Laurence Sterne`s The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is a huge literary paradox, for it is both a novel & an anti-novel. As a comic novel replete with bawdy humour & generous sentiments, it introduces us to a vivid group of memorable characters, variously eccentric, farcical & endearing. As an anti-novel, it is a deliberately tantalising & exuberantly egoistic work, ostentatiously digressive, involving the reader in the labyrinthine creation of a purported autobiography. This mercurial eighteenth-century text thus anticipates modernism & postmodernism. Vibrant & bizarre, Tristram Shandy provides an unforgettable experience. We may see why Nietzsche termed Sterne `the most liberated spirit of all time`.