Tristam [sic] Shandy and Thomas Jefferson

[Andrew Foley]

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Conley <danconley at pcc.net>
To: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org <owner-pynchon-l at waste.org>
Date: 12 February 2001 20:28
Subject: Tristam Shandy and Thomas Jefferson


>Someone on the list today mentioned Laurence Sterne's "Tristam Shandy."  I
>just read in E.M. Halliday's "Understanding Thomas Jefferson" that "Tristam
>Shandy" was our third President's favorite non-fiction book.

What?  Non-fiction?  _The Life and Opinions of Tristram [note the correct
spelling] Shandy_ is a pack of lies from beginning to end.  It is a
fiction, -- "And one of the best of its kind, I ever heard."

Jefferson
>would be such a wonderful subject for Pynchon -- his surprising taste for
>the bawdy, penchant for conspiracies and distaste for moneyed urban America
>was right in TP's wheelhouse.
>
>