I had to read A Sentimental Journey by Sterne in an English class I took as a sophomore at Hendrix College and then again as a senior during our comprehensive exams. I didn’t like it the first time, but the second time (because by then I realized what Sterne was actually doing, juggling sentiment and silliness and sentimental, silly language), I did sort of enjoy it. By then, I was ready for a little nearly-(Post-)Modernist-ish play with language. The same sort of guff appears in Tristam Shandy—but I think more of it is “at play” in this work (and yes, I’m thinking of Derrida’s Writing and Différence, god help me—and yes, I didn’t capitalize “god” on purpose—because I’m an agnostic—so much to explain!). The narrator kids the reader throughout the work—for instance, when (considering) discussing maps/descriptions in reference to the midwife’s fame “—not to swell the work,--I detest the thought of such a thing” in Volume One, Chapter Thirteen (31). Here, he self-consciously lets the reader know what he’s even THINKING about writing, as well as maybe why he didn’t write it, which is overly analytical and ridiculous and funny. Also, the argumentation strategies—and the jabs at argumentation-strategy inventers or namers—listed in Chapter Twenty-One of Volume One are fun. Describing Uncle Toby’s Lillabullero-whistling’s rhetorical function, the narrator then goes on to name this particular strategy:
I do therefore, by these presents, strictly order and command, That it be known and distinguished by the name and title of the Argumentum Fistulatorium, and no other;---and that it rank hereafter with the Argumentum Baculinum, and the Argumentum ad Crumenam, and for ever hereafter be treated in the same chapter.
As for the Argumentum Tripodium, which is never used but by the woman against the man;---and the Argumentum ad Rem, which, contrarywise, is made use of by the man against the woman:--As these two are enough in conscience one lecture,---and, moreover, as the one is the best answer to the other,---let them likewise be kept apart, and be treated of in a place by themselves. (57)
This is just silly, entertaining word-play, which might be frustrating to certain readers who are not as entertained as the narrator is by what he writes. And Sterne must be consciously doing this. The use of playful sounds and repetition in lines, like the description of Obadiah (“As Obadiah’s was a mix’d case,----mark, Sirs,--I say, a mix’d case, for it was obstretical,--scrip-tical,--squirtical, papistical,--and as far as the coach-horse was concerned in it,--caball-istical—and only partly musical [. . .]”), remind me of the playfulness of the Wake (170). I have to stop every few lines and go back to re-read what just happened, although I know it tickled my brain. But since I’ve reached the end of my note, let me go back and speak to what I should’ve or could’ve said earlier, à la Sterne: my way into the text is examining in particular its linguistic and story-telling games because I like absurdity (“All my heroes are off my hands;----‘tis the first time I have had a moment to spare,--and I’ll make use of it, and write my preface”) (157).