In which I reflect on the name I gave to my youngest son, linking him back to the kindly Uncle Toby in “Tristram Shandy.”
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Tag Archives: Tristram Shandy
Sterne’s Uncle Toby and My Own Toby
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Kindness", "We Are Seven", Book of Tobit, Laurence Sterne, Tobias Wilson-Bates, William Wordsworth Comments closed
My Eldest Son, Named after a Keats Sonnet
I named my eldest son after a Keats poem and it may have paid off.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Upon First reading Chapman's Homer", Darien Bates, John Keats, Laurence Sterne Comments closed
A Taoist Response to Grieving
Taoist Chuang Tzu has a story about grieving that I find immensely comforting.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Chuang Tzu, death and grieving, Laurence Sterne, Taoism Comments closed
When a Novel Affected Clock Sales
Friday I have lots of thoughts about the Congressional hearings on Donald Trump’s January 6 coup attempt, which opened last night, and am working up a post that references Milton’s rebel angels. I’ll end this week, however, on a lighter note, an interesting footnote that my English professor son alerted me to. Apparently, Laurence Sterne’s […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged clocks, Country Wife, Enlightenment, John Wilmot, Laurence Sterne, Plain Dealer, William Wycherley Comments closed
Imagining Little Ocean’s Future
Looking for the literary significance of my latest grandchild, I turn to Walcott, Whitman, Masefield, Coleridge, and Byron. What emerges is a mystical seeker.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking", "Sea Fever", "Tales of the Islands", baby names, Derek Walcott, J. D. Salinger, John Masefield, John Milton, Laurence Sterne, Lord Byron, Lucille Clifton, Paradise Lost, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, To Esme with Love and Squalor, Walt Whitman, William Blake Comments closed
If Trump Tweeted Classic Lit Reviews…
Donald Trump has a very distinctive twitter style., one that would be great for classic book reviews. A BuzzFeed writer imagines how he might have reviewed “Hamlet,” “Tristram Shandy,” “Ulysses,” and other classics.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Albert Camus, Donald Trump, Ernest Hemingway, Hamlet, J. R. R. Tolkien, James Joyce, Lawrence Sterne, Lord of the Rings, Stranger, Sun Also Rises, Ulysses, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Literature as a Social Activity
Literature becomes especially interesting when it enters social situations.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Haruki Murakami, Lawrence Sterne, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy Comments closed
To Esmé and Alban with Love (No Squalor)
With names from Salinger and Blake, my two new grandchildren have promising destinies.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Children, Four Zoas, J. D. Salinger, King Lear, Laurence Sterne, names, To Esme with Love and Squalor, William Blake, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Midwife, No Doc, at Grandson’s Birth
My new grandson had the birth experience denied Tristram Shandy: one where a midwife was in charge.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Birth, Doctors, Enlightenment, Laurence Sterne, Medicine, midwives, Science Comments closed