Odd, fun, humorous - Postcards for the Weekend

I’ll leave it to each reader to decide for yourself which one you find most odd, fun or humorous…!

From John in England, March 20

 
The British Postal Museum & Archive:
‘Hen & Chicks’ Centre Cycles, c1882
Trials of pentacycles were held in Horsham, Sussex.
Although popular in some quarters, they never entered into the wider postal service.

From Jarina in The Netherlands, March 2017

Promotion card for the Dutch edition of J.K. Rowling’s
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

From a Swedish friend back in 1994

 
The card was posted in Sweden, but probably bought in Oxford, England. (It says “Oxford Views” on the back.)
This is another one of those cards that sat for many years on a noticeboard in my previous flat. At the time when I received it, I was studying a part time distance course in basic theology (while also working full time in a job not at all related to that). The friend who sent it had/has similar interests + she and her husband (unlike me) also always travelled a lot (and still do...)

 

Postcards for the weekend 31

Booking Through Thursday: Odd

What’s the oddest book you’ve ever read?
Did you like it? Hate it?  Did it make you think?

The questions come from Deb at Booking Through Thursday.

The first answer that popped up in my mind as soon as I read the question was Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne, which was first published in nine volumes between 1759-1767.

The full title of the work is:
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.

I read it in my third term of university English, which was close to 30 years ago. So off-hand I can’t really recall more than my general impression. Which was – odd! I did not hate it, though. In fact I think I quite liked it. And it did make me think.

Among the things I remember is that it includes some strange graphics such as black pages, blank pages, hand-drawn lines – and lots of digressions.

In fact, the telling of the story takes precedence over the actual story. And that, I suppose, is more or less the whole point!

I still have it in my bookshelf, so here is an excerpt:

From Tristram Shandy; Volume I, Chapter 22.
In my copy of the book, I have added in my own handwriting:
“Digression on digressions”!

Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;—they are the  life, the soul of reading;—take them out of this book for instance,—you might as well take the book along with them;—one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer;—he steps  forth like a bridegroom,—bids All hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail.
   All the dexterity is in the good cookery and management of them, so as to be not only for the advantage of the reader, but also of the author, whose distress, in this matter, is truly pitiable: For, if he begins a digression,—from that moment, I observe, his whole work stands still;—and if he goes on with his main work,—then there is an end of his digression.
  —–This is vile work.—For which reason, from the beginning of this, you see, I have constructed the main work and the adventitious parts of it with such intersections, and have so complicated and involved the digressive and progressive movements, one wheel within another, that the whole machine, in general, has been kept a-going;—and, what’s more, it shall be kept a-going these forty years, if it pleases the fountain of health to bless me so long with life and good spirits.

Pictures borrowed from a web page by Glasgow University Library.