I am backed up by months-worth of reading and not posting in these threads, so I'm going to work my way through slowly. First, is a 'failure to launch':
Although, my version is annotated, it's not annotated nearly enough. 19th century English is bad enough, but this is 18th century English. It's just not something I want to wade into, and keep in mind that I loves me some Dickens, Trollope, etc. This is a fore barer of theirs, and it's often referred to as the 'first postmodern' novel, which is really just saying that Sterne was waaaay before his time in terms of unconventional structure, etc.
It's also on the shortlist of 'novels that can't be filmed', which is one reason I LOVE the Steve Coogan and Gillian Anderson version from a few years back. The movie details an ambitious film production of the novel that of course breaks down and the second half of the movie is about how you can't make a movie of the novel. Well worth your time if you're into Steve Coogan.
Does anybody know of a good guide with which I can make another run at it?