“Lost in the meantime”. Tristram Shandy and Deleuzian Stuttering

In Tristram Shandy , the main problem of the protagonist, who wants to chronicle his life in its absolute entirety, is his inability to account for the transitions between events. A disproportionate focus on the interim leads Tristram to create an Eleatic, paradoxical narrative grammar, which endlessly unpacks causality without ever uncovering effects. I am arguing that, contrary to its hero, the novel itself, through its oddly haphazard structure bypasses these paradoxes by practicing what Deleuze has called “stuttering,” creating a text permanently focused on middle spaces, where idiosyncratic fragmentation produces radiant clusters of divergent narratives, which in turn allow Tristram’s story to preserve its forward momentum.