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Jacques le Fataliste et son maître
Deux personnages déambulent en philosophant. On ne sait qui ils sont. On ne sait d'où ils viennent. On ne sait où ils vont. Tout ce que l'on sait, c'est que l'un est le maître de l'autre. Bientôt on se demandera lequel.
356 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1796
428 people are currently reading
16769 people want to read
About the author
Denis Diderot
2,440 books578 followersWork on the
Encyclopédie
(1751-1772), supreme accomplishment of French philosopher and writer Denis Diderot, epitomized the spirit of thought of Enlightenment; he also wrote novels, plays, critical essays, and brilliant letters to a wide circle of friends and colleagues.
Jean le Rond d'Alembert contributed.
This artistic prominent persona served as best known co-founder, chief editor, and contributor.
He also contributed notably to literature with Jacques le fataliste et son maître (Jacques the Fatalist and his Master), which emulated Laurence Sterne in challenging conventions regarding structure and content, while also examining ideas about free will. Diderot also authored of the known dialogue, Le Neveu de Rameau (Rameau's Nephew), basis of many articles and sermons about consumer desire. His articles included many topics.
Diderot speculated on free will, held a completely materialistic view of the universe, and suggested that heredity determines all human behavior. He therefore warned his fellows against an overemphasis on mathematics and against the blind optimism that sees in the growth of physical knowledge an automatic social and human progress. He rejected the idea of progress. His opinion doomed the aim of progressing through technology to fail. He founded on experiment and the study of probabilities. He wrote several articles and supplements concerning gambling, mortality rates, and inoculation against smallpox. He discreetly but firmly refuted technical errors and personal positions of d'Alembert on probability.
Jean le Rond d'Alembert contributed.
This artistic prominent persona served as best known co-founder, chief editor, and contributor.
He also contributed notably to literature with Jacques le fataliste et son maître (Jacques the Fatalist and his Master), which emulated Laurence Sterne in challenging conventions regarding structure and content, while also examining ideas about free will. Diderot also authored of the known dialogue, Le Neveu de Rameau (Rameau's Nephew), basis of many articles and sermons about consumer desire. His articles included many topics.
Diderot speculated on free will, held a completely materialistic view of the universe, and suggested that heredity determines all human behavior. He therefore warned his fellows against an overemphasis on mathematics and against the blind optimism that sees in the growth of physical knowledge an automatic social and human progress. He rejected the idea of progress. His opinion doomed the aim of progressing through technology to fail. He founded on experiment and the study of probabilities. He wrote several articles and supplements concerning gambling, mortality rates, and inoculation against smallpox. He discreetly but firmly refuted technical errors and personal positions of d'Alembert on probability.
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August 5, 2024Exclusive 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 Don Quichotte 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 Tristram Shandy?
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...
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 Don Quichotte 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 Tristram Shandy?
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...
February 6, 2023
“La vida no es más que una serie de malentendidos.”
Dicen que Diderot se inspiró en el "Tristram Shandy" de Laurence Sterne, para escribir este libro. Ese libro de Sterne, junto con "Gargantúa y Pantagruel" de Rabelais sigue siendo para mí un objeto de intensa búsqueda.
A ambos me interesa leerlos porque corresponden a una época dorada de la literatura y porque anticipan muchas novelas que aparecieron después, incluyendo esta.
También busqué mucho este libro. Afortunadamente y gracias a una editorial independiente llamada Los Lápices Editora, quien publicó el libro con una excelente traducción del francés, pude conseguir un volumen.
Las asociaciones de "Jacques el fatalista" también se trazan con "Don Quijote de la Mancha" y son muy evidentes.
En ambas novelas nos encontramos con dos personajes a caballo que recorren un camino, que están fuertemente ligados entre sí -Jacques y su amo, Sancho Panza y Alonso Quijano- y en las dos, los diálogos son la característica fundamental de la historia y conforman el argumento de la novela.
Las analogías entre Jacques y Sancho Panza se circunscriben fundamentalmente en el protagonismo que estos dos personajes ejercen en ambas novelas. Incluso, en el caso de Jacques es mucho más importante que la de su amo, quien por momentos queda en segundo plano.
Es que para el lector es importante saber qué es lo que pasa por la cabeza y la vida de Jacques. Este personaje es el alma mater de la novela a punto tal de que su nombre le da el título al libro.
Otros de los aspectos fuertes que encontré es que Diderot trazó puntos de contacto con los escritores franceses más importantes que lo precedieron, tal es el caso de Voltaire, Molière, Corneille y Racine, todos ellos parte troncal de la literatura francesa del siglo anterior al de Diderot.
Todos aquellos aspectos satíricos, cómicos, de fina ironía y de construcción de enredos que Diderot pone en juego en su libro surgen de haber aprehendido lo mejor de estos autores y se nota claramente al momento de leer esta novela.
El axioma que en las primeras líneas ya define el modo de vida de Jacques, "Todo está escrito allá arriba" y es la manera de fijar las reglas de juego de lo que a los personajes les sucederá en el camino, ya que son, de algún modo, manejados por el destino y deben aceptar lo que este les dicte, pero con una salvedad: el libre albedrío de la frase citada queda bajo el completo control del autor quien crea en el lector la ilusión de ir escribiendo la historia sobre la marcha y en complicidad con este.
Esto se da con tanta frecuencia que en distintos momentos de la novela, Diderot, se pregunta (y le pregunta al lector) si correspondería introducir tal o cual cambio en la novela para que los hechos se tuerzan a algo completamente distinto, con lo cual podemos apreciar la originalidad que este autor tenía a la hora de escribir sus libros.
Él mismo se encarga de aclararlo cuando dice: "Es evidente que no hago una novela, ya que descuido aquello que un novelista no dejaría de usar. El que tome lo que escribo por la verdad posiblemente estaría menos equivocado que el que lo tome por fábula."
Hasta en estos detalles Diderot descolla del resto de los escritores de su época.
Diderot posee una imaginación interminable para inventar anécdotas. Todas ellas fluyen sin cesar y son completamente distintas, pues se tratan en su mayoría de enredos amorosos extremadamente divertidos que captan la atención del lector.
Las anécdotas incluidas son muchas siendo la historia de madame de La Pommerage y del marqués de Arcis, contada por la posadera la más extensa del libro.
Por otro lado, el amo de Jacques constantemente le pide a este que le cuente las anécdotas de sus amoríos, lo cual es dilatado adrede por Jacques para contar otras historias y así estas nunca llegan.
Esta es la característica más importante del libro, ya que Diderot construye los diálogos en forma concéntrica y por niveles (y a mi entender no al estilo de muñecas rusas como establece Michel Foucault en la contratapa de mi edición), dado que en primer lugar es Jacques quien le cuenta historias a su amo y éste le cuenta las suyas, y a su vez, los otros personajes también cuentan sus historias e incluso los personajes de estas historias de un tercer nivel aparecen en la novela para contar las propias.
Pero además tenemos al narrador dialogando con nosotros los lectores. Es decir que los canales de comunicación entre los interlocutores (autor, lector y personaje) son muchos.
Todo el entramado del libro se basa en diálogos, historias y anécdotas de los personajes que lo pueblan y así se mantiene el dinamismo en funcionamiento de principio a final.
Esta novela, admirada por Michel Foucault y Milan Kundera se disfruta plenamente. Mantiene su frescura precisamente por ese dinamismo único que la caracteriza y está hecha para aquellos que buscamos leer un libro único y original.
De hecho, es algo que el autor se encarga de aclarar en uno de los tantos diálogos de "Jacques, el fatalista":
Jacques: ¡Tiene señor, una desaforada afición a los cuentos!
El amo: Es cierto, me instruyen y me divierten. Un buen narrador es un hombre de raras cualidades.
Jacques: Por esa razón, precisamente, no me gustan a mí los cuentos, a menos que sea yo quien los haga.
El amo: Antes prefieres hablar mal que estar callado.
Jacques: Es verdad.
Dicen que Diderot se inspiró en el "Tristram Shandy" de Laurence Sterne, para escribir este libro. Ese libro de Sterne, junto con "Gargantúa y Pantagruel" de Rabelais sigue siendo para mí un objeto de intensa búsqueda.
A ambos me interesa leerlos porque corresponden a una época dorada de la literatura y porque anticipan muchas novelas que aparecieron después, incluyendo esta.
También busqué mucho este libro. Afortunadamente y gracias a una editorial independiente llamada Los Lápices Editora, quien publicó el libro con una excelente traducción del francés, pude conseguir un volumen.
Las asociaciones de "Jacques el fatalista" también se trazan con "Don Quijote de la Mancha" y son muy evidentes.
En ambas novelas nos encontramos con dos personajes a caballo que recorren un camino, que están fuertemente ligados entre sí -Jacques y su amo, Sancho Panza y Alonso Quijano- y en las dos, los diálogos son la característica fundamental de la historia y conforman el argumento de la novela.
Las analogías entre Jacques y Sancho Panza se circunscriben fundamentalmente en el protagonismo que estos dos personajes ejercen en ambas novelas. Incluso, en el caso de Jacques es mucho más importante que la de su amo, quien por momentos queda en segundo plano.
Es que para el lector es importante saber qué es lo que pasa por la cabeza y la vida de Jacques. Este personaje es el alma mater de la novela a punto tal de que su nombre le da el título al libro.
Otros de los aspectos fuertes que encontré es que Diderot trazó puntos de contacto con los escritores franceses más importantes que lo precedieron, tal es el caso de Voltaire, Molière, Corneille y Racine, todos ellos parte troncal de la literatura francesa del siglo anterior al de Diderot.
Todos aquellos aspectos satíricos, cómicos, de fina ironía y de construcción de enredos que Diderot pone en juego en su libro surgen de haber aprehendido lo mejor de estos autores y se nota claramente al momento de leer esta novela.
El axioma que en las primeras líneas ya define el modo de vida de Jacques, "Todo está escrito allá arriba" y es la manera de fijar las reglas de juego de lo que a los personajes les sucederá en el camino, ya que son, de algún modo, manejados por el destino y deben aceptar lo que este les dicte, pero con una salvedad: el libre albedrío de la frase citada queda bajo el completo control del autor quien crea en el lector la ilusión de ir escribiendo la historia sobre la marcha y en complicidad con este.
Esto se da con tanta frecuencia que en distintos momentos de la novela, Diderot, se pregunta (y le pregunta al lector) si correspondería introducir tal o cual cambio en la novela para que los hechos se tuerzan a algo completamente distinto, con lo cual podemos apreciar la originalidad que este autor tenía a la hora de escribir sus libros.
Él mismo se encarga de aclararlo cuando dice: "Es evidente que no hago una novela, ya que descuido aquello que un novelista no dejaría de usar. El que tome lo que escribo por la verdad posiblemente estaría menos equivocado que el que lo tome por fábula."
Hasta en estos detalles Diderot descolla del resto de los escritores de su época.
Diderot posee una imaginación interminable para inventar anécdotas. Todas ellas fluyen sin cesar y son completamente distintas, pues se tratan en su mayoría de enredos amorosos extremadamente divertidos que captan la atención del lector.
Las anécdotas incluidas son muchas siendo la historia de madame de La Pommerage y del marqués de Arcis, contada por la posadera la más extensa del libro.
