Jacques the Fatalist and His Master (Penguin Classics)

One of my favorite philosophers!

So droll. So insightful. So French. Diderot is brilliant. The story was both funny and wise. Made me want to read more. I loved Tristan Shandy too for the same odd ball approach to a story. The Catch 22 of the Age, if you will.

More entertaining, IMO, than similar philosophers, without sacrificing profundity. Equally valuable as a narrative and an allegory.

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Quite excellent

Very good

An entertaining encounter with one of the most fascinating men in the history of letters, Denis Diderot, the "philosophe" and encyclopedist. More of a committed intellectual rather than a conceptual philosopher, he was one of the leading personalities of the movement which was the Enlightenment, with its stress on reason, order and individual liberty. Although strongly imbued with the Enlightenment spirit of naturalistic explanation of phenomena and free enquiry, one notices, in "Jacques the Fatalist" that he was veering from the strict faith in reason (which distinguished his other colleasgues), in favour of a semi-epicurean ethic as he calls reason another of the "whims" of the human race. The novel raises many questions regarding the nature of free will and necessity: Jacques lives in a universe governed by predetermined laws (in which all outcomes are written "up on high") but he acts as though he were free. Some of the antics and stories that transpire with Jacques and the Master provide instances of hilarious, and frequently bawdy, humour. A man who was ahead of his time, Diderot's fiction anticipates, in several ways, the "Nouveau Roman" of the 1950s and the "postmodern" novels of the 1990s in its highly experimental approach to narrative techniques. Sharp-eyed exegetes will also detect pasages that reveal him to be a proto-ecologist, a forerunner of the theories behind modern linguistics and a man whose insights uncannily presaged some of the formulations of the science of sociolgy (e.g. that higher standards of living would lead to a decrease in population.)

"Jacques the Fatalist and His Master," by Denis Diderot (1713-1784), is often mentioned in the (short) list of First Modern Novels. Others include" Madame Bovary" and "Don Quixote". "Bovary" I couldn't stand and "Don Quixote" remains to be read. However, "Jacques" just isn't my cup of tea. I gave up and stopped reading after 50 or 60 pages, as I just couldn't get into it. It's ponderous, obtuse and slow as molasses. It jumps back and forth, regaling itself in its style of interruptions and side-tracks. Largely "conversational" the story's 2 main characters engage each other in an interminable conversation, often characterized by rather "smart ass" commentary by both, and interrupted by late 1700s ribald adventures. Besides that, the philosophy and life views expressed are decidedly passé, some 130-140 years later, and - worse - kind of uninteresting. Is this one of the first novels? I'll pass on that question. For me "Jacques" is impossible to rate, though rate it I must. It's no more than a 2 in my mind, but others may find it fascinating and a grand commentary on life in the late 1700s, as well as find reason to analyze it for its novel structure and format. I'm satisfied to delete it from my Kindle.

I love everything about this book. The author makes you want to read more books but his points are so well made compared to other authors

Gift

Though it owes much to Don Quixote (which I've read) and Tristram Shandy (which, to my shame, I haven't - yet), this "novel" by Diderot strikes me as unclassifiable - to the extent that I feel the urge to put "novel" in inverted commas. Indeed, quite early on Diderot says "It is quite obvious that I'm not writing a novel since I'm neglecting those things [plot devices] which a novelist would not fail to use." So what is it? "A rambling collection of oft-interrupted anecdotes" might be one answer. Put simply, Jacques and his un-named master are travelling to an un-named destination for an unspecified reason. To pass the time, the master asks Jacques to recount the story of his love-life, which Jacques proceeds to do, although he never manages to get far before he is interrupted (or interrupts himself, or is interrupted by Diderot the author) by other anecdotes, reminiscences or encounters on the road. Afterwards, Jacques is told to continue from where he left off, only to be interrupted again shortly afterwards. He is referred to as a Fatalist because of his oft-quoted belief that everything that happens has already been determined in advance, and has been written down in great detail on some celestial scroll. Jacques does sort of get to the end of his tale by the end of the book, though Diderot gives us a choice of three endings, and asks us to choose which we like the best. Diderot the author is also a character in the book, breaking into the narrative in many places to explain himself (or not), or to suggest avenues down which he might or might not take the story. He also ropes the reader in by posing - in the reader's name - a number of questions to himself, chiefly along the lines of "What's going to happen?" or "When are you going to get on with it?" Various other stories are interwoven with the tale of Jacques' loves - which stories are themselves interrupted and told in episodic form. Chiefly they revolve around romantic adventures and sexual peccadillos, though the nearest Diderot comes to lapsing into bawdiness is when he criticises the reader for objecting to his use of coarse language. The book has some philosophical musings (eg "Religion and law are a pair of crutches that should not be taken away from those with weak limbs"), and a number of satirical barbs. Most of the latter, however, have dated badly and need to be explained via the notes. According to the introduction, Diderot wrote this book on and off over a period of fifteen years, and it was only published after his death. This, I think, shows up in its episodic and sometimes rambling nature. It is a book which feels unfinished - a first draft that would have benefitted greatly from a bit of revision. Nevertheless the writing has zest and panache, and is highly entertaining. Whether it should be regarded as a classic, however, or as an interesting curiosity - that's something on which the jury is still out.

A disappointing read as there was very little Enlightenment after the rambling journey!

Far too rambling for my taste. In spite of bursts of humour I found it took determination to read to the end.