Leaving the life in shadow
Denis Donoghue
Wild Excursions: The Life and Fiction of Laurence Sterne David Thomson (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £3.95) Sterne was born in Clonmel on November 24, 1713 and died in London on March 18, 1768. " He put up his hand as if to stop a blow, and died in a minute," John Macdonald reported to his master, John Crauford, on the last night.
David Thomson has written a new biography of Sterne, and while the subtitle includes the fiction, the book itself does not offer much in the way of literary criticism. Mr Thomson concerns himself with the fiction only for the light it directs upon the life: some of that light, I think, is questionable. Far too often, he tries to apply the evidence of the fiction directly to the life, as if Sterne could only invent what he had already lived. Trying to enrich the account of the relation between Sterne and• his wife, for instance, Mr Thomson quotes passages from Tristram Shandy's account of the relation between Walter and his wife, with an implication that the fiction is true; not only true to life, but true to Sterne's life. Any biographer of Sterne is tempted to eke out the material in this way. The trouble is that there is not enough fact to go around. Sterne left a short Memoir, and this is the basis of all biographies, but it is factually thin and must be fattened up if anything resembling a full-scale biography is to be attempted. Of Sterne's letters, only about 250 have survived, so information is hard to find, especially in the early adult years. Mostly, Sterne's family did not stay long enough in one place to leave a mark: the vagaries of a military career sent Laurence's father, Roger Sterne, running about the western world, making ad hoc domestic arrangements as best he could. So the drama of Laurence's life has a lot of Character but very little plot until the chief Character starts making his own mark on the London scene. The biographer's task becomes easier then, and from December 1759, when the first volumes of Tristram Shandy were published, he has little to Complain of. It the hero remains elusive, it ,ie not for want of circumstantial matter out because it is his nature to be elusive.
Mr Thomson supplies three formidable epigraphs for his book, from Sterne, Kafka, and Borges; their common theme is life as a dream. It is hard to write ,anything these days without sending "‘efka and Borges ahead as scouts through the badlands of modernity. Mr Thomson's tense of Sterne presents him as a modern "gure, isolated, insecure, a Monsieur Teste clf consciousness: "the essential disability Under which he lived was a morbid grasp tlf his own insubstantial identity." He ch,c)rnes to us first, on the book-jacket, in 'eYnolds's painting, which makes him look Ike Harp° Marx, a comparison which Mr
Thomson glances at without making much of it: the resemblance is not worthless. On the whole. Mr Thomson's attitude to Sterne is sensible. The reader is invited to find Sterne interesting but not necessarily likeable. If Sterne's behaviour appears callous, as in his treatment of his mother, Mr Thomson is not mealy-mouthed about saying so. On the question of Sterne's treatment of his wife, Mr Thomson is more guarded, since Elizabeth Sterne was probably a tedious woman and a scold. When facts are available, they usually speak for themselves: in this case, Sterne seems to me to have acted disreputably; his philandering is a shoddy element in his character, whatever the attending circumstances. It is very difficult to refute the allegation that Sterne was a grotesque figure, morally null, utterly incapable of registering the value of anyone except himself. In the end, one slips back into the works, grateful to leave the life in shadow. Mr Thomson is judicious in such matters. He obviously admires the works, and is therefore intefested in the man who wrote them, but he keeps his own wits about him. He quotes some wonderful things, such as Mrs Montagu's remark of Sterne, "He is full of the milk of human kindness, harmless as a child, but often a naughty boy, and a little apt to dirty his frock." Often, too, Mr Thomson forgives Sterne by considering that he found it impossible to know himself.
The biographer's method is straightforward, a little old fashioned. A man's life is• explained, but not explained away, by his times: The proper context for an action is historical fact, presented as vigorously as possible and with only as much doubt as arises from the nature of historical reconstruction. Mr Thomson is aware of that doubt, but he does not fuss about it and mostly he puts it behind him. When he comes upon Sterne as a farmer, he attempts a sketch of local agricultural conditions, to give the flavour of the occupation, but he does• not pretend that the significance of his account is great or neglected. Sometimes he is rather blunt in reciting the sources. When he is required to say something about Clonmel, he quotes from one of Swift's letters to Dean Brandreth as if the description were reliable; but Swift is joking, he has nothing but fun on his mind in that paragraph.
Mr Thomson does not offer his biography as a definitive account of Sterne's life, times, and works. Professor Arthur Cash is engaged on such a work, and on the evidence of the pieces of research which he has released on Sterne to date, the full biography will be extremely good. To write a big biography these days you nearly have to be an American. Or, otherwise put, the Americans are different from us, they have more money. This book is interim work, lively well-written, but not sufficiently detailed or authoritative to stand for very long as a biography of Sterne. In time, it will be superseded by Professor Cash's work. Even now, some readers will prefer to stay with Wilbur Cross's venerable Life and Times of Laurence Sterne, supplemented by Lewis Curtis's edition of the Letters, while waiting for Cash. But Mr Thomson's book is certainly good enough to be going on with.
Denis Donoghue is Professor of English Literature at University College, Dublin.
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