Por otro lado, el amo de Jacques constantemente le pide a este que le cuente las anécdotas de sus amoríos, lo cual es dilatado adrede por Jacques para contar otras historias y así estas nunca llegan.
Esta es la característica más importante del libro, ya que Diderot construye los diálogos en forma concéntrica y por niveles (y a mi entender no al estilo de muñecas rusas como establece Michel Foucault en la contratapa de mi edición), dado que en primer lugar es Jacques quien le cuenta historias a su amo y éste le cuenta las suyas, y a su vez, los otros personajes también cuentan sus historias e incluso los personajes de estas historias de un tercer nivel aparecen en la novela para contar las propias.
Pero además tenemos al narrador dialogando con nosotros los lectores. Es decir que los canales de comunicación entre los interlocutores (autor, lector y personaje) son muchos.
Todo el entramado del libro se basa en diálogos, historias y anécdotas de los personajes que lo pueblan y así se mantiene el dinamismo en funcionamiento de principio a final.
Esta novela, admirada por Michel Foucault y Milan Kundera se disfruta plenamente. Mantiene su frescura precisamente por ese dinamismo único que la caracteriza y está hecha para aquellos que buscamos leer un libro único y original.
De hecho, es algo que el autor se encarga de aclarar en uno de los tantos diálogos de "Jacques, el fatalista":
Jacques: ¡Tiene señor, una desaforada afición a los cuentos!
El amo: Es cierto, me instruyen y me divierten. Un buen narrador es un hombre de raras cualidades.
Jacques: Por esa razón, precisamente, no me gustan a mí los cuentos, a menos que sea yo quien los haga.
El amo: Antes prefieres hablar mal que estar callado.
Jacques: Es verdad.
August 19, 2019
"Life is but a series of misunderstandings."
To me, navigating life as a mother and teacher and daughter and sister and spouse and friend and neighbour and commuter and grocery shopper and reader and artist (on extended sabbatical) is a lot about trying to match my own misunderstandings (as far as I am aware of them) with those of my environment. And as that is no easy task, I occasionally experience deep pessimism, which I cure with Thomas Bernhard's prose. Once in recovery mode, I switch to Diderot!
Jacques le Fataliste is not only a very funny and witty account of life as it hits us in the face, it is also a philosophical journey towards more awareness and acceptance of the absurdities we encounter and create for ourselves.
With Diderot's Jacques and Voltaire's Candide in my pocket, I set out to explore the world as a young adult in the ancient, remote times of the last decade of a past century/millennium. And as life moves in loops, I always end up revisiting the eloquence of Enlightenment in times of Ancien Régime intolerance.
To Jacques!
To me, navigating life as a mother and teacher and daughter and sister and spouse and friend and neighbour and commuter and grocery shopper and reader and artist (on extended sabbatical) is a lot about trying to match my own misunderstandings (as far as I am aware of them) with those of my environment. And as that is no easy task, I occasionally experience deep pessimism, which I cure with Thomas Bernhard's prose. Once in recovery mode, I switch to Diderot!
Jacques le Fataliste is not only a very funny and witty account of life as it hits us in the face, it is also a philosophical journey towards more awareness and acceptance of the absurdities we encounter and create for ourselves.
With Diderot's Jacques and Voltaire's Candide in my pocket, I set out to explore the world as a young adult in the ancient, remote times of the last decade of a past century/millennium. And as life moves in loops, I always end up revisiting the eloquence of Enlightenment in times of Ancien Régime intolerance.
To Jacques!
October 13, 2019
“JACQUES.—En esta vida no sabemos nunca de qué hemos de alegrarnos ni de qué afligirnos. El bien nos trae el mal, y el mal viene como un bien. Vamos caminando en la noche por debajo de lo que está escrito allá arriba, igualmente insensatos en nuestros deseos, en nuestra dicha y en nuestra aflicción. Cuando lloro, más de una vez me parece que soy un necio.En este diálogo está recogida el principal mensaje del libro. Todo está determinado, escrito allá arriba, como se dice en el texto, y sin embargo no podemos comportarnos de otra forma que como si realmente fuéramos libres al actuar, como si realmente pudiéramos hacer algo por cambiar el rumbo de las cosas. Nuestra sensación es siempre la de que conducimos el coche.
AMO.—¿Y cuándo ríes?
JACQUES.—Pues también me parece que soy un necio; y sin embargo, no puedo por menos de llorar y de reír.”
“Jacques decía que hicieron lo que estaba escrito allá arriba, su amo, que hicieron lo que les vino en gana: y ambos tenían razón.”No es la única pregunta, disquisición, observación filosófica o psicológica que encontraremos en el texto. Desde la inconstancia de las relaciones humanas o la antinatural exigencia de fidelidad sexual, pasando por la crítica de lo políticamente correcto (increíble, ¿verdad?) o el deseo del ser humano de mandar sobre otro (que, según Diderot, está en la raíz de esa querencia por los animales domésticos) hasta la necesidad de relatos y de relatar, capaz de llevarnos a observar las ejecuciones públicas solo por el placer de tener algo que contar, muchas son las cuestiones que se comentan y se discuten.
Pero que nadie se asuste, la novela, si es que así se puede denominar en contra del criterio del propio autor, es un continuo diálogo entre Jacques y su amo en el que, junto a la discusión filosófica, se van concatenando pequeñas historias, pícaras algunas, eróticas otras, divertidas siempre, enlazadas con tanto estilo e inteligencia por un narrador impertinente, capaz de interrumpir el curso de la narración, siempre en el peor momento posible, con interpelaciones, preguntas y comentarios dirigidos al lector, muchos acerca de la propia construcción de la novela, que consigue eliminar toda posible sensación de texto fragmentado.
"Jacques ha dicho cien veces que está escrito en lo alto que no terminará su historia y compruebo que tiene razón. Bien veo, lector, que eso te fastidia. Pues anda, toma el relato donde lo dejé y prolóngalo conforme a tu fantasía".De la trilogía que forma esta con El Quijote de Cervantes y el Tristram Shandy de Sterne, obras con las que mantiene estrecha relación (por lo que dicen los mentideros, a veces excesivamente estrechas) solo me falta la última. Veremos.
July 1, 2023
رمانی متفاوت با ترجمهای عالی.
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در واقع میتوان ادعا کرد که سنت گریزی، ساختار پیچیده، بینظمی استادانه، آوردن داستان در داستان، پارادوکسها و تضادهای گستاخانه، آمیزهی طنز و تخیل برای مبارزه با جهل و خرافات و کوتهبینی و عدم تساهل در ژاک قضا و قدری، نمونهای از داستاننویسی مدرن است. نثر زنده و پویای دیدرو با آن ضربآهنگ تند و تیز و چالاک، خواندن رمان را لذتبخش و امروزی میکند. او بزرگانی چون گوته، شیلر، هگل، مارکس، فروید، استاندال، بالزاک، بودلر و ژید را از جملهی شیفتگان خود کرد، و در میان نویسندگان معاصر میلان کوندرا رمان ژاک قضا و قدری را «مسحورکننده» میداند. مقدمهی مترجم. صفحات ۷-۸ کتاب
میپنداریم سرنوشت را خودمان تعیین میکنیم در حالیکه این سرنوشت است که همواره ما را به دنبال میکشد. صفحهی ۳۸ کتاب
حقیقت جنبههای جذابی دارد که نبوغ میتواند به آن پی ببرد. صفحهی ۴۶ کتاب
نه انقدر در مجیز گویی دست و دلباز باش و نه انقدر در انتقاد تلخ؛ همه چیز را همان طوریکه هست بگو. صفحهی ۶۹ کتاب
آدم نمیداند در زندگی از چه خوشحال باشد و از چه غمگین. به دنبال خیر، شر میآید و به دنبال شر خیر. ما زیر آنچه آن بالا نوشته شده در جهالت به سر میبریم و آرزوها و خوشحالیها و ناراحتیهایمان یکی از دیگری احمقانهتر است. صفحهی ۱۰۷ کتاب
من هیچ وقت نتوانستم داستانم را بی آنکه توسط این و آن قطع شود دنبال کنم، در حالیکه داستان شما بی وقفه پیش میرود. زندگی هم همینطور است؛ یک نفر در میان خارستان میدود و زخمی نمیشود؛ دیگری هر قدمش را با احتیاط بر میدارد اما در با صفاترین جاده هم خار به پایش میرود و لت و پار به خانه میرسد. صفحهی ۲۹۹ کتاب
ما سه چهارم عمرمان را به خواستن و نتوانستن میگذرانیم. صفحهی ۳۲۸ کتاب
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در واقع میتوان ادعا کرد که سنت گریزی، ساختار پیچیده، بینظمی استادانه، آوردن داستان در داستان، پارادوکسها و تضادهای گستاخانه، آمیزهی طنز و تخیل برای مبارزه با جهل و خرافات و کوتهبینی و عدم تساهل در ژاک قضا و قدری، نمونهای از داستاننویسی مدرن است. نثر زنده و پویای دیدرو با آن ضربآهنگ تند و تیز و چالاک، خواندن رمان را لذتبخش و امروزی میکند. او بزرگانی چون گوته، شیلر، هگل، مارکس، فروید، استاندال، بالزاک، بودلر و ژید را از جملهی شیفتگان خود کرد، و در میان نویسندگان معاصر میلان کوندرا رمان ژاک قضا و قدری را «مسحورکننده» میداند. مقدمهی مترجم. صفحات ۷-۸ کتاب
میپنداریم سرنوشت را خودمان تعیین میکنیم در حالیکه این سرنوشت است که همواره ما را به دنبال میکشد. صفحهی ۳۸ کتاب
حقیقت جنبههای جذابی دارد که نبوغ میتواند به آن پی ببرد. صفحهی ۴۶ کتاب
نه انقدر در مجیز گویی دست و دلباز باش و نه انقدر در انتقاد تلخ؛ همه چیز را همان طوریکه هست بگو. صفحهی ۶۹ کتاب
آدم نمیداند در زندگی از چه خوشحال باشد و از چه غمگین. به دنبال خیر، شر میآید و به دنبال شر خیر. ما زیر آنچه آن بالا نوشته شده در جهالت به سر میبریم و آرزوها و خوشحالیها و ناراحتیهایمان یکی از دیگری احمقانهتر است. صفحهی ۱۰۷ کتاب
من هیچ وقت نتوانستم داستانم را بی آنکه توسط این و آن قطع شود دنبال کنم، در حالیکه داستان شما بی وقفه پیش میرود. زندگی هم همینطور است؛ یک نفر در میان خارستان میدود و زخمی نمیشود؛ دیگری هر قدمش را با احتیاط بر میدارد اما در با صفاترین جاده هم خار به پایش میرود و لت و پار به خانه میرسد. صفحهی ۲۹۹ کتاب
ما سه چهارم عمرمان را به خواستن و نتوانستن میگذرانیم. صفحهی ۳۲۸ کتاب
February 9, 2015
همین که یه کتاب قرن هجدهم برای خوندن انتخاب کنید که اسمش بنا بر شرایط همون دوره به جای " ارباب و ژاک قضا و قدری " باشه " ژاک قضا و قدری و اربابش" نشون میده که با کتابی تا چه حد سنت شکن و بدیع طرف هستید. کتابی که گذشت قرن ها ، بی همتاییش رو از بین نبرده.
