I've been meaning to get around to Laurence Sterne for some time now, and when I was in Half-Price Books and spotted this little gem for $5, I thought there's no time like the present to begin. As you can see, it's a tiny book, but evenso it has xvii + 233 = 250 pages, so I'm skeptical about my ability to finish it in 3 days. But I thought I'd give it a shot, so awaaaaaay we go!
Day 1 (DDRD 2,998) January 17, 2026
Read to page 25. Which is not on pace to finish in two more days. But Joe had a basketball game and there were two NFL playoff games. 1313
Day 2 (DDRD 2,999) January 18, 2026
Read to page 113...so maybe I CAN finish this off tomorrow. Plus I'll probably read a bit more today.
Smelfungus and Mindungus, you say? 🤔
Tobias Shandy...from Sterne's first novel...makes an appearance.
And...read to 133. Leaving an even 100 pages for tomorrow. Can do!
Day 3 (DDRD 3,000) January 19, 2026
Read to page 233, The End. And a pleasant little canter it was...though hardly A Sentimental Journey. A more apt title would be In Search of Pussy...or Wang, Dang, Sweet Poon-Tang, perhaps. Sterne is an amusing fellow, though, and I'll need more of him soon.
"Sweet pliability of man’s spirit, that can at once surrender itself to illusions, which cheat expectation and sorrow of their weary moments!—Long,—long since had ye number’d out my days, had I not trod so great a part of them upon this enchanted ground. When my way is too rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get off it, to some smooth velvet path, which Fancy has scattered over with rosebuds of delights; and having taken a few turns in it, come back strengthened and refresh’d.—When evils press sore upon me, and there is no retreat from them in this world, then I take a new course;—I leave it,—and as I have a clearer idea of the Elysian fields than I have of heaven, I force myself, like Æneas, into them.—I see him meet the pensive shade of his forsaken Dido, and wish to recognise it;—I see the injured spirit wave her head, and turn off silent from the author of her miseries and dishonours;—I lose the feelings for myself in hers, and in those affections which were wont to make me mourn for her when I was at school." (159 - 160)
And this bit--
"But there is nothing unmix’d in this world; and some of the gravest of our divines have carried it so far as to affirm, that enjoyment itself was attended even with a sigh,—and that the greatest they knew of terminated, in a general way, in little better than a convulsion." (162)
--is just funny. Keep in mind that this was Sterne trying to be GOOD...to make up for the shock he'd caused with Tristram Shandy.
So there it is...3,000 days of reading every day (minus one for a trip to the emergency room for a faltering heart). I'm going to tally up pages read from 2,001 to 3,000, but it's going to take awhile.
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