A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy

Laurence Sterne's final work is the great uncompleted experiment of 18th-century English literature - a travel narrative that refuses to arrive anywhere. Yorick, the sentimental clergyman who serves as Sterne's alter ego, tumbles through France with an attentiveness to every beautiful face, every moment of compassion, every small kindness that feels almost too alive to be genuine. Is he sincere or performing sincerity? The question pulses beneath every shimmering page. Sterne died with this book unfinished, leaving Yorick perpetually on the road to Italy, perpetually distracted, perpetually feeling. Through encounters with a poor monk in Calais, the haunting Maria of Moulines, and countless strangers who become mirrors for his own heart, Sterne examines how sympathy and desire intertwine - two forces that look remarkably alike and inspire equally powerful pro-social impulses. Written in the digressive, playful style that made Tristram Shandy famous, this is travel writing stripped of itinerary and rebuilt as pure sensation. It asks what happens when a man decides to let his heart lead, and whether that heart can be trusted at all.