“... its counterpart in Ishmael’s ludic prose ramblings and all-but-free associations (Melville read Tristram Shandy shortly before he got down to Moby-Dick), reaches its height in the stunning set-piece that pulls the white whale forward from first sighting (‘a hump like a snow-hill’) into a recognisable shape ‘far out on the soft Turkish-rugged ...”

“... understands he has a part to play. The secret of successful long comic novels – Don Quixote, Tristram Shandy – may be companionability.Dialogue as an aspect of fictional technique changed a great deal in the 20th century, at least in the English-speaking world. David Lodge argues in Consciousness in the Novel that a generation starting to publish in ...”