There are books and films that get discovered only after their author’s death. Laurence Sterne lived to enjoy his fame to the fullest. Even though he admits that he didn’t write for the love of art nor money, or the way he put it in January 1760, ‘I wrote not to be fed but to be famous,’ as it is told in the in the introduction to the Oxford edition of his well-known book The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy. Two months later when he arrived in England’s capital and tried to buy a copy he was told, ‘there was not such a book to be had in London either for love or money’. But this book was not only popular, it won the critics acclaim for being a novelty and pushing the boundaries of literature forward because Sterne, unlike the common belief today that tries to lower the level of literature in an attempt to win popularity, tried to educate the public. He even said on at least one occasion that he wished he could have passed a law in Parliament that his book shall not be read by stupid people.

I guess this is one of the cases where the readers are being split into the categories of ‘good reader’ and the ‘bad reader’. The bad reader would probably look for all of the foolish and the immoral themes in the book, and even more than that would make comments about the fact that Sterne was a church minister and how could he think of betraying his wife. Whereas, the good reader would see this book as Sterne wanted it to be seen, as an archetypical dissection about imagination, lust and the attempt to look at things from different points of view. It could also be interpreted as an attempt to speak in a private language, where the author deliberately tries not to be understood. This so-called ‘biography’ teaches us so much about ourselves and about literature, that I believe no prose writer should write anything without trying to read Sterne’s masterpiece at least once.