Jacques Le Fataliste Et Son Maître
Two men travel the roads of 18th-century France, and nothing happens to them, or does it? Jacques the Fatalist believes every event in his life was written in heaven before he was born. His master, skeptical and increasingly exasperated, listens to Jacques spin tale after tale: of battles, of lovers, of staggering coincidences that Jacques reads as proof of divine choreography. But Diderot, that mischievous philosopher, keeps interrupting his own novel to remind us he's making it up as he goes along. The result is a wildly inventive meditation on whether we control our lives or merely inhabit a story already told. Furious debates about free will sit alongside ribald adventures. Philosophical rigor collides with comedic chaos. Two and a half centuries later, Diderot's formal daring still startles: he breaks the fourth wall, questions his characters, and asks whether fiction can ever capture the mess of being alive. If you've ever wondered whether you're the author of your own life or just playing a part you didn't choose, Jacques the Fatalist is the irreverent, erotically charged, deeply funny novel that will not let you off the hook.
Editions
X-Ray
“Life is but a series of misunderstandings.””
— Denis Diderot
“The fact is that she was terribly undressed and I was extremely undressed too. The fact is that I still had my hand where she didn't have anything and she had hers where the same wasn't quite true of me. The fact is that I found myself underneath her and consequently she found herself on top of me.””
— Denis Diderot
“It is better to reveal a weakness than allow oneself be suspected of a vice.””
— Denis Diderot
“No matter how much a man may study, reflect and meditate on all the books in the world, he is nothing more than a minor scribe unless he has read the great book.””
— Denis Diderot
“El pueblo, eterno esclavo de los tiranos que lo oprimen, de los bribones que lo engañan y de los bufones que lo divierten.””
— Denis Diderot
“To speak to you frankly, Reader, I find that you are the more wicked of the two of us. How satisfied would I be if it were as easy for me to protect myself from your calumny as it is for you to protect yourself from the boredom or the danger of my work!””
— Denis Diderot
“أليس شيئاً مزعجاً! فهم يذمّون الحياةَ من الصصبح حتى المساء، ولا يستطيعون عقد العزم على مغادرتها!أيكون السبب أن الحياة الراهنة ليست في مجملها بالشيء الرديء ، أم أنهم يخشون حياة قادمة أسوأ منها””
— Denis Diderot
“There comes a moment when nearly all young girls and young boys become melancholic. They are disturbed by a vague uneasiness which extends to everything and can find no consolation. They look for solitude. They weep. The silence of the cloister moves them and the image of peace which seems to reign in religious houses seduces them. They mistake the first movements of their developing emotions for the voice of God calling them and it is at the precise moment when nature is calling to them that they embrace a life which is contrary to the laws of nature.””
— Denis Diderot
“Master, master, you obviously haven’t thought about this at all. We only ever feel sorry for ourselves, believe me.””
— Denis Diderot
