Novel
Jacques the Fatalist and His Master
Jacques le Fataliste et son Maître
Denis Diderot · 1796
Opening lines
Comment s'étaient-ils rencontrés? Par hasard, comme tout le monde.
How had they met? By chance, like everybody else.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
A valet, Jacques, and his master travel on horseback through France. To relieve the tedium of the journey, Jacques sets about telling the story of his loves, which begin with a knee wound received at the battle of Fontenoy; but the story is constantly interrupted by incidents on the road, inn encounters and other tales, while Jacques keeps repeating that everything that happens to us here below was written up above.
Context
The text first circulated from 1778 to 1780 in the Correspondance littéraire, a manuscript sheet reserved for a few subscribers, and appeared in German before appearing in French: the original edition was published only in 1796, in Paris, by Buisson. Inspired by Sterne's Tristram Shandy, the narrative is a dialogue between the valet and the man he serves, and at the same time between the author and his reader, whom the narrator constantly addresses.
Who it is for
A novel made of digressions and embedded stories, in which the narrator readily addresses the reader directly.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as a great forerunner of the modern, and even postmodern, novel, it inspired Milan Kundera to write a theatrical variation.
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