Tristram Shandy

I have a feeling that this will be a very short blog, because I have no ideas for an entry. I think it is pretty safe to say that, of all the stories I have ever read, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman was the most difficult to comprehend. I hardly understood any of the story. I found that I was often reading pages of the novel and not taking away anything from the text. It was extremely frustrating. I feel that this is mostly because of the digression in the novel. Tristram constantly tells the audience that he is going to begin to tell a story and then he will go off on a tangent about something else and never come back to that particular story; or he will come back to that story several volumes later. Another example of how Tristram Shandy, is difficult to read is because Tristram rambles on and on. I could be wrong but, I remember that there is a part of the story where Tristram's father and his uncle Toby are having a conversation and walking down the stairs, if I am remembering correctly it takes Tristram's father and uncle several pages just to walk down the stairs!
Although conventional for the time period in which the novel was written, the writing style is a little absurd, its hard to follow and it doesn't make sense. I eventually gave up on trying to understand Tristram Shandy, and I read the SparkNotes version. Which made the story easier to comprehend but not much more enjoyable.