The Art of Attention

I cannot help but find Tristam Shandy to be one of the most interesting people I have ever “met” in my life. And from reading his autobiography, I can say that I feel like I have met him. He has a very unique take on writing, and I can imagine that his speaking voice is very similar to that which seems to be conveyed through the words on the pages of both Volumes I and Volume II. While it is clearly not meant to be an easy read by any means, careful reading allows the reader to understand this character much better than in a “normal” autobiography. While life events are more difficult to grasp with this style of writing, his personality is much more vibrant. Take, for example, Uncle Toby. Tristam diverges midway through Volume I from the story of his birth to the story of his uncle, whom he learned the details of his birth from. But instead of finishing one story, before beginning another, Tristam chooses to continue his stories of his uncle well into Volume II of the book before finally returning to his birth story. He even acknowledges this in the first words of Volume II, where he states “I have begun a new book, on purpose that I might have room enough to explain the nature of the perplexities in which my uncle Toby was involved, from the many discourses and interrogations about the siege of Namur, where he received his wound” (p. 58). Tristam then proceeds to tell of his uncle’s history in the war, hardly acknowledging the fact that he has yet to finish the story of his birth. Eventually he does return to the matter.

            Tristam Shandy’s story is loved and hated for its complexity and intrigue. I know I mentioned this in class, but I would just like to stress again how truly fascinating it is that Tristam was able to write in a way that was complex enough to have the overwhelming effect that the autobiography is known for, but also maintain a casualness in his tone that conveys his confident personality. The entirety of his complex style relies on the mind of the reader to perceive the story a certain way. He targets the audience’s attention by alternating between stories such as that of his birth and of his Uncle Toby. This is crucial. The entire idea of writing relies on the attention of the reader. And the art of writing is focused on manipulating and controlling that attention. Tristam Shandy is a master of attention. Many readers, on first thought, may say they think the author loses their attention. But what I believe he, in fact, does, is strengthen it. By diverging from the original story of his birth, Tristam keeps the reader on their toes, waiting for the story to find its way back. Over time, I found myself actually understanding more of the novel and not having to re-read as much material. I believe that Tristam was able to write such a successful collection of events based on his exceeding ability to manipulate attention.

            In fact, the secondary reading from this week, Attention: Theory and Practice, by Proctor and Johnson, focuses on the importance of attention. This reading explains not only some basic principles of attention, but also some interesting research that has been done, as well as some interesting effects of attention. According to the paper, Wundt concluded in his early research that attention is “an inner activity that causes ideas to be present to different degrees of consciousness” (p.10). In later years, he described his research as a study of “conscious decision and choice” and he claimed that attention is a process of “active synthesis” (p. 10). I couldn’t agree more. Attention is based on the person’s motivation to allocate their concentration or thought to a specific object or idea. Wundt was obviously understanding the fact that people can choose what they pay attention to. This relates to the cocktail party effect, which demonstrates this allocation of attention. I believe that Tristam’s style of writing works to counteract this. He steers the direction of the reader’s attention with his shifts in plot and storyline, and this allows him to maintain the reader’s attention, even though his story is somewhat confusing. He strengthens this effect with his direct, matter-of-fact tone and confident persona.

            Attention is just one more aspect of the writing game. I still think that writing is all about manipulation and presentation of ideas; it isn’t what you write, it’s how you write it. Tristam Shandy is the epitome of this fact. If you can manipulate the attention of the reader, you can make them follow any argument you choose to make or any story you choose to tell.