A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy
Laurence Sterne
After the bizarre textual antics of "Tristram Shandy", this book would seem to require a literary health warning. Sure enough, it opens in mid-conversation upon a subject never explained; meanders after a fashion through a hundred pages, then fizzles out in mid-sentence - so, a plotless novel lacking a beginning, a middle or an end. Let us say: an exercise in the infinitely comic.
"There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as to get master of this short hand, and to be quick in rendering the several turns of looks and limbs with all their inflections and delineations, into plain words."
Sterne calls his fine sensitivity to body language (as we now term it) "translation". Much of the pleasure to be had from this wonderfully engaging book comes from his unmatched ability to extract random details from the chaos of experience to create comic turns imbued with Feeling. His Parson Yorick is the Sentimental Traveller: certainly a Man of Feeling, but one in whom "Nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece..." (Summary by Martin Geeson)
Author - Laurence Sterne.
Narrator - LibriVox Community.
Published Date - Thursday, 19 January 2023.
Location:
United States
Description:
After the bizarre textual antics of "Tristram Shandy", this book would seem to require a literary health warning. Sure enough, it opens in mid-conversation upon a subject never explained; meanders after a fashion through a hundred pages, then fizzles out in mid-sentence - so, a plotless novel lacking a beginning, a middle or an end. Let us say: an exercise in the infinitely comic. "There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as to get master of this short hand, and to be quick in rendering the several turns of looks and limbs with all their inflections and delineations, into plain words." Sterne calls his fine sensitivity to body language (as we now term it) "translation". Much of the pleasure to be had from this wonderfully engaging book comes from his unmatched ability to extract random details from the chaos of experience to create comic turns imbued with Feeling. His Parson Yorick is the Sentimental Traveller: certainly a Man of Feeling, but one in whom "Nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece..." (Summary by Martin Geeson) Author - Laurence Sterne. Narrator - LibriVox Community. Published Date - Thursday, 19 January 2023.
Language:
English
Chapter 1
Duration:00:16:38
Chapter 2
Duration:00:12:23
Chapter 3
Duration:00:12:59
Chapter 4
Duration:00:15:38
Chapter 5
Duration:00:11:57
Chapter 6
Duration:00:14:37
Chapter 7
Duration:00:15:25
Chapter 8
Duration:00:14:23
Chapter 9
Duration:00:16:53
Chapter 10
Duration:00:14:30
Chapter 11
Duration:00:15:10
Chapter 12
Duration:00:15:54
Chapter 13
Duration:00:10:27
Chapter 14
Duration:00:15:25
Chapter 15
Duration:00:14:40
Chapter 16
Duration:00:12:47
Chapter 17
Duration:00:19:21
Chapter 18
Duration:00:16:37
Chapter 19
Duration:00:13:42
Chapter 20
Duration:00:10:05
Chapter 21
Duration:00:12:56
Chapter 22
Duration:00:17:57
Chapter 23
Duration:00:12:45
Chapter 24
Duration:00:10:32
Chapter 25
Duration:00:15:55