Sternes Yorick in A Sentimental Journey

Q1: How did you react to A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, on its own, or in comparison to previous works on the course? (eg. I enjoyed reading...)

I enjoyed reading Sterne's A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy and found it to be altogether very humorous. Yorick is the kind of person I sometimes imagine myself to be so I could very easily identify with him -- from his initial reaction to the monk begging for donations (Sterne 16) -- Yorick refuses and then instantly regrets being so discourteous to the monk -- to the way in which he procures a passport in Versailles, unwittingly coming off as the king's jester. There are many humorous episodes like this throughout the book, so it was a pleasure to read and a nice diversion from my own life -- which has too few such humorous episodes. Even expressions like "the deuce take it!" are humorous and remind me of reading Gogol, the 19th century Russian writer, whose characters are similar to Yorick in that there is a high degree of innocence about them while at the same time there is something not quite so innocent about them too. In short, the book was an amusing read because it rings true to life and was a nice glimpse into life during that time in history and also a nice reminder that humanity does not really change much from century to century or place to place.

Q2: In what ways does Yorick resemble your idea of a tourist, and in what ways does he diverge from your idea of a tourist?

My idea of a tourist really derives from my own experience as a tourist -- which is that of a very uninformed foreigner trekking about in unknown lands, not having the slightest idea about what local customs are or what laws and regulations I'm expected to follow -- and very much just relying on the knowledge of those I am traveling with to get by. So in this sense, Yorick does seem very much like a tourist to me -- but at the same time, he also has a good idea of where he is and what he is doing and even knows people in the places he travels. For example, when he goes to see Maria in Moulines, whom Shandy describes in his book (Sterne 138), there is a sense that Sterne is really giving us an anecdotal sequel to some events that occurred in Tristram Shandy -- which is fine because a follow-up is always nice -- but some of the felicity with which a tourist should be expected to go about his travels is lost and the adventures of Yorick seem to be but a continuation of some previously begun narrative. In this sense, I found Yorick to diverge from my idea of a tourist -- especially since the scene really feels somewhat arbitrary and forced and is very quickly recounted: "Tho' I hate salutations and greetings in the market-place, yet, when we got into the middle of this, I stopp'd to take my last look and last farewel of Maria," writes Sterne (142) even though hardly anything at all has passed between Yorick and Maria. I felt like a real tourist might have made more of the encounter and stayed a little longer. No doubt the brevity of the meeting had something to do with Sterne's desire to conclude the novel quickly.

Q1: How did you react to A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, on its own, or in comparison to previous works on the course? (eg. I enjoyed reading...)

A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy by Sterne was difficult to read for a number of reasons. First, the way that Sterne writes I thought was confusing, as the punctuation was hard to decipher from the very beginning. The sentences ran on at length to the point where it was clear that the author was writing in a stream-of-consciousness type of vein. All I could do was just let myself be carried away by the stream. Unfortunately, it was such a bumpy stream that it was almost impossible for me to remember what Yorick (the narrator) was talking about at any one given moment. He seemed so possessed of a sense of sentiment and feeling and yet bent on describing some kind of objective reality that the two impulses invariably clashed with one another. The result was a kind of duel between the romantic side of Yorick attempting to write a sentimental account of his journey, and the realistic side of Yorick attempting to do justice to what he saw and his own sometimes strange impulses. Plus, the lack of quotation marks whenever someone was talking would often throw me as well -- I could not easily tell if words were being spoken, thought, imagined, or haphazardly jotted down. There was a kind of carelessness with the way the book was written that might appeal to some people but to me I felt like it was too confusing and not very well to the point. But then again maybe that was the point.

Q2: In what ways does Yorick resemble your idea of a tourist, and in what ways does he diverge from your idea of a tourist?

Yorick seems like the typical tourist -- very set in his ways and unwilling to adapt to the local climate or custom. The first person he meets, a monk, he treats with scorn. I think when a tourist is traveling in a foreign land, he should be willing to adapt to the local customs and be friendly to others. This is the lesson that Yorick tries to tell to himself after he feels bad about treating the monk badly (16) and the two end up exchanges boxes of snuff later in Calais: "Having a horn snuff box in his hand, he presented it open to me -- You shall taste mine -- said I, pulling out my box (which was a small tortoise one) and putting it into his hand -- 'Tis most excellent, said the monk" (30). This is very touristy too, I feel: the way that Yorick wants to share his own goods with the people he meets. It is a friendly enough act and Yorick is attempting to make up for his early bad treatment of the monk. The monk for his part shows no hard feelings, and this strikes me as being consistent with a tourist's experiences, too: a lot is forgiven a tourist because he is foreign and not familiar with things, so even if he comes across as mean, it may not be held against him. As far as diverging from my idea of a tourist, Yorick does seem to be very intelligent when it comes to ideas and people and places. So he almost seems far too "informed" to be a real tourist. It is as though he has visited these places before and knows them already. After all, he is English and for an Englishman to visit the continent does not seem so foreign -- it would almost be like an American visiting another state.

Works Cited

Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. PDF.