کتاب ، با داشتن المان هایی مثل نداشتن داستانی معلوم و مشخص و در عوض استفاده از شیوه ی داستان در داستان، استفاده از راوی های متعدد و از بین بردن زمان و مکان، مکالمه نویسنده با خواننده حین روایت حقیقتا فراتر از زمان خودش بوده. وقتی شروع به خوندن می کنید حس می کنید از طرف نویسنده به بازی گرفته شدید... نویسنده از شاخه ای به شاخه دیگه ای می پره و به عمد از دادن یه سری اطلاعات به خواننده امتناع میکنه.. از این که اعصابتون خرد بشه و کتاب رو نیمه رها کنید ابایی نداره...کار خودش رو میکنه با لجبازی، استادی و کله شقی تا کتابی خاص خلق کنه..نویسنده حتی قواعد و ساختارهای ابتدایی رمان نویسی رو هم زیر پا میگذاره ...در اینجا با نوکری طرف هستید که اسمش در عنوان کتاب جلوتر از ارباب اومده، ارباب در مقابلش حقیره و به داستان سرایی نوکر شدیدا نیازمند...تناقضات کتاب به همین جا ختم نمیشه و مثلن ژاک قضا و قدری که باید بنابر اعتقادش تسلیم سرنوشت باشه کاملن شخصیتی اکتیو و تلاشگر داره و در مقابل ارباب ، فردی کاملن منفعل و تسلیمه
نمیشه در مجموع فقط یک داستان به این کتاب نسبت داد که پره از داستان های ریز و درشت و حوصله سر بر یا جذاب
کتاب خودش به تنهایی اثریست در ستایش قصه گویی که هر شخصیتی در اون قصه پردازتر، قدرتمندتر
کتاب ، با داشتن المان هایی مثل نداشتن داستانی معلوم و مشخص و در عوض استفاده از شیوه ی داستان در داستان، استفاده از راوی های متعدد و از بین بردن زمان و مکان، مکالمه نویسنده با خواننده حین روایت حقیقتا فراتر از زمان خودش بوده. وقتی شروع به خوندن می کنید حس می کنید از طرف نویسنده به بازی گرفته شدید... نویسنده از شاخه ای به شاخه دیگه ای می پره و به عمد از دادن یه سری اطلاعات به خواننده امتناع میکنه.. از این که اعصابتون خرد بشه و کتاب رو نیمه رها کنید ابایی نداره...کار خودش رو میکنه با لجبازی، استادی و کله شقی تا کتابی خاص خلق کنه..نویسنده حتی قواعد و ساختارهای ابتدایی رمان نویسی رو هم زیر پا میگذاره ...در اینجا با نوکری طرف هستید که اسمش در عنوان کتاب جلوتر از ارباب اومده، ارباب در مقابلش حقیره و به داستان سرایی نوکر شدیدا نیازمند...تناقضات کتاب به همین جا ختم نمیشه و مثلن ژاک قضا و قدری که باید بنابر اعتقادش تسلیم سرنوشت باشه کاملن شخصیتی اکتیو و تلاشگر داره و در مقابل ارباب ، فردی کاملن منفعل و تسلیمه
نمیشه در مجموع فقط یک داستان به این کتاب نسبت داد که پره از داستان های ریز و درشت و حوصله سر بر یا جذاب
کتاب خودش به تنهایی اثریست در ستایش قصه گویی که هر شخصیتی در اون قصه پردازتر، قدرتمندتر
September 24, 2011
For those exhausted or defeated by Tristram Shandy, here is a precursor to the postmodern novel that packs in more incident, philosophy, bitching and warm humour in its 237 pages than most modern avant-garde writers manage in a whole corpus. Jacques—the titular Fatalist—attempts to recount the tale of his “first loves” while accompanying his Master on a series of oblique misadventures that invariably end up as digressions and more digressions. All postmodern tricks—stories-within-stories, frames-within-frames, direct reader-insulting—are present, and better than in 1971. This is a wild and hilarious romp with a fiercely readable translation from the unfortunately named David Coward, and this edition has an exemplary introduction that neither squeezes all life from the work nor drowns it in academic verbiage. Proof once again the French are the true genitors of all great literature. So it was written up there, on high.
February 24, 2017
So I'm sitting in my place when the door bell rings. I open the door to find a girl with chocolaty curly hair whom I never have seen before, she takes hold of my hand with both her hands imploring me to help her. Suddenly I'm a superhero and she is a damsel in distress, and so I ask her what is wrong? And she sighing and almost sobbing tells me...
"Tells you what?" You ask.
Why do you care? It is not a story, it is supposed to be a review of Jacques the fatalist.
“There is no book more innocent than a bad book”
Denis Diderot was a polymath. Philosophy, theatre, literature, science– he was involved in them all and his efforts during the enlightenment age earned praises from his contemporary Voltaire. He championed the cause of freedom of speech and that of Science, which wasn't much liked by church. Like Voltaire, he was an atheist. This might lead you to believe that he wrote this ‘chronicle’ to satirize the protagonist but the very opposite is the case.
Well, talking about fatalism, it reminds of a women ... no, not the women with chocolaty curly hair though if it was a novel, that would definitly have been the case, but this is real life. The woman I'm now talking about, a friend, told me how this one time she was sitting in a casino and losing constantly when this guy in a black suit comes in, 'very ugly to be honest but except for that very very charming' - as she put it. And now she was about to leave having nothing but bad luck that day but he somehow persuaded her to try again for number six and with all her money - and again and again, for three times and she won each time. Obviously happy, she was soon drinking with him asking him who he was and he told her ..
"And what did he say?" You ask again.
Again, always putting your nose in other people's business, aren't we? It is a review remember? Dont distract me.
The image that springs up in one’s mind when one thinks of a fatalist is of someone who won’t make an effort to improve his or her life or fight against his or her troubles but Jacques is not like that. He is very active, clever and always trying to enjoy his life. His fatalism is more of a belief in determinism – he believes there is no free-will, everything shall happen according to ‘what is written on high’, but it doesn’t stop him from trying, taking necessary caution against dangers, putting on resistance etc.
Diderot himself didn’t believe that there is a God who has written something but he believed that everything that happens springs from a cause and that cause itself has a cause and so on. And so there is no free-will. He wanted to tell us how even someone believing in such fatalism won't be too immoral or a defeatist.
But really I'm too excited to tell you about the story of that girl with chocolaty curly hair and so she tells me that she has a cockroach in the house and that I must ...
But you are laughing. What did you expect? Dragons? Though if it was a novel, it would definitely have been something more sinister - dragons, vampires,zombies, aliens, ghosts etc. As it is I was even scared of cockroaches too and so ....
"We would rather hear the end of casino girl story."You say.
But I want to tell this one.
"But we want to hear that one or we will leave." You say.
(Angrily) All right, I guess it is written on high. So the ugly guy is just about to tell her his story when he notices something wrong with his drink and tells her to wait a second as he leaves to complain about it.
Now you might have noticed above, I called it a chronicle instead of a .....
And now you are still pestering me to finish the story first.
But he has gone to complain, let him. Meanwhile let me finish with the review. Now you might have noticed.....
"But the story?"
Oh grow up! Now you might have...
"Please. I know that ugly charming man is devil. And 666 he wanted her to play and how he was sure she will win and..."
I will finish it in due time but we are here to review a novel.
You sit back, disappointed.
Now you might have noticed above, I called it a chronicle instead of a novel, and it is because our author keeps on reminding you of that. It involves references to a number of real people. And then Diderot, who doesn’t like novels as they have a number of convenient coincidences, keeps on interrupting the story to tell you how a novelist would have written it. There is a lot of meta-humor in there. And there are constant interruptions (from writer, reader - people like you, characters, fate etc.) and some unfinished stories – giving it a whole ‘If on a winter night’ feel. There is another similarity – the reader with his or her constant questions and demands that interrupt the story and annoy the author, seems to have some sort of personality of his own.
Okay finished, to get on with the story, where were we?
"He had gone to complain about his drink."
Yes I remember. And our lady is waiting in desperation, she no longer wants to leave without knowing about him. She is one of those curious souls who must hear end of everything ... like you.
You mutter under your breath 'now he is being sarcastic again'
Did you say something?
"Just that you are such a great story teller."
*flattered* Oh me thanks. So as I was saying she is waiting and finally he comes back and still angry tells her how these waiters are no good. From his very long lament, our lady learns that he is manager of casino... see not a devil, though if it was a novel..
"Ya, ya, then it could easily have been devil. Go on."
... and before long she guesses that he manipulated the game to make her win so that he could impress her and get her into bed. And she has lost her curiosity, she is no longer interested. She is about to leave... oh ! Wait I just remembered I must add something to review.
You just stare at me with furious eyes.
The central story itself is not much – it starts in middle and ends in middle. The book begins when Jacques and his Master are on a journey from some unrevealed starting point to some unrevealed destination. In the end, they still haven’t reached the destination – kind of like ‘Waiting for Godot’ except that instead of waiting they are walking. And like Aesop from one of Jacques' anecdotes and also like most of us living our life, they end up somewhere other than they planned.
With my references to ‘If on a Winter’s Night’ and ‘Waiting for Godot’, you can imagine how far ahead of its times the book was. It is also the funniest book I have read this year.
*furiously*"Are you done with your stupid review?"
Yes.
"Then finish the story"
The one about girl with chocolaty, curly hair?
*patiently* "No one about ugly charming manager"
Okay, so my friend was about to leave when this manager tells her something due to which they are still together to date and she is still head over heals in love with him. (*Mutters under his breath* 'and now I will have revenge for not being permitted to finish the chocolaty curly hair girl story.. oh! That girl')
"What did tou say?"
"Nothing."
*still suspicious* "Go on."
.... what he tells her is that how after his graduation, he ... but wait, I just remembered that she had told me this story in confidence, I can't give away her secret plus *quietly stands up and step backwards, towards the door* it might affect their marriage. You don't want that, do you? So I will have to take a leave. Bye.
*escapes*
March 14, 2020
Jacques the Fatalist is complex and witty, and contains some fairly interesting ideas about free will and determinism. I enjoyed Jacques' experimentalism and humour, though these are far less impressive given the novel's similarities and proximity to Tristram Shandy.
October 9, 2014
تعرض مؤلف هذه الرواية، وهو أحد فلاسفة التنوير في فرنسا في القرن الثامن عشر، للسجن والتعذيب في "فانسين" (أبشع معتقل فرنسي آنذاك). ولولا تدخل بعض الشخصيات الهامة لربما قضى نحبه في السجن. وكل ذلك بسبب بعض الكتابات النقدية التي نشرها والتي أعلن فيها عدم إيمانه بالأصولية المسيحية. بل وعبر فيها عن أفكاره العقلانية الجريئة التي تنقض العقائد الخرافية والمعجزات الواردة في كتب المسيحيين التقليديين.
وبعد تجربة السجن هذه أصبح ديدرو أكثر حذرا، ولم يعد يعبر عن أفكاره بنفس الصراحة والوضوح. وإنما أصبح يستخدم الأسلوب الملغز المبطن والرموز والمسرح والقصة في كتاباته. وكثيرا ما كان يضع هذا الكلام المقنّع على ألسنة الآخرين لكيلا يتحمل مسؤوليته، كما فعل في هذه الرواية التي تتناول موضوع الإيمان بالقدر!
