BY ROGER EBERT FILM CRITIC /
April 16, 2006
Q. You claim in discussing the movie "Tristram Shandy" that you have never met anyone who finished the novel. When I was an English major at Barnard College in the mid-1980s, I read it cover to cover. When I told my professor, she was surprised, claiming that while it was on the syllabus, she didn't expect anyone to read the thing in its entirety.
Rachel Leventman Shwalb, Brookline, Mass.
A. In a previous Answer Man, a reader told me of a Tristram Shandy book club whose members have met for 22 years although none have finished the novel. Now I have heard from many readers who have indeed finished it, including:
Clare Flanagan Ahearn, Rutherford, N.J.: "As an English major at Emmanuel College, Boston, from 1966-70, I had to read Tristram Shandy. I did, because I was expected to. I recall little; like the pangs of childbirth, some things are too painful to remember. I was paying for college myself, and I wanted to get as much out of it as possible."
Tracey S. Rosenberg, Edinburgh, Scotland: "I have read Tristram Shandy. I must admit, however, that I read it for the same reasons I read James Joyce's Ulysses: (1) that I will be able to tell people that I have read it; and (2) that, having read it, I never have to read it again."
David Van Court, Houston, Texas: "Tristram Shandy is not nearly as difficult as something like Ulysses, and is a pure delight. I would put it on a list with Tom Jones, David Copperfield, Lucky Jim and anything by Evelyn Waugh."
John Marble, Los Alamos N.M.: "I've read Tristram Shandy three times. I think it inspired contemporary writers such as Vonnegut, Douglas Adams and Philip Jose Farmer (writing as Kilgore Trout)."
