The Elusive Punchline

In reading Tristram Shandy, one is constantly looking for that self-referential punchline, in the way one would if one were reading a modern 20th Century author such as Nabokov or Borges. But this was written in the 18th century. The punchlines are much more inscrutable.

The book starts out with the narrator's attempt to document his life in extreme detail. He starts with his conception and gets to his birth at nearly the halfway mark, lamenting that day of his life is taking an entire year to document, and realizing that an infinity of time to catch up to the present.

Later, his father undertakes a project to provide an education of all necessary things to him, by writing a "Tristra-paedia" for his son. At this point, my 20th century-trained senses are looking for that punchline. In this passage, his father reads a section of the Tristra-paedia to the village parson, Yorick.