John Combs

Slope John Combs

Adam Obadiah Slope is a lineal descendant of Dr. Obadiah Slope, the sycophantic weasel-like clergyman in Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers. The Reverend Doctor Slope, Trollope claimed, was in turn descended from Doctor Slop, the fumbling but comical character who with considerable difficulty delivered Tristram into this world in Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy. The title of the present work might well have been The Life and Opinions of Adam Slope, for that is what this book offers.

This book emphasizes character rather than plot. In an attempt to follow traditions set by such authors as Cervantes, Sterne, Trollope, Joyce, and others, this work is not altogether linear. Rather, it contains interjections, interruptions, and a good number of inanities.

Adam Slope can be ludicrous in some of his accounts, but he can also, on occasion, express serious philosophical and social thoughts. The fictional narrator, Jonathon Eidobon, probes Slope's life and opinions, the silly ones, the serious, and those in between, and reports them to the reader. The writer hopes the reader will find a few laughs along the way.