تبدأ الرواية بحديث فلسفي عن القدر بين جاك ومعلمه وهما يرتحلان لوجهة يتركها الراوي غامضة (خلال الحديث يعلن جاك عن إيمانه المطلق بأن كل شيء يحدث لنا -سواء كان خيرًا أم شرًا- مدون سلفًا في لفافة كبيرة في السماء)
ولتبديد ملل الرحلة، يضطر جاك -بطلبٍ من معلمه- أن يروي قصة غرامياته. لكن قصة جاك غالبًا ما كانت تقاطع من قبل شخصيات أخرى وحوادث عديدة. يروي الشخوص الآخرون الذين يظهرون في الرواية بشكلٍ عشوائي قصصهم، لكنهم أيضاً يُقاطعون باستمرار.
ثمة شخص يقاطع جاك والمعلم وجميع شخصيات الروايات بطريقة مستفزة، وكلما يستطرد جاك في حكاياته يقوم هذا الشخص بالتدخل بتغيير مسار الرواية ليمنع جاك من إتمام حكاياته!
هذا الشخص ليس سوى ديدرو، وما يقوم بفعله في هذه الرواية يشبه تمامًا ما يفعله "القدر"، إنه يتحكم بمصائر أبطال روايته ويحركهم/يحركها كيف يشاء، وما عليك أيها القارئ -المؤمن بالقدر- سوى أن تسلم بأن كل شيء يحدث في الرواية خاضع لمزاج الراوي، تماما كما يخضع كل شيء في هذه الحياة للقدر!
وبعد تجربة السجن هذه أصبح ديدرو أكثر حذرا، ولم يعد يعبر عن أفكاره بنفس الصراحة والوضوح. وإنما أصبح يستخدم الأسلوب الملغز المبطن والرموز والمسرح والقصة في كتاباته. وكثيرا ما كان يضع هذا الكلام المقنّع على ألسنة الآخرين لكيلا يتحمل مسؤوليته، كما فعل في هذه الرواية التي تتناول موضوع الإيمان بالقدر!
تبدأ الرواية بحديث فلسفي عن القدر بين جاك ومعلمه وهما يرتحلان لوجهة يتركها الراوي غامضة (خلال الحديث يعلن جاك عن إيمانه المطلق بأن كل شيء يحدث لنا -سواء كان خيرًا أم شرًا- مدون سلفًا في لفافة كبيرة في السماء)
ولتبديد ملل الرحلة، يضطر جاك -بطلبٍ من معلمه- أن يروي قصة غرامياته. لكن قصة جاك غالبًا ما كانت تقاطع من قبل شخصيات أخرى وحوادث عديدة. يروي الشخوص الآخرون الذين يظهرون في الرواية بشكلٍ عشوائي قصصهم، لكنهم أيضاً يُقاطعون باستمرار.
ثمة شخص يقاطع جاك والمعلم وجميع شخصيات الروايات بطريقة مستفزة، وكلما يستطرد جاك في حكاياته يقوم هذا الشخص بالتدخل بتغيير مسار الرواية ليمنع جاك من إتمام حكاياته!
هذا الشخص ليس سوى ديدرو، وما يقوم بفعله في هذه الرواية يشبه تمامًا ما يفعله "القدر"، إنه يتحكم بمصائر أبطال روايته ويحركهم/يحركها كيف يشاء، وما عليك أيها القارئ -المؤمن بالقدر- سوى أن تسلم بأن كل شيء يحدث في الرواية خاضع لمزاج الراوي، تماما كما يخضع كل شيء في هذه الحياة للقدر!
December 29, 2020
MASTER: Where were you all last night?
HATTER: I don’t have to tell you that.
MASTER: Well, I was concerned. Anything could happen to a little cat out all night in the cold.
HATTER: (Eyeroll.) Pardon me, master, but what I do in my time off is my own concern. I was quite all right, thank you very much.
MASTER: Well, pardon me for being concerned. Anyway, I wanted to ask what you thought about this book.
HATTER: Not that much, to be frank.
MASTER: What? It’s a classic.
HATTER: Oh sure but everything old is a classic these days. I bet you’re a classic by now.
MASTER: Well anyway, we have to write a review of it, so come on, what should we say?
HATTER: Look I was meaning to mention this. How come OUR reviews always go under YOUR name?
MASTER: Er, well, it’s easier.
HATTER: Easier for you to take all the credit you mean?
MASTER: No, no… just easier…administratively…
HATTER: Well I should open my own Goodreads account. One of these days I will, if I could be bothered. One of these days.
MASTER: Well, anyhow, I was thinking that we should say something like “the metafictional games of this eighteenth century French box of tricks can’t fail to charm the 21st reader expecting---”
HATTER: Blah blah blah. That’s all very true except that it’s not true.
MASTER:?
HATTER: The problem was the same in the 18th century and it is in the 21st century, my dear “master”. When you boot out any shred of plot and you import endless non-stories and digressions in its place, and you cast the whole novel as a long rambling conversation between Jacques and his “master”, you get what you paid for.
MASTER: We can’t say that, it’s a beloved classic.
HATTER: But it’s (whispers) rather dull. Also (purring sinisterly) it’s more than a trifle Shandyesque. I mean, Tristram Shandy is the big one, right?
MASTER: I don’t know…. It’s all very well being bold and iconoclastic, but….
HATTER: Do you not think my tail is long and magnificent? And my whiskers splendid?
MASTER: Well… now that you mention it….
HATTER: Well why don’t you write a novel about me then? Forget all that reviewing. Come on, let’s do Instagram.
MASTER: Instagram? What’s that?
HATTER: You’re kidding, right?
HATTER: I don’t have to tell you that.
MASTER: Well, I was concerned. Anything could happen to a little cat out all night in the cold.
HATTER: (Eyeroll.) Pardon me, master, but what I do in my time off is my own concern. I was quite all right, thank you very much.
MASTER: Well, pardon me for being concerned. Anyway, I wanted to ask what you thought about this book.
HATTER: Not that much, to be frank.
MASTER: What? It’s a classic.
HATTER: Oh sure but everything old is a classic these days. I bet you’re a classic by now.
MASTER: Well anyway, we have to write a review of it, so come on, what should we say?
HATTER: Look I was meaning to mention this. How come OUR reviews always go under YOUR name?
MASTER: Er, well, it’s easier.
HATTER: Easier for you to take all the credit you mean?
MASTER: No, no… just easier…administratively…
HATTER: Well I should open my own Goodreads account. One of these days I will, if I could be bothered. One of these days.
MASTER: Well, anyhow, I was thinking that we should say something like “the metafictional games of this eighteenth century French box of tricks can’t fail to charm the 21st reader expecting---”
HATTER: Blah blah blah. That’s all very true except that it’s not true.
MASTER:?
HATTER: The problem was the same in the 18th century and it is in the 21st century, my dear “master”. When you boot out any shred of plot and you import endless non-stories and digressions in its place, and you cast the whole novel as a long rambling conversation between Jacques and his “master”, you get what you paid for.
MASTER: We can’t say that, it’s a beloved classic.
HATTER: But it’s (whispers) rather dull. Also (purring sinisterly) it’s more than a trifle Shandyesque. I mean, Tristram Shandy is the big one, right?
MASTER: I don’t know…. It’s all very well being bold and iconoclastic, but….
HATTER: Do you not think my tail is long and magnificent? And my whiskers splendid?
MASTER: Well… now that you mention it….
HATTER: Well why don’t you write a novel about me then? Forget all that reviewing. Come on, let’s do Instagram.
MASTER: Instagram? What’s that?
HATTER: You’re kidding, right?
June 17, 2022
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 Candide-- written shortly before this one --was quite funny in parts. 150 years earlier, Don Quixote contained moments of comedic brilliance. The humour in Jacques the Fatalist, 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.
Even now, humour is completely subjective, but humour from several centuries ago is always hit and miss. I thought Voltaire's Candide-- written shortly before this one --was quite funny in parts. 150 years earlier, Don Quixote contained moments of comedic brilliance. The humour in Jacques the Fatalist, 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.
September 28, 2024
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 Tristam Shandy, 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.
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 Tristam Shandy, 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.
August 13, 2021
به قول ژاک آن بالا نوشته شده که من این کتاب را بعد از سالها از کتابخانه در آوردم و بخوانم و این متن را برایش بنویسم.
دُنی دیدِرو نویسنده و فیلسوف قرن هجدهم با نوشتن این کتاب سنتشکنی کرد و همان اول عنوان کتاب اسم ژاک را قبل ارباب نوشت و حتی اسم ارباب را هم تا آخر کتاب به ما نگفت، دیدِرو با نگارش این کتاب تمام ساختارهای اولیه و کلاسیک رمان را زیر پا گذاشت و این اثر یک ضد رمان است.
راوی داستان که خواننده را متوقف میکند و میگوید داستان اگر اینطور هم تعریف کنم میشود و این منم که تعیین میکنم داستان به چه سمتی برود، گاهی خواننده هم وارد بحث میشود از راوی سوال میپرسد، راوی وقت خواب کاراکترها منتظر میماند تا از خواب بیدار شوند و ادامه داستان را بدهد.
گاهی دو روایت دارد مثلا میگوید «نمیدانم ژاک همانجا روی صندلیها خوابش برد یا آخرش تختش را پیدا کرد» خواننده عزیز خودتان انتخاب کنید دوست دارید ژاک کجا بخوابد.
عقاید و داستانهای ژاک هم که از جذابیتهای خاص کتاب بود که پیاپی با داستانهای شخصیتهای دیگر کتاب قطع میشد که باعث شده کتاب پر از داستانهای کوتاه و بلند که هر کدومش جذابیت خودش رو داره.
این کتاب همونطور که توی معرفی و نقدها اومده از دنکیشوت سروانتس و کتاب تیرسترام شَندی لارس استرن تاثیر گرفته اگر هرکدوم از اینها رو خوندین و دوست داشتین این کتاب رو هم دوست خواهید داشت، خودم فقط دنکیشوت رو خوندم و هردو رو دوست داشتم.
دُنی دیدِرو نویسنده و فیلسوف قرن هجدهم با نوشتن این کتاب سنتشکنی کرد و همان اول عنوان کتاب اسم ژاک را قبل ارباب نوشت و حتی اسم ارباب را هم تا آخر کتاب به ما نگفت، دیدِرو با نگارش این کتاب تمام ساختارهای اولیه و کلاسیک رمان را زیر پا گذاشت و این اثر یک ضد رمان است.
راوی داستان که خواننده را متوقف میکند و میگوید داستان اگر اینطور هم تعریف کنم میشود و این منم که تعیین میکنم داستان به چه سمتی برود، گاهی خواننده هم وارد بحث میشود از راوی سوال میپرسد، راوی وقت خواب کاراکترها منتظر میماند تا از خواب بیدار شوند و ادامه داستان را بدهد.
گاهی دو روایت دارد مثلا میگوید «نمیدانم ژاک همانجا روی صندلیها خوابش برد یا آخرش تختش را پیدا کرد» خواننده عزیز خودتان انتخاب کنید دوست دارید ژاک کجا بخوابد.
