it has to be pretty boring, and it, and I never got around to reading it, or more than the first two or three pages. That is the book I would have, because I consider it to be my life's work to finish Tristan Shandy one day. It's Tristan Shandy. I read it at 16 when I had flu,

and both Shandy and I survived that experience. I've read it ever since. I think what it taught me then was that people who were long dead were not necessarily dull, and that is a lesson which is very important in adolescence, and indeed afterwards, too. And all your people must think a lot about this.

I eventually decided on Tristram Shandy for this reason, that it's a book which is absolutely enraging to read in a hurry, just once, because it's so full of mad loose ends and odd digressions. I then read it much later in life, very slowly, and found it utterly enchanting. And I think it'd be wonderful on the desert island, because of all those loose ends, you could begin to dream, the digressions would lead one off into whole new areas of fantasy. Wonderful book. Tristam Shandy by Lawrence Stern. Tristram Shandy by Lawrence Stern. I've been trying to turn it into an opera for 20 years,

and it is so vast and it's so confusing. I think I could, for the first time in my life, sort of take a big bit of beautiful sandy beach and actually plot the structure of the narrative or non-narrative and try and work out how I was going to do it. And then it might also be a sign to planes flying over structure of the narrative or non-narrative and try and work out how I was going to do it and then it might also be a sign to planes flying over that there was this was not an uninhabited island right well for me it has to be a novel since I think the novel is the greatest of all the literary forms and I originally thought of taking Laurence Stone's Tristram Shandy, which is the greatest of all novels,

and the first of all novels. But I finally decided that there must be a modern version of this book, and what I would like you to give me is a book by the Italian writer Italo Calvino called If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, which is a compendium of stories, none of them finished, and very preoccupying for a desert island. Right, you shall have it. Tristram Shandy by Laurence Stern.

Thank you for letting us hear your Desert Island disc. And thank you very much indeed for asking me. It's very good fun. Goodbye, everyone. I may have performed a bit of special audio doctoring on those clips. Well, it wasn't Ian McCulloch was it Ian McCulloch wasn't in that list God that would have been great wouldn't it the one who chose

it on a winter's night was that sting well it was Malcolm Bradbury so I'll give it to you so the first one was does anyone know who any of these are no I think one of them was Bamber Gascoigne yes the third one was, does anyone know who any of these are? No. I think one of them was Bamber Gascoigne. Yes. The third one was Bamber Gascoigne, 1987.

Anymore for Anymore. For the opera, the writer of the opera, it was Michael Nyman in 1999. And you also heard the journalist James Cameron in 1979 at the beginning. And you would have got bonus points for the second voice which was Judge Stephen Toomin in 1993 um but I'm afraid no one got that one and then there was Malcolm Bradbury at the end who actually chose If On A Winter's Night a

traveller while saying Trish from Shandy is the greatest novel ever written, but he was, you know, was it, was it, was it Betjeman? The first one. Yeah. He chose one of his records was army dreamers by Kate Bush. Yeah. Wow.

So that's all right. Isn't it? No Dexys though. Sadly. Frank, what is your, what have you brought to share with us today? I'm going to bring a bit about the names because part of Walter's ambition for

his child is to have the perfect name. And I think kind of like really going back to everything, despite all the cleverness and intellectual stuff and everything, for me, what's amazing about this book is it's the story of a household and these very, very ordinary things that these flights of fancy take flight from. So thinking of a name for the baby is a very, very ordinary things that these flights of fancy take flight from. So thinking of a name for the baby is a very, everybody's had to do that. And there's a point at which Tristan is, Walter has chosen the perfect name, which is Trismegistus.

And then the baby is choking to death. So there has to be an emergency baptism. And Susanna, the maid maid comes in and says so what are you going to call the baby it's about to die and walter says well where one sure said my father to himself oh she says uh the baby's about to die what are you going to call it um as captain shandy is the godfather, should you call it after him. Where one's sure, said my father to himself, scratching his eyebrow, that the child was expiring, one might as well compliment my brother Toby as not. And it would be a pity in such a case to throw away such a great name as Trismegistus upon him.

But he may recover. No, no, no, said my father. I'll get up. There's no time, cried Susanna. The child's as black as my shoe. Trismegistus said my father would I'll get up. There's no time, cried Susanna. The child's as black as my shoe. Trismegistus, said my father. But stay. Thou art a leaky vessel, Susanna. Canst thou carry Trismegistus in thy head? Can I, said Susanna, shutting the door in her heart. If she can, I'll be shot, said my father, bouncing out of bed in the dark and groping for his

breeches. Susanna ran with all speed along the gallery. My father made all possible speed to find his breeches. Susanna got the start and kept it. Tris, Tris something, she said. Susanna ran with all speed along the gallery. My father made all possible speed to find his britches. Susanna got the start and kept it. Tris, Tris something, she said. Susanna, there is no Christian name in the world, said the curate, beginning with Tris, but Tristam. Then Tristam Gistus, said Susanna. There's no Gistus to it, noodle. Tis my own name, said the curate, dipping in his hand as he spoke into the basin.

