Why did I love this book?
Brimming with paradoxes and ironies, this 18th-century novel about language and power is more than an ingenious attack on the bland literary fashions of a closed-minded ancien rĂŠgime of aristocratic power and privilege.
I love its playful celebration of heterodoxy and its witty defense of the clever thoughts of an upstart servant who demands to be treated with respect by daring to call into question his masterâs illusions about the meaning of life.
1 author picked Jacques the Fatalist as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Denis Diderot (1713-1784) was among the greatest writers of the Enlightenment, and in Jacques the Fatalist he brilliantly challenged the artificialities of conventional French fiction of his age. Riding through France with his master, the servant Jacques appears to act as though he is truly free in a world of dizzying variety and unpredictability. Characters emerge and disappear as the pair travel across the country, and tales begin and are submerged by greater stories, to reveal a panoramic view of eighteenth-century society. But while Jacques seems to choose his own path, he remains convinced of one philosophical belief: that everyâŚ