Great, 18th century picaresque novel, in fact a philosophical dialogue with lots of irony and absurd humor, and from a literary point of view even a postmodern novel avant la lettre. See the review in my general account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6700655198.

Exclusive Interview with Denis Diderot, Author and Philosopher

Reader: Can you tell us a little about how this book took shape, Mr Diderot?

DD: There's not much to tell. All I know is that one day two figures on horseback appeared on the page before me, and it soon became clear that the one called Jacques (he was definitely a 'Jacques') was the servant of the other.

R: Were [b:Don Quichotte|1188425|L'Ingénieux Hidalgo Don Quichotte de la Manche, tome 1|Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1479508088l/1188425._SY75_.jpg|90895262] and his servant Sancho Panza an inspiration perhaps?

DD: Who knows what connections there are between what we've read previously and what we find on the page in front of us. It's true that Jacques and his master seemed to go together from the beginning like Quichotte and Sancho, the one definitely couldn't exist without the other.

R: Right. So you had the two characters. What happened next?

DD: Well, since they were riding along a road together, they found themselves conversing.

R: So you decided to write the story in the form of a dialogue?

DD: One of the characters seemed to like telling stories, and as the other seemed to be a good listener and knew how to ask leading questions, a dialogue was inevitable, I'd say.

R: Inevitable? That's funny in the context of this book. But we'll come back to that later because right now I want to ask you about your characters' journey. You say at the beginning that it wasn't important where they had been or where they were going, but you must have had some idea where you wanted them to end up.

DD: Not at all. I just knew there were two characters who seemed to be on a journey. I trusted that one or other or both would know where they were going. I was as much in the dark as the reader.

R: Hmm. Since you've mentioned the reader, can I ask why you digressed so frequently from the story that Jacques was telling his master, and started to tell the reader your own stories, ones that were completely unrelated to Jacques' story so that the book became a series of nested stories a bit in the style of [b:Tristram Shandy|76527|The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman|Laurence Sterne|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403402384l/76527._SY75_.jpg|2280279]?

DD: It's like this. I took advantage of the various times that Jacques got interrupted in his story to insert some story ideas I had lying about on my desk. And Sterne's book was on my desk too, incidentally.

R: Saying you were taking advantage of the interruptions is surely a bit disingenuous—it was you who created those interruptions after all.

DD: Such as when Jacques' horse took off across a field? That horse had a mind of his own, you know. Even Jacques couldn't control him—and we all know how stubborn Jacques was.

R: Oh, yes, I very much enjoyed watching how well Jacques resisted his master's efforts to get him to continue the story of his love life when he didn't feel like talking. He really was a very stubborn character. But you could have made him continue, couldn't you? Why didn't you?

DD: As I say, he gave me good opportunities to use material I had lying about and hadn't yet found a use for.

R: And then you decided to make Jacques and his master more or less switch roles. Why did you do that?

DD: Oh well, that switch happened after the story-telling session in the hostelry, and had little to do with me. Quite a bit to do with la Dive Bouteille, I'd imagine. If the hostel keeper's servant would keep bringing bottles up from the cellar, what could I do? A good bottle of wine wins over all obstacles.

R: Oh, yes, didn't Jacques have a very Rabelaisian session in that tavern! I noticed that he took advantage of every tiny pause in the hostel keeper's story to order another bottle until he became completely groggified! I enjoyed that section a lot—and I even kept Jacques company with a glass or two of my own. But it did seem to take a long time for the effects of Jacques' drinking session to wear off, and then when they set out again on their journey, the master had to start telling the story of his own love-life instead!

DD: Were you surprised at that?

R: Yes, I think I was, as I hadn't imagined any 'past' for him at all. He was just Jacques' master, and all I knew about him was that he often consulted his pocket watch and invariably took a pinch of snuff right afterwards. But then, as he began to tell the story of his relationship with Agathe, he began to take shape as a character, and I was reminded once again of how much I love stories. I became so involved in his adventures that I was frustrated when there were interruptions, just as Jacques was. And I even wanted to interrupt the stories myself from time to time with warnings similar to the ones Jacques' began to give, but I soon learned to stay quiet following Jacques example and just hoped the master would overcome his trials without our help. And then, near the end, I felt myself to be just as much the master's dupe as Jacques seemed to be, but I got through that bit, again by following Jacques' example, and was reconciled to the outcome. But hold on, it seems that I've been rattling on for too long instead of letting you talk. That wasn't how this interview was supposed to go!

DD: Looking at the long scroll of words from the top of this review page down to the bottom, I'm reminded of Jacques' statement about the inevitability of all things in the great scroll of life : Toi qui as fait le grand rouleau, quel que tu sois ; et dont le doigt a tracé toute l’écriture qui est là-haut, tu as su de tous les temps ce qu’il me fallait ; que ta volonté soit faite.

