The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy GentlemanThe Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy Gentleman
Score Classic
What it's about
Laurence Sterne's 18th-century masterpiece of bawdy humor and satire is part novel, part digression: Tristram Shandy tries to tell his life story but barely gets past his own birth, distracted by his father Walter's eccentric philosophy and his Uncle Toby's love affairs and military obsessions.
Why it's worth reading
It's on the Guardian's list of the 100 best novels in English. It anticipated modern experimental fiction by two centuries.
You'll love it if you liked
Don Quixote
Ulysses
The Pale KingGood to know
It's deliberately chaotic, with blank pages and squiggly lines. It's funnier than its age suggests.
By the numbers
- Readers40 out of 100 · counts 42%
- Critics51 out of 100 · counts 34% (its stronger lane)
- Bestseller17 out of 100 · counts 14%
- Buzz0 out of 100 · counts 10%
Critics and Bestseller are two ways to earn a place: a book's stronger one counts more. Buzz rewards recent bestseller weeks and prizes, so older books start at zero. The parts combine into the Must-Read Score, shown on a scale where the best book we found scores 99 and the last book to make the ranking scores 50.
Where it ranks
- #110 of the 219 young adult books we rank
- #484 of the 762 classics we rank
- #1685 of the 2,816 books we rank
Why it made the list
Reads as
Epic
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Quick answers
Is The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy Gentleman worth reading?
Yes. It's on the Guardian's list of the 100 best novels in English. It ranks #1,685 of the 2,816 books in our ranking, with a Must-Read Score of 66.7 (the best book we found scores 99).
What is The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy Gentleman about?
Laurence Sterne's 18th-century masterpiece of bawdy humor and satire is part novel, part digression: Tristram Shandy tries to tell his life story but barely gets past his own birth, distracted by his father Walter's eccentric philosophy and his Uncle Toby's love affairs and military obsessions.
How long does it take to read The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy Gentleman?
About 19 hours (752 pages), or about 5 weeks at 30 minutes a day.
What should I read after The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy Gentleman?
If you liked it, try Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Ulysses by James Joyce or The Pale King by David Foster Wallace.