عقاید و داستانهای ژاک هم که از جذابیتهای خاص کتاب بود که پیاپی با داستانهای شخصیتهای دیگر کتاب قطع میشد که باعث شده کتاب پر از داستانهای کوتاه و بلند که هر کدومش جذابیت خودش رو داره.
این کتاب همونطور که توی معرفی و نقدها اومده از دنکیشوت سروانتس و کتاب تیرسترام شَندی لارس استرن تاثیر گرفته اگر هرکدوم از اینها رو خوندین و دوست داشتین این کتاب رو هم دوست خواهید داشت، خودم فقط دنکیشوت رو خوندم و هردو رو دوست داشتم.
January 13, 2011
بهتره درباره نویسنده چیزی نخونید و بعد از تموم کردم کتاب مشخصات نویسنده رو ببینید. اون وقت هست که حسابی متعجب میشید وقتی میفهمید این کتاب رو یه نویسنده قرن هجدهمی نوشته.
اگر اهل خوندن کتابهای ایتالو کالوینو بوده باشید احتمالاً نوع نوشتار و زبان راویان کتاب شما رو یاد کتابهای این نویسنده میندازه. نوع نوشتار "اگر شبی از شبهای زمستان مسافری" رو به یادتون میاره و طنز موجود در کلام شخصیتها و راوی "سه گانه نیاکان ما". اون وقت ممکنه توقع داشته باشید که این نویسنده هم ایتالیایی بوده باشه. ولی وقتی میبینید نویسنده فرانسوی هست و تو قرن 18 میلادی هم این رمان رو نوشته باز تعجب میکنید.
حتی ممکنه اسم مترجم هم براتون آشنا باشه. اما باز توصیه میکنم چیزی دربارش نخونید و بگذارید که بعداً بفهمید که این خانم همون کسی هست که کوری رو هم ترجمه کرده.
البته تعجبها و تحسینهایی که این کتاب در وجود شما ایجاد میکنه به همین جا ختم نمیشه. داستان در ظاهر قرار هست داستانی باشه درباره عشق و عاشقیهای ژاک که برای اربابش تعریف میکنه. اما نویسنده با چنان مهارتی داستانهای با ربط و بی ربط دیگه رو توی متن قرار میده و چنان دیالوگهایی بین کاراکترها میذاره که یه جاهایی حس میکنید باید برای احترام گذاشتن به این نویسنده و این پردازش قوی ذهنش چند لحظهای کتابش رو ببندید و بایستید و بهش احترام بگذارید. هر چند خیلی جاها هم اینقدر مشتاق شنیدن داستانی که بعد از بارها وقفه دوباره از سر گرفته شده هستید که اگر ببینید باز هم حیلهای سر راهتون قرار داده شده برای تعریف نکردن اون داستان اصلی و گفتن داستانی فرعی، توانایی اینو دارید که فحش رو بکشید به نویسنده و برای همیشه قید تموم کردن این کتاب رو بزنید! البته مطمئن باشید این حالت شما بیشتر از چند ساعت ادامه پیدا نمیکنه و وسوسه میشید و باز کتاب رو برمیدارید و ادامه میدید.
ژاک و اربابش تازه با هم آشنا شدن و آغاز به سفر کردن. ارباب آدمی هست که دوست داره داستان بشنوه و ژاک هم مثلاً نوکری که دوست داره حرف بزنه. چه چیزی بهتر از این؟ ژاک نظرش درباره اتفاقات زندگی رو که از فرماندهش یاد گرفته رو بیان میکنه و میگه که هر اتفاقی که توی مسیر زندگی براش میفته اون بالا توی طومار بزرگ نوشته شده و قابل تغییر نیست. برای همین نه از چیزی شاد میشه و نه از چیزی ناراحت. اما داستان به این سادگی پیش نمیره که ژاک و اربابش همش در حال اسب سواری و طی مسیر باشند و ژاک هم بتونه راحت داستانش رو برای اربابش تعریف کنه. باید با ژاک طناز و فیلسوف و اربابش همراه بشید تا بفهمید چه اتفاقاتی سر راهشونه.
ژاک قضا و قدری و اربابش رو باید خوند و تحسین کرد هوش سرشار نویسنده و حتی کاراکتراش رو. باید دیالوگ سازی و داستان پردازی رو ازش یاد گرفت. باید حرف زدن و بازی با خواننده رو ازش یاد گرفت.
ژاک قضا و قدری و اربابش ممکنه داستان خاصی نداشته باشه، ولی مطمئناً فراموش نمیشه. و حتی شاید شما هم مثل من به نوشتهی "رمانهای کلاسیک خارجی" که روی جلد کتاب نوشته شده بخندید. ژاک برای کسانی که آثار جدید رو خونده باشن اصلاً کلاسیک به حساب نمیاد.
اما من. این کتاب رو شاید یک سال و نیم پیش یکی از دوستای دانشگاه بهم معرفی کرد. خیلی وقته تو لیست خرید کتابم هست و هی فراموش شده. تا اینکه یه شب که یهویی عشقم گرفت و رفتم خونه خواهرم موندم، و خوابم نبرد و تا 1 و نیم تو جام غلت میزدم، موبایلم رو برداشتم و با نور صفحهش رفتم سراغ کتابخونه خواهرم تا ببینم به چه چیز هیجان انگیزی برمیخورم. و خب گفتن نداره که اولین تیتری که خوندم ژاک قضا و قدری بود و باعث شد دیگه چراغ رو روشن کنم و تا ساعت 3 که خوابم بگیره 100 صفحهشو یه نفس بخونم! و با اینکه چیزی به نام آخرین امتحان دوره کارشناسی جلوی راهم بود کلاً کتاب اون رو ببندم و به دو ساعت قبل از امتحانش بسنده کنم، ولی در عوض لذت خوندن یه کار خوب رو از دست ندم. به قول خود ژاک حتماً اون بالا توی طومارم نوشته بودن که باید این اتفاق برای من بیفته.
:)
پنج شنبه. 23.دی.89
اگر اهل خوندن کتابهای ایتالو کالوینو بوده باشید احتمالاً نوع نوشتار و زبان راویان کتاب شما رو یاد کتابهای این نویسنده میندازه. نوع نوشتار "اگر شبی از شبهای زمستان مسافری" رو به یادتون میاره و طنز موجود در کلام شخصیتها و راوی "سه گانه نیاکان ما". اون وقت ممکنه توقع داشته باشید که این نویسنده هم ایتالیایی بوده باشه. ولی وقتی میبینید نویسنده فرانسوی هست و تو قرن 18 میلادی هم این رمان رو نوشته باز تعجب میکنید.
حتی ممکنه اسم مترجم هم براتون آشنا باشه. اما باز توصیه میکنم چیزی دربارش نخونید و بگذارید که بعداً بفهمید که این خانم همون کسی هست که کوری رو هم ترجمه کرده.
البته تعجبها و تحسینهایی که این کتاب در وجود شما ایجاد میکنه به همین جا ختم نمیشه. داستان در ظاهر قرار هست داستانی باشه درباره عشق و عاشقیهای ژاک که برای اربابش تعریف میکنه. اما نویسنده با چنان مهارتی داستانهای با ربط و بی ربط دیگه رو توی متن قرار میده و چنان دیالوگهایی بین کاراکترها میذاره که یه جاهایی حس میکنید باید برای احترام گذاشتن به این نویسنده و این پردازش قوی ذهنش چند لحظهای کتابش رو ببندید و بایستید و بهش احترام بگذارید. هر چند خیلی جاها هم اینقدر مشتاق شنیدن داستانی که بعد از بارها وقفه دوباره از سر گرفته شده هستید که اگر ببینید باز هم حیلهای سر راهتون قرار داده شده برای تعریف نکردن اون داستان اصلی و گفتن داستانی فرعی، توانایی اینو دارید که فحش رو بکشید به نویسنده و برای همیشه قید تموم کردن این کتاب رو بزنید! البته مطمئن باشید این حالت شما بیشتر از چند ساعت ادامه پیدا نمیکنه و وسوسه میشید و باز کتاب رو برمیدارید و ادامه میدید.
ژاک و اربابش تازه با هم آشنا شدن و آغاز به سفر کردن. ارباب آدمی هست که دوست داره داستان بشنوه و ژاک هم مثلاً نوکری که دوست داره حرف بزنه. چه چیزی بهتر از این؟ ژاک نظرش درباره اتفاقات زندگی رو که از فرماندهش یاد گرفته رو بیان میکنه و میگه که هر اتفاقی که توی مسیر زندگی براش میفته اون بالا توی طومار بزرگ نوشته شده و قابل تغییر نیست. برای همین نه از چیزی شاد میشه و نه از چیزی ناراحت. اما داستان به این سادگی پیش نمیره که ژاک و اربابش همش در حال اسب سواری و طی مسیر باشند و ژاک هم بتونه راحت داستانش رو برای اربابش تعریف کنه. باید با ژاک طناز و فیلسوف و اربابش همراه بشید تا بفهمید چه اتفاقاتی سر راهشونه.
ژاک قضا و قدری و اربابش رو باید خوند و تحسین کرد هوش سرشار نویسنده و حتی کاراکتراش رو. باید دیالوگ سازی و داستان پردازی رو ازش یاد گرفت. باید حرف زدن و بازی با خواننده رو ازش یاد گرفت.
ژاک قضا و قدری و اربابش ممکنه داستان خاصی نداشته باشه، ولی مطمئناً فراموش نمیشه. و حتی شاید شما هم مثل من به نوشتهی "رمانهای کلاسیک خارجی" که روی جلد کتاب نوشته شده بخندید. ژاک برای کسانی که آثار جدید رو خونده باشن اصلاً کلاسیک به حساب نمیاد.
اما من. این کتاب رو شاید یک سال و نیم پیش یکی از دوستای دانشگاه بهم معرفی کرد. خیلی وقته تو لیست خرید کتابم هست و هی فراموش شده. تا اینکه یه شب که یهویی عشقم گرفت و رفتم خونه خواهرم موندم، و خوابم نبرد و تا 1 و نیم تو جام غلت میزدم، موبایلم رو برداشتم و با نور صفحهش رفتم سراغ کتابخونه خواهرم تا ببینم به چه چیز هیجان انگیزی برمیخورم. و خب گفتن نداره که اولین تیتری که خوندم ژاک قضا و قدری بود و باعث شد دیگه چراغ رو روشن کنم و تا ساعت 3 که خوابم بگیره 100 صفحهشو یه نفس بخونم! و با اینکه چیزی به نام آخرین امتحان دوره کارشناسی جلوی راهم بود کلاً کتاب اون رو ببندم و به دو ساعت قبل از امتحانش بسنده کنم، ولی در عوض لذت خوندن یه کار خوب رو از دست ندم. به قول خود ژاک حتماً اون بالا توی طومارم نوشته بودن که باید این اتفاق برای من بیفته.
:)
پنج شنبه. 23.دی.89
Read
August 5, 2016It’s not that I know anything much about it first hand either as practitioner or as one who consumes the stuff so my diagnosis and treatment regimen are entirely oblique. But you know it is not so uncommon to hear the compliant about MFA=prose. Like I said, I don’t really know what that means because I a) don’t have an MFA b) probably don’t read people with MFA’s c) read lots(some?) of folks who teach MFA’s d) but don’t find anything particularly MFA-ish about them ; most oddly it’s a complaint I heard once about Ms Young’s giant novel being MFA-ish which is totally weird except for the fact that she used to teach MFA’s in a Quonset hut over in Iowa City right about the time this whole thing blew up. And can you say that a Coover or a Barth (both made their dough from the eager young student=writer) are in any way MFA-ish? And ...... well, how about j) I don’t think it’s the prose that’s the problem ----- it’s the stuff that’s the matter. Not MFA=prose but MFA=Aboutness. And MFA=Form.
