Product Description

'Your Jacques is a tasteless mishmash of things that happen, some of them true, others made up, written without style and served up like a dog's breakfast.' Jacques the Fatalist is Diderot's answer to the problem of existence. If human beings are determined by their genes and their environment, how can they claim to be free to want or do anything? Where are Jacques and his Master going? Are they simply occupying space, living mechanically until they die, believing erroneously that they are in charge of their Destiny? Diderot intervenes to cheat our expectations of what fiction should be and do, and behaves like a provocative, ironic and unfailingly entertaining master of revels who finally show why Fate is not to be equated with doom. In the introduction to this brilliant new translation, David Coward explains the philosophical basis of Diderot's fascination with Fate and shows why Jacques the Fatalist pioneers techniques of fiction which, two centuries on, novelists still regard as experimental.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #223608 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

About the Author
David Coward is Senior Fellow and Emeritus Professor of French Literature at the University of Leeds.

Customer Reviews

Lots of fun
`JTF' is a picaresque novel written at the end of the 18th century. It follows the travels of Jacques and his master, as both recount stories of their pasts and attempt to answer the philosophical implications of their existences. In trying to tell his master about his love-life, Jacques provides a framework from which many other narratives spring, concerning the loves, fights and childhoods of many of the other characters. Jacques' philosophy is that all the events on earth are pre-ordained in heaven, so there is very little point in worrying about what is happening (or going to happen) to him.
Picaresque novels, with their many loosely connected stories, usually lose my interest easily, but this didn't happen with `JTF'. The book is very funny, and the stories are punctuated with witty dialogues between Jacques and his master, or Q&A sessions by the author. Although this is a `philosophical' novel, the philosophy is not laid on with a trowel, and is also integral to the stories. Consequently the whole thing was a jaunty, enjoyable and easy read. Diderot also tips a wink to contemporaries, especially Laurence Sterne, adding to the don't-take-me-too-seriously feel of the whole thing. If the words `picaresque', `18th century' or `philosophical novel' usually put you off, `JTF' is still worth a read. It is funny and clever, and its hero is a truly memorable character.