![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Cultural Stuff
Jul. 2nd, 2024 08:50 am Ailz spent much of yesterday watching Wimbledon. We sit across from one another so I got the commentary and the crowd noise but not the visuals- and mostly ignored them; I'm quite good at ignoring things I don't choose to hear.
I've finally finished Tristram Shandy. Dr Johnson said it hadn't lasted because odd things don't. I can't think what he was basing that judgement on because Tristram is still going strong. Perhaps there'd been a dip in sales. I'm not going to call it a modern book, because it clearly isn't- but it's accessible. Sterne could be sitting in the room with us, talking his nonsense, making his sly digs at authority, valuing goodness, and relishing his dirty jokes. He's a mensch, a compadre, a companero- one of the most lovable persons ever to commit their sensibility to writing. And he creates such lovable characters too- Tristram's opinionated father and docile mother, wise, sardonic Yorick and above all Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim. They say it's hard to create a character who is all goodness, because they're bound to come off as flat and bland- but Uncle Toby is wonderfully good and one of the strongest and funniest characters in Eng Lit. Dickens tried something similar with Mr Pickwick, but Toby is better- perhaps because Sterne was a good man himself and Dickens wasn't entirely....
I watched Heaven Sent, the Capaldi era episode of Dr Who that everyone thinks is one of the best ever because I wanted to see if I still think it's a bit silly- and I'm afraid I do.
I've finally finished Tristram Shandy. Dr Johnson said it hadn't lasted because odd things don't. I can't think what he was basing that judgement on because Tristram is still going strong. Perhaps there'd been a dip in sales. I'm not going to call it a modern book, because it clearly isn't- but it's accessible. Sterne could be sitting in the room with us, talking his nonsense, making his sly digs at authority, valuing goodness, and relishing his dirty jokes. He's a mensch, a compadre, a companero- one of the most lovable persons ever to commit their sensibility to writing. And he creates such lovable characters too- Tristram's opinionated father and docile mother, wise, sardonic Yorick and above all Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim. They say it's hard to create a character who is all goodness, because they're bound to come off as flat and bland- but Uncle Toby is wonderfully good and one of the strongest and funniest characters in Eng Lit. Dickens tried something similar with Mr Pickwick, but Toby is better- perhaps because Sterne was a good man himself and Dickens wasn't entirely....
I watched Heaven Sent, the Capaldi era episode of Dr Who that everyone thinks is one of the best ever because I wanted to see if I still think it's a bit silly- and I'm afraid I do.