Okay, so much for an obliquely and uniquely uninformed diagnosis. The treatment regimen is basically the same as it has always been ; and this won’t work for everyone but everyone should take a look at it. So, first time as tragedy second as farce == and what I mean here as first is that Barth has already done it (redid what had already been done) and I’d suggest that if there be a cure for MFA=myopia it will be to repeat farcically what Barth has already repeated in the (farcically) tragic mode. I mean basically just a) skip the MFA and just read read read (read) and b) skip the twentieth and nineteenth centuries altogether -- they’ve been beaten to death (with the obvious exception of the Barth=model we are following here and Finnegans Wake which always goes without saying). Just skip all that crap. What I’m saying is, reawaken your story nerve and just fuck this stuff about prose gods! aren’t you tired of hearing about prose yet? Here are a few things to try ::
Jacques the Fatalist
The Arcades Project (really a bit anachronistic, but just look at that Form!)
The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Father’s The Histories
Aesop's Fables
Burton's 1001 Nights
The History of the Peloponnesian War (among other such and similar)
Plato
The Pancatantra
The Faerie Queene
Livy and all that Roman stuff.
Gibbon's great Decline & Fall (goes without saying)
Darwin if you're into that kind of thing.
Homer=Virgil and related such epics from the Not=Greeks like those Sagas from Iceland and those other Scandinavian books.
Hegel's Phenomenology is the standard Bildungsroman, so you'll want to avoid that one. Try Schelling's Ages of the World instead.
Ovid.
Those six Chinese classics.
The Indian books Barth likes ; you know which (ie, anything with "River" or "Ocean" or both in its title).
The Lais of Marie de France
Miss MacIntosh, My Darling.
Screw Proust.
Any Arthurian thing that is notMonty=Python.
Chaucer (the FAT 2005 Penguin edit’d by Jill Mann) and Boccaccio and such=not.
Rabelais, naturally and the rest of the ever=increasing trinity.
Stuff like Diderot and why not the whole L'Encyclopédie Diderot et d'Alembert.
And then a really really BIG etc..........
You get the picture. Basically what I’m saying is don’t do a DFW and try to “overcome” postmodern fiction ; be rather like WTV and begin with the assumption of being already free of the PoMo dilemma ;; repeat the Barthian gesture in the name of not becoming trapped in the Barthian morass.
Or, if you want your prose to be totally knot=MFA, just do the thing Vonnegut did and go to school to learn about something about which you can mold the aboutness of your writing and totally screw the idea of learning HOW to write. You know the Best Stuff, The Canon, The Classics, were always written without the shackle of Doing It The Write Way. And for all I know, don’t read The New Yorker.
But=what does any of this have to do with Diderot? I don’t know. But there’s that thing about how Diderot hates novels. And novelists might be a little better off with a bit more of the despising of the thing they are creating. Maybe that’s it.
Okay, so much for an obliquely and uniquely uninformed diagnosis. The treatment regimen is basically the same as it has always been ; and this won’t work for everyone but everyone should take a look at it. So, first time as tragedy second as farce == and what I mean here as first is that Barth has already done it (redid what had already been done) and I’d suggest that if there be a cure for MFA=myopia it will be to repeat farcically what Barth has already repeated in the (farcically) tragic mode. I mean basically just a) skip the MFA and just read read read (read) and b) skip the twentieth and nineteenth centuries altogether -- they’ve been beaten to death (with the obvious exception of the Barth=model we are following here and Finnegans Wake which always goes without saying). Just skip all that crap. What I’m saying is, reawaken your story nerve and just fuck this stuff about prose gods! aren’t you tired of hearing about prose yet? Here are a few things to try ::
Jacques the Fatalist
The Arcades Project (really a bit anachronistic, but just look at that Form!)
The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Father’s The Histories
Aesop's Fables
Burton's 1001 Nights
The History of the Peloponnesian War (among other such and similar)
Plato
The Pancatantra
The Faerie Queene
Livy and all that Roman stuff.
Gibbon's great Decline & Fall (goes without saying)
Darwin if you're into that kind of thing.
Homer=Virgil and related such epics from the Not=Greeks like those Sagas from Iceland and those other Scandinavian books.
Hegel's Phenomenology is the standard Bildungsroman, so you'll want to avoid that one. Try Schelling's Ages of the World instead.
Ovid.
Those six Chinese classics.
The Indian books Barth likes ; you know which (ie, anything with "River" or "Ocean" or both in its title).
The Lais of Marie de France
Miss MacIntosh, My Darling.
Screw Proust.
Any Arthurian thing that is not
Chaucer (the FAT 2005 Penguin edit’d by Jill Mann) and Boccaccio and such=not.
Rabelais, naturally and the rest of the ever=increasing trinity.
Stuff like Diderot and why not the whole L'Encyclopédie Diderot et d'Alembert.
And then a really really BIG etc..........
You get the picture. Basically what I’m saying is don’t do a DFW and try to “overcome” postmodern fiction ; be rather like WTV and begin with the assumption of being already free of the PoMo dilemma ;; repeat the Barthian gesture in the name of not becoming trapped in the Barthian morass.
Or, if you want your prose to be totally knot=MFA, just do the thing Vonnegut did and go to school to learn about something about which you can mold the aboutness of your writing and totally screw the idea of learning HOW to write. You know the Best Stuff, The Canon, The Classics, were always written without the shackle of Doing It The Write Way. And for all I know, don’t read The New Yorker.
But=what does any of this have to do with Diderot? I don’t know. But there’s that thing about how Diderot hates novels. And novelists might be a little better off with a bit more of the despising of the thing they are creating. Maybe that’s it.
September 5, 2024
‘I belong to nobody and I belong to everybody. You were here before you entered and you will still be here after you have left.’
Come into my castle, says Denis Diderot, and I will tell you stories about freedom and predestination not from the mouths of philosophers but from a scruffy, boozy and ornery Scheherazade named Jacques. He’s a lowly servant/valet [or is he really the master of his life?] who is asked repeatedly by his Master to tell the tale of his loves, to pass away the time the duo spends travelling from one place to another.
Expect a lot of interruptions and nestled tales within tales, all of it seasoned copiously with editorial interventions and direct addresses to the Reader that demonstrate that postmodernism and metafiction are anything but new and modern.
How did they meet? By chance like everyone else. What were their names? What’s that got to do with you? Where were they coming from? From the nearest place. Where were they going to? Does anyone ever really know where they are going to? What were they saying? The master wasn’t saying anything and Jacques was saying that his Captain used to say that everything which happens to us on this earth, both good and bad, is written up above.
The Master is curious and sceptical, while Jacques is a fatalist who believes that everything in life is already written in some sort of holy book hidden up in the clouds. The whole novel is actually an extended dialogue between the two travellers, with some guest appearances of other narrators. The axiom about predestination is given to you Reader on the very first page of the novel, but I will urge you to beware of the playful and subversive nature of the arguments that reveal the true purpose of the story: to make you think for yourself, and to always question the validity of any given theory or philosophy.
Jacques: It seems to me that you are trying your best to make me lose my way. With all your questions we’ll have gone round the world before we’ve finished the story of my loves.
Master: What does it matter so long as you are speaking and I am listening to you? Aren’t those the two important things? You are scolding me when you should thank me.
- He was a man.
A passionate man like you, Reader. A curious man like you, Reader. A questioning man like you, Reader. A nuisance like you, Reader.
- And why did he ask questions?
What a question! He asked questions so that he could learn and quibble like you, Reader.
This is a timely moment for me to give you a reminder for both the present and the future that you must be circumspect if you want to avoid taking the truth for lies and lies for the truth in Jacques’ conversation with his master. Now that I have warned you, I wash my hands of the matter.
I don’t think I have laughed so hard at any other philosophy tome, and I wish I had tried this Diderot fellow much earlier in my reading journey. It was a throwaway remark by Milan Kundera in his collection of essays The Art of the Novel that finally made me take the plunge.
There are a lot of valid critical reactions that can be levelled at the text, mainly that it is a ripoff of Lawrence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy with extensive borrowings from Moliere, Rabelais, Voltaire, Choderlos de Laclos and probably many others. Copyright was less of an issue in Diderot’s time apparently and, in his defence, the author does acknowledge all of these sources directly in the text. They are simply the starting point, the catalyst, of the dialogue.
The source material is actually less important than the debate it is supposed to start about how he approach life: timidly, scared of an angry God and/or of the Church condemnation or embracing the diversity and the beauty of the unknown. For me, Jacques is not so much a fatalist as a pragmatist who wants to enjoy his Wein, Weib und Gesang in freedom from the moralists and dogmatists.
Jacques: If ... if the sea was boiling, there would be, as the saying goes, an awful lot of fish cooked. [...] Everyone in this house is afraid of everyone else, which proves we are all idiots ...
Firstly, nature is so varied, especially when it comes to instinct and character, that there is nothing in a poet’s imagination, however bizarre, for which experience and observation might not find a model in nature.
Like the great comic works that it avows as its inspiration – Rabelais’ novels, Moliere’s comedies, Sterne’s Tristram Shandy – Jacques is above all a celebratory work. It proclaims its delight in diversity and difference, and a fascination with the quirkiness and bizarreness of human life. [the last quote is from the introduction written by Martin Hall, and I think the novel fully validates his point of view]
There is, beside the actual bawdy stories and comic travel interludes that somehow manage to be told between so many commentaries, interruptions, editorials and breakage of the fourth wall, a sense of earnest and serious search for answers about life, religion and morality. Diderot is clearly anti-Church and reserves his most bitter observations towards the hypocrisy of clerics and the folly of dogmatic thinking. He offers as alternative this tolerant, chuckling and irreverent fascination with human nature.
Jacques: Master, in life one never knows what to rejoice about or what to feel sorry about. Good brings bad after it and bad brings good. We travel in darkness underneath whatever it is written up above, all of us equally unreasonable in our hopes, our joys, and our afflictions. When I cry I often think that I’m a fool.
Master: And what about when you laugh?
Jacques: I still think that I’m a fool. However, I can’t stop myself from crying and laughing. And that’s what makes me angry.
The passage tells us about Jacques efforts to be stoical and resigned about the impossibility of knowing what is written in the great book in the sky about his life, but it is actually a confession that he cannot make himself not to give a damn about anything. . He has to take the bad along with the good, and be thankful for simply being alive and able to enjoy the journey.
Let’s take a pinch of snuff, see what time it is and carry on.
If it is written up above that you will be cuckolded, no matter what you do you will be. If, however, it is written up above that you will not be cuckolded, no matter what they do you won’t be. So sleep, my friend.
I guess we can really label this philosophy as ‘fatalism’, in the end.
