Tristram Shandy is an ironic masterpiece, a work of extraordinary originality, wit and learning. It is a work of considerable philosophical complexity but at the same time, it is just a piece of flim-flam: it has been called the longest shaggy dog story in English literature. It is both a classic novel and an anti-novel. It includes passages of seemingly serious theology—but it can also be read as an elaborate bawdy joke.