<p>Though Tristram is always present as narrator and commentator, the book contains little of his life, only the story of a trip through France and accounts of the four comical mishaps which shaped the course of his life from an early age. Firstly, while still only a homunculus, Tristram&#39;s implantation within his mother&#39;s womb was disturbed. At the very moment of procreation, his mother asked his father if he had remembered to wind the clock.</p>