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Review Summary: Super Awesome 18th Century Lit |
Date: 2008-11-16 |
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Details: I'm making my way through the classics of 18th century lit via the "1001 Books to Read Before you Die" (I know, I know, I'm embarrassed.) Anyway- it's been a mixed back. I've enjoyed books like Tom Jones, suffered through books like Pamela & puzzled through but ultimately enjoyed books like Tristram Shandy.
The point of the preamble is that Jacques the Fatalist is the first of these 18th century books that I've really, really loved. I agree with all of the other reviewers- this is a true five star read. Not just because of its endurance over the centuries, but because, frankly, it's a fun read. Check it out- there is humor and bawdiness to keep you enthralled all the way through. |
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Review Summary: very entertaining |
Date: 2007-07-31 |
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Details: THis book is awesome mix of "Don Quixote," "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy," and the "Colloquies of Erasmus." ... With a dash of Rabelais and Boccaccio for good measure.
In other words: playful bawdy post modern meta narrative where carnivalesque stories weave in and out of each other. Ive read a few things by Diderot and this is my fav so far.
I'm a big fan of The Manuscript Found in Saragossa - so its shocking to learn that it leans so heavily on Jacques. I found Jacques to be more entertaining than Sterne's work. |
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Review Summary: It's written on high |
Date: 2007-03-21 |
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Details: It may be your destiny to read and adore the pithy wit of Diderot. At a time when the novel was new as a genre as a contemporary of Sterne and Richardson, Diderot confronts the religion and philosophy of his day entrenched in the idea that man's fate was written on a scroll on high and that man only acted out a bit part devoid of real choice in his slavery to destiny. Pre-destination did not sit well with Diderot and Jacques is the novelist in this "dog's breakfast" he has served up railing aginst his own genre to assert his humanity and freedom on his picaresque journey to nowhere. "Does anyone know where they're going?" certainly sounds like Beckett who lived in France and may well have read Diderot. Jacques is forced to conclude that people think they are in charge of their destiny when their destiny is in charge of them. What choice does the fatalist really have except to resign to his fate? Because life is a series of endless misunderstandings, it isn't easy to be captain of one's own soul. The epigrams are deliciously well phrased: "Virtue is an excellent thing. Both good people and wicked people speak highly of it." Or this: "I think there are some very odd things written up there on high." The wicked fable of the Sheath and the Knife is certainly memorable. Jacques is genuinely hilarious in many places and despite Diderot's scathing complaints of the early novel, he wrote wrote an enduring classic beloved because of its pure wit, audacity, irony and uncanny phrasing. I urge you to read this great early novel destined to foretell the promise bound to follow for the genre. |
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Review Summary: An interactive literary device |
Date: 2003-01-06 |
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Details: Two centuries or so before "modern" writers began writing experimental novels, Denis Diderot, the force behind the Encyclopaedia effort, wrote this strange and indeed very "modern" novel in which the author leads a conversation with the reader, asking him where he (or she, of course) would want to go and what to do with the characters and the story. Here we see the author in the very process of creation, exposing his doubts, exploring his options, and playing with the story. There is really no plot as such. Jacques, a man who seems to believe everything that happens is already written "up on high", but who nonetheless keeps making decisions for himself, is riding through France with his unnamed master, a man who is skeptic of Jacques's determinism but who remains rather passive throughout the book. Fate and the creator-author will put repeatedly to test Jacques's theory, through a series of more or less fortunate accidents and situations, as well as by way of numerous asides in the form of subplots or stories. The novel is totally disjointed and these asides and subplots blurb all over the place, always interrupted themselves by other happenings. The most interesting of them is the story of Madame de Pommeroy and her bitter but ultimately ineffectual revenge on her ex-lover. Diderot confesses to having taken much from Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" and Cervantes's "Don Quixote". This last novel's influence seems obvious at two levels: Cervantes also talks to the reader, especially in Part Two, and also reflects abundantly on the creative process. Moreover, the tone and environment of the book is very similar to the Quixote: two people engaged in an endless philosophical conversations while roaming around the countryside and facing several adventures which serve to illustrate one or antoher point of view. Diderot's humour is bawdy and practical and the book is fun to read. The exact philosophical point is not clearcut, but it will leave the reader wondering about Destiny, Fate, and Free Will. |
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Review Summary: Buried Treasure |
Date: 2002-05-28 |
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Details: Yeah. Believe all the reviews below. This book really is amazing. It would feel like it was written yesterday, if it was more derivative -- but it's fresh! The language is incisive, no waste, and the pacing and structure are brilliantly fluid. It's smart and funny, too, and completely unpredictable, filled with weird offhand bursts of bewildering narrativity. And yet balanced, apparently sane. I truly enjoyed reading it. It's great. |
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out of 10 Reviews
