confession of the continuous and conscious manipulation of the plot. The marbled page from Penrose’s copy, as per Sterne’s specifications, features mesmerising, fluctuating, tinted waves registering the wetness of the process. 11 There is a crease on top of the verso page, suggesting a rushed application of the marbling cut out. Large pale pink drops swim in rivers of yellow, turquoise, blue and pink. This motley emblem not only disturbs the novel, but marks ‘the outermost limits of the text’. 12 So far I have followed the vectorial movements, the plot line schemata, the entanglements, the curvature. The dislocating gesture however – with positioning liminal devices associated with textual boundaries, in-between the leaves, within the signatures – speaks rather of a liquid architecture of the book . c
White ribbon wraps the volume’s crumbling cover. Its strong scent, signals material degradation. Slightly textured soft cream paper with gentle stains provides a strong contrast to crisp, slightly brown ink. ‘Printed by A. Strahan, Printers-Street, London.’ Sterne’s face on the frontispiece is ambiguous, with care and detail directed towards symbolic objects – a hunting bow and a singing bird. The title page is the last conventional paratextual element in its expected position. The novel unravels with divagated impetus, best described by Carlo Levi (quoted by Calvino in Six Memos ) a s a weapon to save oneself from the death and time . The dedication is found mid-chapter, and a lengthy preface in the third volume. I am guided on this journey by Richard Macksey’s foreword to Gérard Genette’s Paratexts , titled ‘Pausing on the Threshold’. 8 Macksey’s footnotes on this strategy against the time lead me to Victor Shklovsky and his Formalist analysis of Sterne’s various temporal transpositions characteristic of poetics rather than prose. 9 Prolonged dashes and asterisks adorn the pages, exclaiming in dialogues writing themselves into evasive movement. I almost skip the Malevich-esque black page, another experimental paratextual device denoting ‘the innermost and overdetermined limits of the text itself.’ 10 In Sterne’s book I discover a foldout with the Lili Bullero score – the whistling tune of Tristram’s veteran uncle Toby, and diagrams illustrating the story line in Tristram Shandy – a
8 Richard Macksey, ‘Pausing on the Threshold’ the forward to Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretations , by Gérard Genette, trans. Jane Lewin. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.Press, 2010. xi – xxiv 9 Viktor Shklovsky, ‘The Novel as Parody: Sterne’s Tristram Shandy’ in Theory of Prose , Viktor Shklovsky, trans. Benjamin Sher. Illinois: Elmwood Park, 1990. 147-170
10 Macksey, ‘Pausing on the threshold’ xi
11 Unmarbled editions reveal a note from the author to incorporate double-sided marble page: ‘ ☛ The BOOKBINDER is desired to cover both sides of this leaf with the best marbled paper, taking care to keep the folio lines clear and to preserve the proper margins’ The copy from Peckover Library that I am working with, has marbled pages simply glued on, rather than laboriously incorporated into the binding process, as in the first edition.
Paula Szturc is currently undertaking an Architecture by Design PhD at the University of Edinburgh (ESALA). In her collaborative research project with National Galleries of Scotland, she explores material, spatial and sensorial aspects of artists’ books.
12 Macksey, ‘Pausing on the Threshold’, xi
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