Tristam, said he, and so on and so on. So Tristam was I called I called and Tristan shall I be to the end of my death. And I love it that Susanna is right. You know, in novels of this period, servants are, you know, it's like Jonathan Swift's, you know, they're devils, aren't they? Or they're fools or whatever. Susanna is right. And it's the vicar who kind of mansplains the worst name in the world, by the way mansplains the worst name in the world, by the way. It is the worst name in the world. Trism is the worst name ever.

It's full of tragedy, whereas Trismegistus is this magical name that will give him a great start in life. And I love it that Walter sets such store by names and then insists that the baby is delivered not by a midwife, but by a doctor whose name is Dr. Slop. It's like, yeah. that the baby is delivered not by a midwife, but by a doctor, whose name is Dr. Slop. Which writers, 20th century writers,

owe a debt to Stern and to Tristram Shandy? Salman Rushdie, I think. Especially with his love of noses, I think that must be, in some ways, a take on the delight. It is also one of my favourite bits of the novel, the idea of the nose, which is, of course, in part just this gorgeous joke, but also... Midnight's Children starts like, if I remember rightly, doesn't it? It starts like Tristram Shandy.

There's a very deliberate… Yeah, before he's born. Yeah. Who else, anyone? Milan Kundra. I know it's one of his favourite books. But also Joyce was a fan. Nabokov, you know, Borghes.

Anyone who's doing anything experimental. I mean, all those experimental modernists, the roads lead back to experiment, I mean all those experimental modernists, the roads lead back to Stern I think. I mean you said that thing about the python, so like cocoon is very very indebted to it I would say that swim two birds, very very indebted

and I tell you what struck me something we haven't talked about is the presence of death in this book, which is a kind of benign, it's inevitable, you have to embrace it. The death that is in Tristan Shamby is Mort from Terry Pratchett, isn't it? You know, that lovely, we will be friends one day feel about death that you get in all the Terry Pratchett books, and which Terry Pratchett embraced in his life.

That is also Stern. Stern is, these books are haunted by his cough, the fact that he may not outlive the project. And I think that's a thing to think about as well. I was talking to our friend Ewan Tant about this, and he made a really interesting point in relation to Joyce and Flann O'Brien and Lawrence Stern. He said, you know, some of the literary establishment distaste

for Tristram Shandy is identical to that expressed against Ulysses. Absolutely. And it's the idea of these Irish people over the sea with their lack of respect for our classic traditions. That's part of the spark of the energy in the thing still, isn't it? Yeah, definitely. And whenever their lack of respect for our classic traditions,

that's part of the spark of the energy in the thing still, isn't it? Yeah, definitely. And whenever an Irish writer does get it right, you like de-Irish them. So like nobody ever talks about Charlotte Bronte's Irish accent. That's true. My favourite thing about Tristram Shandy, which I first read and didn't understand when I was a student and re-read about six weeks ago and absolutely loved, but on both occasions, whether I understood it or not, the thing that I adore about it and I realised that, you know, never mind James Joyce and B.S. Johnson and Flann O'Brien. Andy Miller has ripped off this book, Something Rotten, as well.

I keep finding things that absolutely make me howl with laughter because they are so impatient and antagonistic to the reader of the book. impatient and antagonistic to the reader of the book, which is one of my favourite jokes in any book, is where you get locked in a passive-aggressive war with this imagined enemy, the reader. Chapter 11 of Volume 2. The chapter starts, Writing, when properly managed, as you may be sure I think mine is, is but a different name for conversation.

As no one who knows what he is about in good company would venture to talk all, so no author who understands the just boundaries of decorum and good breeding would presume to think all. The truest respect which you can pay to the reader's understanding, is to halve this matter amicably and leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself. For my own part, I am eternally paying him compliments of this kind and do all that lies in my power to keep his imagination as busy as my own.

And there's repeatedly, there's the brilliant bit earlier on with the with the he makes the imagined reader go back and reread something because they haven't been paying attention properly and it's their fault not his he was writing in an era where you really could make it up as you were going along because it hadn't all been done because the novel is in its sort of infancy. There weren't any many other novels people could compare this to that were well-known and widely read. This isn't enough like Don Quixote and It's Making Me Cross

seems to be the general critical response. It's kind of like the Sgt Pepper is to the LP, this is to the novel. No, I think it's more annoying than that i don't know what it is tales from topographic oceans i don't know i mean i don't no i don't i don't know what it is but but but what i love is the idea that he is engaging with the perceived or real um impatience of readers yeah yeah of his readers and making and weaving gold out of air with it and making it and building that energy

I keep using the word energy but I think the thing I get from Tristram Shandy from that baiting of the reader is an energy which is what powers it all the way on to the end of season 9 that's where the juice is is this annoying you? is this annoying you? is this this annoying you is this annoying you is this annoying you is this annoying you is this annoying you it keeps going i think it's absolutely brilliant it makes me howl with laughter i also love wildly how wildly everyone

loved it that he was so famous it's just just fantastic. And I loved how he loved being famous because just a hundred years ago, everybody was pretending that they didn't want to be. And people like John Donne were talking about descending to print. And it was like you were Grub Street and you had ink on your fingers and you were dirty and you were prostrated before the public. And he was just famous and thrilled about being famous. And I just love his wholesale ambition and his delight in it. I write to be famous, not to be fed. Exactly. I love that. So here's Steve Coogan reading the very end of season nine.

