Recommendations
Books Like Tristram Shandy
Best books to read after Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
Readers who love Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne are drawn to its combination of the most formally radical novel of the eighteenth century (the autobiography that keeps getting interrupted by digressions, Uncle Toby and Walter Shandy, and meta-commentary on the impossibility of writing), the extraordinary comedy, and the direct anticipation of modernist fiction. They want works that deal with formal innovation in fiction, the relationship between time and narrative, and the tradition of the self-conscious novel that Sterne essentially invented.
- 1Buy
In Search of Lost Time
by Marcel Proust
Proust's companion — the greatest investigation of time, memory, and narrative. The companion as the most direct modernist descendant: Proust's vast investigation of involuntary memory and the impossibility of capturing experience in narrative is the twentieth-century version of what Sterne was doing in the eighteenth
- 2Buy
Don Quixote
by Miguel de Cervantes
Cervantes's companion — the original metafictional novel. The companion as the predecessor: both Tristram Shandy and Don Quixote are organized around the relationship between the book and the reader's awareness of reading a book, and both use digressions, interpolated tales, and self-referential commentary to investigate the nature of narrative itself
- 3Buy
Jacques the Fatalist
by Denis Diderot
Diderot's companion philosophical novel — Jacques and his master on the road. The companion as the French version of the same Shandean investigation: Diderot explicitly responds to Tristram Shandy and uses the same techniques of digression, meta-commentary, and narrative self-interruption to investigate fate and free will
- 4Buy
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy
by Laurence Sterne
Sterne's companion — Yorick's sentimental journey. The companion as the other half of Sterne's work: where Tristram Shandy is the radical investigation of the impossibility of narrative, A Sentimental Journey is the investigation of the moral value of sympathy and sentiment
- 5Buy
If on a winter's night a traveler
by Italo Calvino
Calvino's companion metafiction — the novel about reading a novel. The companion as the postmodern Italian descendant: Calvino's direct address to the reader is the postmodern equivalent of Sterne's constant meta-commentary on the difficulty of his own enterprise
- 6Buy
Mrs. Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf
Woolf's companion — Clarissa's day in London. The companion as the modernist descendant: Woolf's stream of consciousness technique is the twentieth-century version of the Shandean investigation of the relationship between the mind and the narrative it tries to impose on experience
- 7Buy
Ulysses
by James Joyce
Joyce's companion — Leopold Bloom's day in Dublin. The companion as the most ambitious modernist descendant: Ulysses is the fullest realization of the project that Tristram Shandy began — the formal investigation of the relationship between consciousness, time, and narrative, now carried through an entire day rather than an entire lifetime
- 8Buy
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy
by Laurence Sterne
Sterne's companion — Yorick's sentimental journey. The other half of Sterne's work: where Tristram Shandy is the radical investigation of the impossibility of narrative, A Sentimental Journey is the investigation of the moral value of sympathy and sentiment in brief, brilliant episodes
More Tristram Shandy Resources
More Reading Recommendations
View all →Monthly Newsletter
Never miss a big release
Get the most anticipated upcoming books delivered to your inbox once a month — no spam, no filler.
Monthly only. Unsubscribe anytime.
Book links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BookReleaseRadar earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.