>>><<<>>><<<
This is a gross oversimplification of the themes under discussion from me, but the novel is too rich and layered and open to interpretation for any reviewer to claim to ‘get it’. I wish I could delve deeper into the actual love stories and misadventures on the road of this duo that has been compared to Don Quijote and Sancho Panza, mostly by other reviewers trying to seem hip and clever [as for me, they are completely different personalities, although the actual themes of debate might be similar to Cervantes].
Personally, the main draw was in the tongue-in-cheek editorial interventions of Diderot, similar to Sterne it is true, but more clearly expressed and less long-winded.
How can a man of wisdom and morality, who fancies himself as something of a philosopher, amuse himself telling tales as obscene as this?
A rhetorical question, but not a gratuitous one, seeing as the novel has a long history of being banned by the authorities it so gleefully lampoons, moralists and churchmen alike. Diderot has a longer answer, one that includes a charming paean to drinking and making merry [ ‘Anacreon and Rabelais, the former among the ancients, the latter among the moderns, sovereign pontiffs of the gourd’. ] and is even more trenchant about what we term obscenity in art:
Filthy hypocrites. Leave me in peace.
The longest passage that I hoped to include here explains why the philosopher has chosen to express his ideas in this popular format instead of addressing it to academic circles. Public expectations and the need of the artist to eat play a role:
And what is this, Reader? One love story after another! That makes one, two, three, four love stories I’ve told you and three or four more to come. That is a lot of love stories. It is also a fact that since I am writing for you I must either go without your applause or follow your taste, and you have shown a decided taste for love stories. All of your works, whether in prose or in verse, are love stories. Nearly all of your poems, elegies, eclogues, idylls, songs, epistles, comedies, tragedies, and operas are love stories. Nearly all your paintings and sculptures are no more than love stories. Love stories have been your only food ever since you existed, and you show no sign of ever growing tired of them. You have been kept on this diet and will be kept on it for a very long time to come, all of you, men, women and children, both big and small, and you will never grow tired of it.
There’s more, of course, in the same vein but wearing different clothes and different face masks. Coming back to the opening question between destiny and freewill, there is a gentle reminder that, even if there is some great book up there in the sky, it is not given to simple humans to know what is written there, and that is all right, because even that book is subject to editorial revisions
The first oath sworn by two creatures of flesh and blood was at the foot of a rock that was turning into dust. They called upon the heavens (which are never the same from one instant to the next) to witness their constancy. Although everything inside them and outside of them was changing, they believed their hearts to be immune to change. Oh children! You are still children ...
Denis Diderot is considered one of the poster boys of an age that is labelled today as le Siecle des lumieres , a generation or two that put reason above belief. This is probably what made me chose one last, emblematic, admonition from Jacques to his Master:
Do not exclaim, do not get angry, do not take sides. Let us reason.
Come into my castle, says Denis Diderot, and I will tell you stories about freedom and predestination not from the mouths of philosophers but from a scruffy, boozy and ornery Scheherazade named Jacques. He’s a lowly servant/valet [or is he really the master of his life?] who is asked repeatedly by his Master to tell the tale of his loves, to pass away the time the duo spends travelling from one place to another.
Expect a lot of interruptions and nestled tales within tales, all of it seasoned copiously with editorial interventions and direct addresses to the Reader that demonstrate that postmodernism and metafiction are anything but new and modern.
How did they meet? By chance like everyone else. What were their names? What’s that got to do with you? Where were they coming from? From the nearest place. Where were they going to? Does anyone ever really know where they are going to? What were they saying? The master wasn’t saying anything and Jacques was saying that his Captain used to say that everything which happens to us on this earth, both good and bad, is written up above.
The Master is curious and sceptical, while Jacques is a fatalist who believes that everything in life is already written in some sort of holy book hidden up in the clouds. The whole novel is actually an extended dialogue between the two travellers, with some guest appearances of other narrators. The axiom about predestination is given to you Reader on the very first page of the novel, but I will urge you to beware of the playful and subversive nature of the arguments that reveal the true purpose of the story: to make you think for yourself, and to always question the validity of any given theory or philosophy.
Jacques: It seems to me that you are trying your best to make me lose my way. With all your questions we’ll have gone round the world before we’ve finished the story of my loves.
Master: What does it matter so long as you are speaking and I am listening to you? Aren’t those the two important things? You are scolding me when you should thank me.
- He was a man.
A passionate man like you, Reader. A curious man like you, Reader. A questioning man like you, Reader. A nuisance like you, Reader.
- And why did he ask questions?
What a question! He asked questions so that he could learn and quibble like you, Reader.
This is a timely moment for me to give you a reminder for both the present and the future that you must be circumspect if you want to avoid taking the truth for lies and lies for the truth in Jacques’ conversation with his master. Now that I have warned you, I wash my hands of the matter.
I don’t think I have laughed so hard at any other philosophy tome, and I wish I had tried this Diderot fellow much earlier in my reading journey. It was a throwaway remark by Milan Kundera in his collection of essays The Art of the Novel that finally made me take the plunge.
There are a lot of valid critical reactions that can be levelled at the text, mainly that it is a ripoff of Lawrence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy with extensive borrowings from Moliere, Rabelais, Voltaire, Choderlos de Laclos and probably many others. Copyright was less of an issue in Diderot’s time apparently and, in his defence, the author does acknowledge all of these sources directly in the text. They are simply the starting point, the catalyst, of the dialogue.
The source material is actually less important than the debate it is supposed to start about how he approach life: timidly, scared of an angry God and/or of the Church condemnation or embracing the diversity and the beauty of the unknown. For me, Jacques is not so much a fatalist as a pragmatist who wants to enjoy his Wein, Weib und Gesang in freedom from the moralists and dogmatists.
Jacques: If ... if the sea was boiling, there would be, as the saying goes, an awful lot of fish cooked. [...] Everyone in this house is afraid of everyone else, which proves we are all idiots ...
Firstly, nature is so varied, especially when it comes to instinct and character, that there is nothing in a poet’s imagination, however bizarre, for which experience and observation might not find a model in nature.
Like the great comic works that it avows as its inspiration – Rabelais’ novels, Moliere’s comedies, Sterne’s Tristram Shandy – Jacques is above all a celebratory work. It proclaims its delight in diversity and difference, and a fascination with the quirkiness and bizarreness of human life. [the last quote is from the introduction written by Martin Hall, and I think the novel fully validates his point of view]
There is, beside the actual bawdy stories and comic travel interludes that somehow manage to be told between so many commentaries, interruptions, editorials and breakage of the fourth wall, a sense of earnest and serious search for answers about life, religion and morality. Diderot is clearly anti-Church and reserves his most bitter observations towards the hypocrisy of clerics and the folly of dogmatic thinking. He offers as alternative this tolerant, chuckling and irreverent fascination with human nature.
Jacques: Master, in life one never knows what to rejoice about or what to feel sorry about. Good brings bad after it and bad brings good. We travel in darkness underneath whatever it is written up above, all of us equally unreasonable in our hopes, our joys, and our afflictions. When I cry I often think that I’m a fool.
Master: And what about when you laugh?
Jacques: I still think that I’m a fool. However, I can’t stop myself from crying and laughing. And that’s what makes me angry.
The passage tells us about Jacques efforts to be stoical and resigned about the impossibility of knowing what is written in the great book in the sky about his life, but it is actually a confession that he cannot make himself not to give a damn about anything. . He has to take the bad along with the good, and be thankful for simply being alive and able to enjoy the journey.
Let’s take a pinch of snuff, see what time it is and carry on.
If it is written up above that you will be cuckolded, no matter what you do you will be. If, however, it is written up above that you will not be cuckolded, no matter what they do you won’t be. So sleep, my friend.
I guess we can really label this philosophy as ‘fatalism’, in the end.
>>><<<>>><<<
This is a gross oversimplification of the themes under discussion from me, but the novel is too rich and layered and open to interpretation for any reviewer to claim to ‘get it’. I wish I could delve deeper into the actual love stories and misadventures on the road of this duo that has been compared to Don Quijote and Sancho Panza, mostly by other reviewers trying to seem hip and clever [as for me, they are completely different personalities, although the actual themes of debate might be similar to Cervantes].
Personally, the main draw was in the tongue-in-cheek editorial interventions of Diderot, similar to Sterne it is true, but more clearly expressed and less long-winded.
How can a man of wisdom and morality, who fancies himself as something of a philosopher, amuse himself telling tales as obscene as this?
A rhetorical question, but not a gratuitous one, seeing as the novel has a long history of being banned by the authorities it so gleefully lampoons, moralists and churchmen alike. Diderot has a longer answer, one that includes a charming paean to drinking and making merry [ ‘Anacreon and Rabelais, the former among the ancients, the latter among the moderns, sovereign pontiffs of the gourd’. ] and is even more trenchant about what we term obscenity in art:
Filthy hypocrites. Leave me in peace.
The longest passage that I hoped to include here explains why the philosopher has chosen to express his ideas in this popular format instead of addressing it to academic circles. Public expectations and the need of the artist to eat play a role:
And what is this, Reader? One love story after another! That makes one, two, three, four love stories I’ve told you and three or four more to come. That is a lot of love stories. It is also a fact that since I am writing for you I must either go without your applause or follow your taste, and you have shown a decided taste for love stories. All of your works, whether in prose or in verse, are love stories. Nearly all of your poems, elegies, eclogues, idylls, songs, epistles, comedies, tragedies, and operas are love stories. Nearly all your paintings and sculptures are no more than love stories. Love stories have been your only food ever since you existed, and you show no sign of ever growing tired of them. You have been kept on this diet and will be kept on it for a very long time to come, all of you, men, women and children, both big and small, and you will never grow tired of it.
There’s more, of course, in the same vein but wearing different clothes and different face masks. Coming back to the opening question between destiny and freewill, there is a gentle reminder that, even if there is some great book up there in the sky, it is not given to simple humans to know what is written there, and that is all right, because even that book is subject to editorial revisions
The first oath sworn by two creatures of flesh and blood was at the foot of a rock that was turning into dust. They called upon the heavens (which are never the same from one instant to the next) to witness their constancy. Although everything inside them and outside of them was changing, they believed their hearts to be immune to change. Oh children! You are still children ...
Denis Diderot is considered one of the poster boys of an age that is labelled today as le Siecle des lumieres , a generation or two that put reason above belief. This is probably what made me chose one last, emblematic, admonition from Jacques to his Master:
Do not exclaim, do not get angry, do not take sides. Let us reason.
March 22, 2014
Diderot, it is a name less prestigious than Rousseau and Voltaire. We think of the Encyclopedia, some erotic novels well done (the libertins novels of XVIII ° are often boring). His tomb is not even in the Pantheon, contrary in two others.
And then there was Kundera. And Kundera worships him. So I'm obliged to interest to him. Diderot was in jail for his ideas. To escape the censorship, he split up his writings. Paradoxically, I think that Diderot remains to discover.
Thus Jacques the fatalist. Why fatalist? Literally, it is what is already said, what is already written. The fatalist it is someone who believes that all which arrives at him is written on a big book. The fate governs the world and one, has to bow before it.
We attend an opposition identical to that of Dom Juan/Don Giovanni and his servant Léporello. Master laughs at his servant. He believes in the free arbitrator. But things complicate because Diderot does not believe in the free will. He has even a certain affection for Jacques who, even if he is fatalist, reacts with ingenuity in front of events. Jacques it is the fatalism without the resignation.
