| In the first four volumes of Tristram Shandy Sterne employs three mock reader-characters who act as scape-goats for bad reading in the text. The real reader watches the mistakes of these unlearned readers. After the real reader has seen these three characters chastised by Tristram, he or she is then called upon in the last five volumes of the novel to take over the role of the mock reader-character. The real reader enters into a type of conversation with Tristram in which he or she is allowed to contribute to the text; the reader even draws portraits of other characters in the book.; This is a role that contains the subjectivity of the reader through formal strategies and yet allows him or her to add to the text creatively. This is the reader's experience of reading Tristram Shandy, and because critics have neglected it, Tristram Shandy has remained a baffling, sometimes bothersome novel. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