The ending. My father, whether by ancient custom of the manor or as improprietor of the great tithes, was obliged to keep a bull for the service of the parish, and Obadiah had led his cow upon a pot visit to him one day or other the preceding summer. I say one day or other because, as chance would have it, it was the day on which he was married to my father's housemaid. Therefore, when Obadiah's wife was brought to bed, now, said Obadiah, I

shall have a calf. So Obadiah went daily to visit his cow. She'll carve on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday at the farthest. The cow did not carve. No, she'll not carve till next week. The cow put it off terribly. Till at the end of the sixth week, Obadiah's suspicions fell upon the bull. Now, the parish being very large, my father's bull, to speak the truth of him, was no equal to the department. He had, however, got himself somehow or other thrust into employment. And as he went through the business with a grave face,

my father had a high opinion of him. Most of the townsmen, and please your worship, quoth Obadiah, believe that tis all the bull's fault. May not a cow be barren, replied my father, turning to Dr. Slop. It never happens, said Dr. Slop, but the man's wife may have come before her time naturally enough. Prithee, has the child hair upon his head, added Dr. Slop. It is as hairy as I am, said Obadiah. Obadiah had not been shaved for three weeks. Cried my father, beginning the sentence with an exclamatory whistle.

And so, Brother Toby, this poor bull of mine, who is as good a bull as ever pissed, and might have done for Europa herself in purer times had he but two legs might have been driven into doctor's commons and lost his character which to a town bull brother Toby is the very same thing as his life lord said my mother what is this story all about a cock and a bull said Yorick and one of the best of its kind I ever heard. Oh, that's superb. Tremendous. So my question to each of you in turn, I'm going to start with John to give Frank and Catherine time

to think of a good answer. Is Yorick, a.k.a. Lawrence Stern, correct? Is The Life and Opinions of Trish and Shandy a cock and bull story? It's a shaggy dog story. That's what I think I love about it most. It's not a great novel. It's not a great towering edifice of literary.

It's a story that people, it's people telling stories to each other in pubs about their lives, about their families. And it's also, it's crap. It's made up. It's made up. It's revised continually. So, yeah, I think a cock and bull story, I'm sure that's why, you know,

that's why Frank called it a cock and bull story and not Tristram Shandy. Yes, cock and bull would be the heart of generation. It would be, it's what you need for life. And I think that would be exactly what the book is. It's just shot through with completely endless and unending life. It's a good answer. I'm wondering if Frank can top it. I can't top that without

making it more explicit. I will just whistle. The man is not firing blanks. I'll just whistle Lilliballero at this point. And there we must leave it. Extravagant thanks to Catherine and Frank for allowing us to wander across the Shandyverse,

to Nicky Birch for smoothing out the topsy-turvy trail of our meanderings into a more or less coherent sound path, and finally to Unbound for winding the clock and ringing the door. You can download all 135 previous episodes, plus follow links, clips and suggestions for further reading by visiting our website backlisted.fm and we're always pleased if you contact us on Twitter and Facebook and now in sound and pictures on Instagram. You can also show your love directly by supporting our Patreon at patreon.com forward slash backlisted.

We aim to survive without paid for advertising. Your generosity helps us do that. All patrons get to hear backlisted episodes early and for less than half the cost of an issue of the learned journal, The Shandian, they get two lot-listed a month, our own drafty Yorkshire vicarage, where we drink Tristram Shandy's,

listen to Tristram Shandy, and apply both wit and judgment to the songs, films, TV shows, and books that we've all been enjoying that week. Blank page. We'll print like a minute of silence, and you can all record your own version of that bit. Lot listeners also get to hear their names read out on the show as a mark of our thanks

and appreciation. This week's batch of lot listeners are Helen Sturgis, thank you very much, Jonathan Drake, Marie, DM Withers, and Jane Glover-Gage. That's it. Thank you. And there's one

final Shandian gesture of thanks to our expert panel, to Frank, to Catherine, to Nicky, to John Mitchinson. You can choose what music we finish on. Would you like to hear a man in Canada whistling Lilla Bolero? Or would you like to hear the track Hunky Funky Woman by 70s glam rock troupe Tristram Shandy? Catherine, that's us here. I'm voting for Tristram Shandy.

Talk amongst yourselves. Hunky Funky Woman it is. If you want to hear all of Hunky Funky Woman, we'll be playing the track in its entirety on the next episode of Locklisted. But thanks very much, everybody. Thanks, Frank, Cassie, John. See you next time.

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