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Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle
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Sartor Resartus

by Thomas Carlyle

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284416,774 (3.54)4
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I read this novel in a Victorian prose class in graduate school more than ten years ago. Although I enjoyed it then, I felt I was missing something because of time pressures, and I wanted to read it at a more leisurely pace. I also reread the introduction. I had forgotten how influential this book was. Its ancestors include Laurence Sterne and his imaginative novel, Tristram Shandy. Sartor’s descendents include Melville’s Moby Dick, and James Joyce’s Ulysses. The appendices, which I did not read then, proved helpful in understanding Carlyle’s thoughts during and after the writing of the novel.

As the short biography included in my edition tells us, Carlyle was the son of a dour, strict Calvinist, who viewed fiction as some form of deceit. This was a fairly wide-held view in the 19th century, hence the number of novels based on “found manuscripts,” which the author was careful to warn the reader that the author could not attest to the veracity of the facts related. Carlyle abandoned fiction for this dubious line of reasoning after completing Sartor.

This imaginative novel is really an essay about a made up philosopher, Diogenes Teufelsdroeckh, who has written an extensive treatise on clothes. Now, I can imagine this might sound boring to some, but it is full of humor – the extremely dry British variety, and this novel contains much of the philosophy current in the early years of the Victorian Age. Again, as the Introduction says, Sartor is key to understanding that influential period.

In fact, the Introduction also claims that Sartor did for the Victorian age what Lyrical Ballads did for the Augustan Age – turn it on its head before destroying it.

So. Am I glad I reread this novel? Yes. At just over 200 pages it only took a few hours, and I really do think I have a better understanding of Carlyle’s great novel now than I did back then. Four stars.

--Jim, 3/20/08 ( )
rmckeown | Mar 20, 2008 |  
Thomas Carlyle's semi-autobiographical novel. It marks the turning point between his early radicalism and his later conservatism/reaction.
Fledgist | Jul 18, 2007 |  
Sartor Resartvs written and fascimile signed by Thomas Carlyle. The inside pages as shown in the photo have Thomas Carlyle's autograph under a photo and the date that it was signed (1865). The oposite page has the date I believe the book was published which is 1831. At the bottom of the page it lists London, Chapman and Hall, 193 Piccadilly. On the next page it states London: Robson and Sons, printers, Pancras Road, N.W.
wellred2 | Jul 25, 2006 |  
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Considering our present advanced state of culture, and how the Torch of Science has now been brandished and borne about, with more or less effect, for five-thousand years and upwards; how, in these times especially, not only the Torch still burns, and perhaps more fiercely than ever, but innumerable Rush-lights, and Sulphur-matches, kindled thereat, are also glancing in every direction, so that not the smallest cranny or doghole in Nature or Art can remain unilluminated,—it might strike the reflective mind with some surprise that hitherto little or nothing of a fundamental character, whether in the way of Philosophy or History, has been written on the subject of Clothes.
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Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0192836730, Paperback)

Sartor Resartus ("The Tailor Retailored") is ostensibly an introduction to a strange history of clothing by the German Professor of Things in General, Diogenes Teufelsdrockh; its deeper concerns are social injustice, the right way of living in the world, and the large questions of faith and understanding. This is the first edition to present the novel as it originally appeared, with indications of the changes Carlyle made to later editions.

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:08 -0400)

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