Towards a Theory of Eccentricity — Page 10:
46 Since the next section is concerned with an example for an eccentric text, I will not go into any examples here. I just wish to draw attention to the fact that a literary theory of eccentricity, as outlined here, might also provide interesting insights in areas not immediately associated with literary texts. Bearing the four features of eccentric texts in mind, one is, for example, tempted to interpret Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) as an eccentric text. One of the main difficulties in approaching the text is that it is impossible to talk about it without taking on its language, which amounts to saying that the text admits only itself as a valid point of reference. Additionally, with regard to the indifference concerning other texts, one finds one of the maxims, so to speak, of eccentric texts spelled out in Wittgenstein’s introduction:
Wieweit meine Bestrebungen mit denen anderer Philosophen zusammenfallen, will ich nicht beurteilen. Ja, was ich hier geschrieben habe macht im Einzelnen überhaupt nicht den Anspruch auf Neuheit; und darum gebe ich auch keine Quellen an, weil es mir gleichgültig ist, ob das was ich gedacht habe, vor mir schon ein anderer gedacht hat. (9)
7. An example: Tristam Shandy as an eccentric text
47 Laurence Sterne’s novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-7) is today considered one of the most important works of 18th-century British literature, indeed of world literature. It “was a sensation – first in England, then through all of Europe – from the time the first two volumes appeared in the winter of 1760. And [...] it maintained its renown (though at times somewhat dubiously) through the nineteenth century, to emerge in our own time as the most modern of eighteenth-century novels” (Anderson vii). Anderson sees the explanation for this in the fact that Tristram Shandy is “a paradoxical synthesis of the old and the new,” which “raises nearly all the questions that matter in the study of fiction in whatever age” (vii-viii).
48 I want to propose a somewhat different explanation for Tristam Shandy’s abiding popularity in literary studies. The reason why Tristam Shandy still raises all the important questions is that we are not able to satisfactorily describe the novel in its overall impact with our usual equipment of literary studies. Every analysis seems to fall short of getting hold of the novel’s complexity and we, as readers, remain with a discomforting feeling as to what the novel actually is about, even in the most basic determination of the novel’s genre (Olshin). A better explanation for that phenomenon might be that Tristam Shandy is an eccentric text. Thus, in combining the seemingly irreconcilable features of being eccentric and, at the same time, immensely popular, Tristram Shandy proves to be a very interesting example of an eccentric text. In what follows, I will try to argue that Tristram Shandy can be described as an eccentric novel, both with regard to its characters and to the text itself. Eccentric Characters
49 Tristam Shandy has few main characters apart from the narrator, Tristram. I will focus on the two most important ones for Tristram, namely his uncle Toby and his father, Walter Shandy. Tristram states at the beginning of the first volume that his purpose “is to do exact justice to every creature brought upon the stage of this dramatic work” (I 10, 12). He introduces a rather unusual method of describing the characters that surround him: every character gets associated with a “hobby-horse” defining the character’s identity. Tristram thinks of “hobby-horses” as what might be called the “ruling passion” of a person, that activity which is most important to the person. In chapter 23 of the first volume, Tristram discusses several modes of characterization, only to dismiss them because they are insufficient to grasp the whole of the character. Tristram comes to the following conclusion: “To avoid all and every one of these errors, […] I will draw my uncle Toby’s character from his HOBBY-HORSE” (I 23, 54). He then remarks on the originality of Toby’s hobby-horse but before revealing what it is, the first volume ends. However, from the volumes to come we can infer that Toby’s hobby-horse is his fanatic rebuilding of the siege of Namur where he fought and suffered injuries. Tristram comments: “my uncle Toby mounted him [the hobby-horse] with so much pleasure, and he carried my uncle Toby so well, – that he troubled his head very little with what the world either said or thought about it” (I 24, 55-6). This is, no doubt, expressed in a quite understated way: Toby in fact is unable to communicate about anything else except his hobby-horse. In every conversation Toby participates in, all he can contribute are remarks about his experiences in Flanders, and when the Widow Wadman tries to seduce him, he does not understand her innuendos but always relates them to military language.
50 Toby’s world, therefore, is solely shaped by his hobby-horse and all information coming from outside this concern is received only if it relates in some way or another to Toby’s hobby-horse. This is an almost prototypical example of the eccentric person outlined above: Toby is only concerned with the world as far as it is represented in his subjective viewpoint. He values everything according to his very own values, stemming from the subjective viewpoint; in Toby’s case, these are the ones which bear a relation to his hobby-horse. He recognizes others, but not as being of equal importance; his whole world is shaped only according to his subjective viewpoint.