How can memory be reproduced so thoroughly within Tristam Shandy? I find it interesting that he can completely remember everything from his past.
"The trope articulates processes of recollection whose goals are to invent and compose in the present -- not to reproduce a record of past events." (Carruthers 21)
Carruthers makes some interesting points within the piece Book of Memory. She discusses how important memories are and how the human mind can recite specific details from any angle of the memory. This is clearly shown within Volume III of Tristam Shandy. Tristam can quite prominently recount even the tiniest of details from his stories. "Any man, madam, reasoning upwards, and observing the prodigious suffusion of blood in my father's countenance-- by of which, (as all the blood in his body seemed to rush up into his face, as I told you)" (Sterne 115) Within this passage, he remembers how his father's blood was rushing through his body. It is absolutely ridiculous that he can remember such small details.
Despite that, I believe that Tristam Shandy reflects the above Carruthers quote throughout the entirety of the novel. In the beginning, he was completely focused on starting the journey of his birth but he subsequently becomes distracted. Although he is reproducing a record of events from his past, he is making his story original by jumping timelines, adding in small historical references and also by breaking the fourth wall and adding ridiculous commentary. Therefore, he is inventing a story in the present while still recounting interesting stories from the past.
really interesting!
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