ADAPTING TRISTRAM SHANDY by Adria Young Submitted in ...

CHAPTER 2: ADAPTING THE SHANDEAN
Of all the several ways of beginning a book
which are now in practice throughout the known
world, I am confident my own way of doing it is
the best ----- I'm sure it is the most religious -----
for I begin with writing the first sentence ---------
and trusting to Almighty God for the second (490).
Laurence Sterne opens Volume VIII of The Life and Opinions of Tristram
Shandy, Gentleman, by acknowledging his (now) infamous narrative method. What some
call an early experiment in “stream of consciousness” (Bell 43), others (here, Horace
Walpole) call an “inspid and tedious performance” (Howes 55). But, Sterne’s narrative
style, his “master stroke of digressive skill” (Sterne 63), which he lifts in part from Swift
and Fielding (New 616), not to mention his “Cervantik” influence (Sterne, Letters, 121),
is an element of what scholars, and even Sterne, consider a particularly “Shandean”
method. But what exactly does Shandean mean? Is it a tone? A digression?A penis
joke?All three? Two contemporary adaptations of Sterne’s novel, Martin Rowson’s
graphic novel and Michael Winterbottom’s film, transfer these Shandean elements of the
text to new media. Since a “faithful” adaptation of Tristram Shandy is bound to fail, the
text is remediated on the conceptual level of adaptation: the Shandean “spirit” of the text
(Hutcheon 5). The thing about Shandyism, it seems, is that it is hard, if not impossible, to
define with a singular meaning. Indeed, much of the text itself gives the reader only half
meanings, “amicably” of course. 9 So if an adaptation purports to retain, even celebrate,
the “spirit” of Tristram Shandy, or if an adaptation is praised for providing “the spirit of
Sterne throughout” (Gow 10), what has been adapted? The “spirit” of the text, or the
concept of Shandyism, is thus a metaphor for the qualities that are recognized as
9