Endnotes!

A couple of people on the blog have wondered just how important it is to read the endnotes to A Sentimental Journey.

Something about Sterne's prose sends modern editors into a footnote frenzy. This edition is actually pretty restrained in its annotations. I used to teach a different edition largely because it had footnotes at the bottom of the page, which are easier to read--but there were so many footnotes, in such irrelevant abundance, that they ultimately seemed more distracting than flipping back to endnotes.

So whether or not to read the endnotes? It all depends. Using the endnotes for the meanings of words and foreign phrases you don't know seems to me a no-brainer. But if a passage is footnoted that has no particularly arcane vocabulary, chances are the note will be giving you deep textual background with little bearing on how you understand the passage.

I'd recommend sticking a book-mark or post-it note in the endnotes the next time you flip back to check a reference. That will make it easier to find the relevant note the next time you want to check something.