Re: A *** & Bull Story

michael adams goes:

"Julian Karswell" <hauntedriver@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1187601614.597514.121060@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I'd avoided this because of...well, 'The Parole Officer'....but caught
it last night for the first time. It's an excellent film that I would
heartily recommend. What John Landis would call 'smart'. Some very
funny jokes, skilfull editing and scripting, and some genuinely
amusing banter between Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan.

I always thought one of the essential points about "Tristram Shandy"
was that it was the first book to made specific references to itself
as a book in the hands of the reader.

The first in English, perhaps. Don Quixote came first. Cervantes has
the second half written supposedly as a reaction to the outcry caused
by the first half, which you've just been reading.

By way of the typographical devices
- the totally blacked out pages, the use of different typefaces, the reference
to the marbled pages which have actually been included in the book, at the
end of chapter 29.

This is the sort of thing I'm talking about Barker -

http://i10.tinypic.com/67qqp85.jpg

Childish, petty, moi ?

Anyway if there was one book in the whole of the English language
least deserving to be turned into a film for this very reason, then
it has to be "Tristram Shandy".

It's commonly reckoned to be unfilmable, so you just knew some cocky
twat was going to try.

So it's particulalrly pleasing that even the great man himself,
Stephen Fry, didn't turn down the opportunity to grace this literary
and bibliographical outrage with his presence.

I'm a great fan of Fry (see
http://grapes2dot0.blogspot.com/2007/08/stephen-fried.html) but I have
to admit he would turn up for the opening of Ulrika Johnsson's fanny.
He wouldn't turn down a part if it fell off a leper and turned up in
his River Cafe risotto. And so forth.


--
AH
http://grapes2dot0.blogspot.com



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