R: Well played, Mr Diderot. It seems I've become trapped in your narrative net just as Jacques and his master were, and I dare say it was inevitable from the beginning how this interview would end.

DD: As Jacques would say, It was written in advance...

Read in French. I read Diderot's Le Rêve d'Alembert 20 years ago (written in 1769, but published much later), and that was a quite difficult experience, since it dealt with a number of philosophical-scientific issues of that time (mid-18th century). It wasn't the form that was the problem, because Diderot had wrapped it in dialogue form, which is always more pleasant to read than a dry argument. It wasn't the 18th century French either (I read this in the original version), because that differs relatively little from modern French, which I understand well (although it is not my mother tongue). I think it rather was the dry, topic-based treatment that did me in.

This book, Jacques the Fatalist and his Master (1785), actually also is a philosophical story in dialogue form. But Diderot wrote it in a much lighter style, with a clear ironic-picaresque slant, and that makes it much more digestible. The dialogue takes place between the servant Jacques and his unnamed boss (the master). Jacques is an inveterate chatterbox who loves to talk about his time in the army and his amorous adventures. His boss is particularly interested in the latter, but he remains dissatisfied because Jacques jumps from topic to topic, is interrupted by the master and other people. The broken storyline leads to irritation and frustration with the master, but also with the reader. And that is apparently deliberately intended by Diderot, who regularly interrupts the novel to address the reader directly and to comment on the events himself, which of course only makes matters worse. In this Diderot was inspired by [b:Tristam Shandy|40236755|Tristam Shandy|Laurence Sterne|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1599903901l/40236755._SY75_.jpg|2280279], the voluminous novel by the English writer Laurence Sterne, the first parts of which had been published a few years earlier. And that of course explains a few things. Because if there is one novel that tests the patience of the reader, with constant interruptions and digressions, it is this one. But Diderot was also clearly inspired by the ironic and picaresque nature of Sterne's novel. Jacques Le Fataliste also excels in his laconic, satirical and often simply absurd nature. And the entertaining stories within the story (such as the delightful one about the Marquis des Arcis and the Marquise de Pommeraye) certainly compensate for the reading difficulties.

Okay, fine, but what about the philosophy? That is certainly there, even on almost every page. Because chatterbox Jacques turns out to be a fatalist, who attributes everything he experiences to Providence, "everything good and bad that happens to us here below was written up there”. In the dialogue with the master, that providence is constantly being sounded out, and with it inevitably the question of man's free will, one of the most fundamental philosophical issues. Every adventure, every prank, every bit of luck or misfortune is weighed up and discussed in this light, by each of the three main characters (Jacques, the master ànd the writer). Not with weighty philosophical arguments, no, on the contrary, light-heartedly and with a wink, and therefore also constantly undermining (false) certainties: “It is because, for lack of knowing what is written up there, we know neither what we want nor what we do, and we follow our fantasy which we call reason, or our reason which often just is a dangerous fantasy that sometimes turns out well, sometimes badly.” (what a great quote!). I enjoyed this delicious, mischievous novel immensely. For me, this is the best thing Diderot ever put to paper.

2.5
Fun but frustrating not to follow a "regular" plot

just thinking abt this book makes my head hurt and fills me with rage and makes me want to cry

Sort of interesting to analyse and study; not particularly enjoyable.

Even now, humour is completely subjective, but humour from several centuries ago is always hit and miss. I thought Voltaire's [b:Candide|19380|Candide|Voltaire|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1345060082l/19380._SY75_.jpg|2833018]-- written shortly before this one --was quite funny in parts. 150 years earlier, [b:Don Quixote|3836|Don Quixote|Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546112331l/3836._SX50_.jpg|121842] contained moments of comedic brilliance. The humour in [b:Jacques the Fatalist|18212|Jacques the Fatalist|Denis Diderot|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386925793l/18212._SY75_.jpg|1413941], however, slipped right on past me without leaving a mark.

Jacques and his master gallivant around having supposedly comical adventures, all of which are to emphasise Jacques' philosophy that everything is prewritten and predestined. The adventures are whimsical and random and there is no character, conflict, or promised destination to really connect you to the narrative.

Harsh, but if you want to experience some men going on a trip and getting themselves in and out of comical scenarios, you could just watch The Hangover.

Jacques è un filosofo che riesce a catturare l’attenzione con le sue avventure. Un libro divertente e di riflessione sulla condizione umana. Diderot ha uno stile di scrittura moderno, gli spezzoni del narratore sono un’aggiunta magnifica al romanzo.