Laurence Sternes The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy Gentleman is a huge literary paradox for it is both a novel & an anti-novel. As a comic novel replete with bawdy humour & generous sentiments it introduces us to a vivid group of memorable characters variously eccentric farcical & endearing. As an anti-novel it is a deliberately tantalising & exuberantly egoistic work ostentatiously digressive involving the reader in the labyrinthine creation of a purported autobiography. This mercurial eighteenth-century text thus anticipates modernism & postmodernism. Vibrant & bizarre Tristram Shandy provides an unforgettable experience. We may see why Nietzsche termed Sterne the most liberated spirit of all time.