A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy
Laurence Sterne
Read by Martin Geeson
After the bizarre textual antics of "Tristram Shandy", this book would seem to require a literary health warning. Sure enough, it opens in mid-conversation upon a subject never explained; meanders after a fashion through a hundred pages, then fizzles out in mid-sentence - so, a plotless novel lacking a beginning, a middle or an end. Let us say: an exercise in the infinitely comic.
"There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as to get master of this short hand, and to be quick in rendering the several turns of looks and limbs with all their inflections and delineations, into plain words."
Sterne calls his fine sensitivity to body language (as we now term it) "translation". Much of the pleasure to be had from this wonderfully engaging book comes from his unmatched ability to extract random details from the chaos of experience to create comic turns imbued with Feeling. His Parson Yorick is the Sentimental Traveller: certainly a Man of Feeling, but one in whom "Nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece..." (Summary by Martin Geeson) (5 hr 59 min)
Chapters
Reviews
Excellent recording and original book
Philippe Horak
Travel writing beacame the dominant genre of the second half of the 18th century. But Sterne’s novel emphasized personal taste and sentiments at the expense of facts and classical learning. The narrator is the Reverend Mr. Yorick, probably Sterne's alter ego. The book recounts his various adventures, usually of the amorous type, in a series of self-contained episodes. Very entertaining and witty; extremely well read by Martin Geeson. Many thanks for his performance!
Brilliant reading!
Doktor Farfetch
Mr. Geeson's readings for LibriVox are exceptionally attuned to the music of each sentence; his Sterne captures what must surely have been the author's own voice! His Confessions of an English Opium Eater is extremely sensitive to the author's sorrow and dignity.
Fayetta
A LibriVox Listener
Mr. Geeson is a very talented reader. The book was fun and interesting if you can deal with the time period in which it was written. You may find that boys haven’t changed much over the years.
well read
Prusc
Martin Geeson reads well even though the narrative itself only gets three stars from me
A perfect match
A LibriVox Listener
One cannot imagine another to sound this piece of work, very well done sir.
transporting
katamorrow
A reader perfectly matched with his author. Extraordinary.