Leben und Meinungen von Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

"I wish my father or my mother, or actually both, for they were both equally obliged, had considered what they were getting into when they begot me" - so begins the novel, the first volume of which appeared two hundred and fifty years ago and which has no equal in world literature. With all its whimsicality, its wit, its numerous interpolations, digressions and allusions, and above all the thematization of writing itself, it anticipates avant-garde 20th-century narrative styles and yet is immensely funny. You learn quite a bit about the hero, his parents, Uncle Toby and Widow Wadman, about hobbyhorses and about noses. And what else is it about? "About a rooster and a bull, said Yorik - And about one of the best stories I ever heard." And with that, the novel ends.