Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne by Anne Bandry-Scubbi and Madeleine Descargues-Grant (review)

133 lace means the second novel by Richardson is also a national allegory, but by now this begins to feel almost by the by. Job has in fact displaced ‘‘nation’’ as the real focus. The chapter continues with comments on Sir Charles Grandison and works by Goldsmith and the two Fieldings. In Chapter Six, we switch to the subject of representations of highwaymen in eighteenth-century fiction by Fielding, Burney, and others. Readers will find this chapter a reliable guide to the topic, accompanied by more plot summaries. By restricting itself largely to description and lacking any real critical position or argument, Nation and Novel limits its own use. William Donoghue Emerson College ANNE BANDRY-SCUBBI and MADELEINE DESCARGUES-GRANT. Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne. Armand Colin-CNED, 2006. Pp. vii ⫹ 151. ⫽ C17.50. In the French educational system, the Agrégation is a highly selective academic examination or competition (in the humanities, some 1200 people sit the exam, out of which fewer than ten per cent end up with the qualification); each year specific texts are set. Annually there is a massive influx of books about the books set for the Agreg (as the exam is, not always lovingly, called), for the people eager to undergo it, the top end of the profession. One of these texts in 2006 was Tristram Shandy. Written for the ‘‘aggregative reader’’ by two seasoned Sterneans, this excellent and playful introduction to one of the most difficult books in the reading list is useful to first-time readers as well as to teachers who are not full-fledged dixhuitie ̀mistes. They must, however, be fluent in both English and French, as the book is curiously bilingual. Chapters 1– 4 and 7–9 are in English; chapter 8, in French only; chapters 5 and 6, in both. Even though (to quote from Tristram Shandy) there is ‘‘nothing unmixt in this world,’’ only the perfectly bilingual reader will get all of the many subtle nuances of these mixes. All the expected topics are treated systematically: Sterne’s life and times, religious background, reputation, and later reception, each covered in easy-toeat bites with catchy titles (‘‘A Dashing Narrator,’’ ‘‘Un essaim de plumitifs obsce ̀nes’’). In a mere 130 pages, this is an excellent crash course (including hobbyhorsical bits) for first readers. There are a glossary of technical terms, including the unnecessary word ‘‘poliorcetics ’’ (matters pertaining to sieges and fortification), a brief chronology, and an excellent, extensive, and useful Bibliography . Sadly, there is no index. The Journal to Eliza, moreover, should have been called the Continuation of the Bramine ’s Journal, and it is not helpful at all that all quotes are keyed to the pagination of the Norton edition rather than to volume and chapter. A point for discussion, rather than statement, should have been the contention that Tristram Shandy is ‘‘finished’’ (firmly stated twice), against the evidence of the last letters Sterne wrote about his starting on a tenth volume. Another is Alain Bony’s curious theory that the marbled pages are placed purposefully in the exact middle of volumes 3 and 4, thus turning the volumes inside out (all this theory needs is the disappearance of the 77 pages of Slawkenbergius ’s Tale, and the wrong notion that English books normally had marbled endpapers). Ms. Bandry-Scrubbi and Ms. Des- 134 cargues-Grant’s Tristram Shandy stimulates discussion, raises issues without forcing a narrow vision, and makes one turn to the book itself. Peter De Voogd Universiteit Utrecht Approaches to Teaching Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, ed. Maximillian E. Novak and Carl Fisher. New York: MLA, 2005. Pp. xxii ⫹ 243. $19.75. Approaches to Teaching Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is one of the best books to have appeared so far in the quartercentury -long series of ‘‘Approaches to Teaching World Literature’’ as pedagogical guides designed primarily for teachers of undergraduate students: ‘‘primarily ’’ because many of the approaches would work equally well with graduate students. Indeed, one of the most stimulating entries from the collection’s twenty-three contributors, Robert Markley ’s ‘‘Teaching the Crusoe Trilogy,’’ seems better suited for a graduate seminar than undergraduate courses in which few instructors would have the time to teach Defoe...