This maieutics in fact is much more balanced than to da Ponte/Molière. Jacques is not ridiculous, he defends well himself. And we see the conceptions of Diderot taking shape. His obsession up to the death, it is the physiology. He is an admirer of the doctor Théophyle de Bordeu for whom the human individuality involves strengths far more complex than the simple Newton physics .
These combinations are passed on by generations in generations and grow rich thanks to capacity of the brain. " The man is modifiable " Remarkable, it makes of him a precursor of the neurosciences.. And it is of the assertion of his individuality which we can break with the egotism.
His conceptions are far from being mechanistic. Marx put him in the materialists but he made a mistake. It is Rousseau the inspirer of the revolutionaries and the Marxists.
Diderot did not believe in God, but I think that there was in him a form of spirituality. It is a kind of religion of the man that he proposes.
" Man has only a single right, that of the justice, and a single duty, that to make happy. "
Beautiful program!
And then there was Kundera. And Kundera worships him. So I'm obliged to interest to him. Diderot was in jail for his ideas. To escape the censorship, he split up his writings. Paradoxically, I think that Diderot remains to discover.
Thus Jacques the fatalist. Why fatalist? Literally, it is what is already said, what is already written. The fatalist it is someone who believes that all which arrives at him is written on a big book. The fate governs the world and one, has to bow before it.
We attend an opposition identical to that of Dom Juan/Don Giovanni and his servant Léporello. Master laughs at his servant. He believes in the free arbitrator. But things complicate because Diderot does not believe in the free will. He has even a certain affection for Jacques who, even if he is fatalist, reacts with ingenuity in front of events. Jacques it is the fatalism without the resignation.
This maieutics in fact is much more balanced than to da Ponte/Molière. Jacques is not ridiculous, he defends well himself. And we see the conceptions of Diderot taking shape. His obsession up to the death, it is the physiology. He is an admirer of the doctor Théophyle de Bordeu for whom the human individuality involves strengths far more complex than the simple Newton physics .
These combinations are passed on by generations in generations and grow rich thanks to capacity of the brain. " The man is modifiable " Remarkable, it makes of him a precursor of the neurosciences.. And it is of the assertion of his individuality which we can break with the egotism.
His conceptions are far from being mechanistic. Marx put him in the materialists but he made a mistake. It is Rousseau the inspirer of the revolutionaries and the Marxists.
Diderot did not believe in God, but I think that there was in him a form of spirituality. It is a kind of religion of the man that he proposes.
" Man has only a single right, that of the justice, and a single duty, that to make happy. "
Beautiful program!
February 22, 2024
شگفتانگیز بود. شیفتهٔ جزئینگری و طنز ظریف دیدرو شدم. شیفتهٔ بیدغدغگی و رندی بهاندازهٔ ژاک شدم. چقدر یک نویسنده باید از عصر خودش جلوتر باشد؟ چقدر یک کتاب پرکشش و جذاب باشد؟ چقدر ترجمهٔ یک اثر بهقاعده و درست باشد؟ این کتاب واقعاً خواندنی بود.
October 26, 2023
متفاوت، سرگرمکننده و بانمک
March 14, 2017
Perfection. Self-consciously Shandian-spawn, which is one of the best things a book can be, with a wit and intelligence that is still simply staggering. I have read it twice, but for some reason nothing else of his. Will have to rectify this omission asap.
October 25, 2023
ژاک قضا و قدری و اربابش کتابی ست با یک سبک متمایز در نگارش رمان (؟) با فضایی منحصر به فرد که در قرن هجده شاید یک سنتشکنی اساسی بوده است. داستان با سه شخصیت اصلی پیش میرود. ژاک، اربابش و راوی! حتی میشود با کمی اغماض خواننده را هم یکی از شخصیتها به حساب آورد. داستانهایی تو در تو (گاه با پایان بسته و گاه باز)، شخصیتهای رهگذری که میآیند و میروند، درک نویسنده نسبت به احساسات خواننده، گوشه کنایههای راوی به خواننده و طنز ملایم از جمله ویژگیهای منصر به فرد این کتاب است که به صورت یک پکیج آنها را در هیچ کتاب دیگری پیدا نخواهید کرد.
شاید بتوان این کتاب را در سبک فرارمان قرار داد! شما در این کتاب گویی کنار ژاک و اربابش نشستهاید و حرفهایشان را میشنوید.
با این حال ریتم کتاب از اواسط آن برای من کند و خستهکننده شد و داستانها کشدار. اگر حجم کتاب کمتر بود امتیازم به آن ۵ بود. شاید زمان دیگری و در شرایط دیگری باز هم این کتاب را بخوانم.
--------------------------------
جملات ماندگار کتاب:
مگر عاشق شدن و نشدن دست ماست؟ وقتی هم عاشق شدیم مگر میشود خودمان را به عاشق نشدن بزنیم؟
...
اگر راضی به این درازگویی نیستید، پس باید به خاطر چیزهایی که به شما نمیگویم خیلی سپاسگزار باشید.
...
آیا ما سرنوشت را به دنبال خودمان میکشیم یا سرنوشت ما را؟
...
صرف گفتن حقیقت کافی نیست، بلکه باید به دل هم بنشیند.
...
- فقط در زمان فقر و نداری است که مردم این همه بچه درست میکنند.
- هیچ چیز مثل فقر جمعیت را زیاد نمیکند.
...
نه آنقدر در مجیزگویی دست و دلباز باش و نه آنقدر در انتقاد تلخ، همه چیز را همانطور که هست بگو.
...
آنقدرها هم آسان نیست. هر آدمی شخصیت و منافع و سلیقه و شور و شوق مخصوص به خودش را دارد که باعث میشود مطالب را مبالغه یا تعدیل کند.
...
زندگی در اشتباه میگذرد. اشتباه در عشق، اشتباه در دوستی، اشتباهات سیاسی، اقتصادی، کلیسایی، قضایی، بازرگانی، زن و شوهری...
...
اگر میخواهید مواظبتان باشند هرگز پیشاپیش پولی نپردازید.
...
نه هیچکس به اندازهی آدم الکن شوق به حرف زدن دارد و نه هیچکس به اندازهی آدم لنگ میل به راه رفتن.
...
ارباب جان، آدم نمیداند در زندگی از چه خوشحال باشد و از چه غمگین. به دنبال خیر، شر میآید، و به دنبال شر، خیر. ما زیر آنچه آن بالا نوشته شده در جهالت به سر میبریم و آرزوها و خوشحالیها و ناراحتیهایمان یکی از یکی احمقانهتر است. وقتی گریه میکنم اغلب به این نتیجه میرسم که ابلهم.
- وقتی میخندی چطور؟
- باز هم فکر میکنم ابلهم؛ با این حال نه میتوانم جلوی گریهام را بگیرم و نه جلوی خندهام را. و همین کفریام میکند.
...
خیلی ناراحتکننده است که آدم هیچوقت نداند کجا میرود.
...
کسانی که حرفهایشان را تکرار میکنند، احمقهایی هستند که شنوندگانشان را احمق حساب میکنند.
...
اگر میدانستید وقتی زن کسی را دوست ندارد چه عذابی است.
...
- شوهرتان به نظر مرد خیلی سالمی میآید.
- هرچه برق میزند طلا نیست.
...
میدانی کدام پدرها از همه بدترند؟ پدرهایی که اشتباهات جوانی خودشان را فراموش کردهاند.
شاید بتوان این کتاب را در سبک فرارمان قرار داد! شما در این کتاب گویی کنار ژاک و اربابش نشستهاید و حرفهایشان را میشنوید.
با این حال ریتم کتاب از اواسط آن برای من کند و خستهکننده شد و داستانها کشدار. اگر حجم کتاب کمتر بود امتیازم به آن ۵ بود. شاید زمان دیگری و در شرایط دیگری باز هم این کتاب را بخوانم.
--------------------------------
جملات ماندگار کتاب:
مگر عاشق شدن و نشدن دست ماست؟ وقتی هم عاشق شدیم مگر میشود خودمان را به عاشق نشدن بزنیم؟
...
اگر راضی به این درازگویی نیستید، پس باید به خاطر چیزهایی که به شما نمیگویم خیلی سپاسگزار باشید.
...
آیا ما سرنوشت را به دنبال خودمان میکشیم یا سرنوشت ما را؟
...
صرف گفتن حقیقت کافی نیست، بلکه باید به دل هم بنشیند.
...
- فقط در زمان فقر و نداری است که مردم این همه بچه درست میکنند.
- هیچ چیز مثل فقر جمعیت را زیاد نمیکند.
...
نه آنقدر در مجیزگویی دست و دلباز باش و نه آنقدر در انتقاد تلخ، همه چیز را همانطور که هست بگو.
...
آنقدرها هم آسان نیست. هر آدمی شخصیت و منافع و سلیقه و شور و شوق مخصوص به خودش را دارد که باعث میشود مطالب را مبالغه یا تعدیل کند.
...
زندگی در اشتباه میگذرد. اشتباه در عشق، اشتباه در دوستی، اشتباهات سیاسی، اقتصادی، کلیسایی، قضایی، بازرگانی، زن و شوهری...
...
اگر میخواهید مواظبتان باشند هرگز پیشاپیش پولی نپردازید.
...
نه هیچکس به اندازهی آدم الکن شوق به حرف زدن دارد و نه هیچکس به اندازهی آدم لنگ میل به راه رفتن.
...
ارباب جان، آدم نمیداند در زندگی از چه خوشحال باشد و از چه غمگین. به دنبال خیر، شر میآید، و به دنبال شر، خیر. ما زیر آنچه آن بالا نوشته شده در جهالت به سر میبریم و آرزوها و خوشحالیها و ناراحتیهایمان یکی از یکی احمقانهتر است. وقتی گریه میکنم اغلب به این نتیجه میرسم که ابلهم.
- وقتی میخندی چطور؟
- باز هم فکر میکنم ابلهم؛ با این حال نه میتوانم جلوی گریهام را بگیرم و نه جلوی خندهام را. و همین کفریام میکند.
...
خیلی ناراحتکننده است که آدم هیچوقت نداند کجا میرود.
...
کسانی که حرفهایشان را تکرار میکنند، احمقهایی هستند که شنوندگانشان را احمق حساب میکنند.
...
اگر میدانستید وقتی زن کسی را دوست ندارد چه عذابی است.
...
- شوهرتان به نظر مرد خیلی سالمی میآید.
- هرچه برق میزند طلا نیست.
...
میدانی کدام پدرها از همه بدترند؟ پدرهایی که اشتباهات جوانی خودشان را فراموش کردهاند.
January 15, 2024
دیدرو یکی از نویسندگان عصر روشنگری بود، و در کتابِ پیش و رو: ژاک قضا و قدری و اربابش به طرز درخشانی رمان ها و نویسندگان فرانسوی عصر خود را به چالش کشید. خدمتکارْ ژاک که با اربابش سوار بر اسب در حال سفر است در فرانسه است، ماجراجویی ها و داستان هایی را برای یکدیگر روایت میکنند و گاها با افراد قصه گوی دیگری نیز ملاقات میکنند که عجیب ترین اتفاق ها، پلیدی ها و از خودگذشتی ها را بر ما نمایان میسازند. وقتی این دو، در سراسر کشور سفر میکنند، شخصیتها ظاهر میشوند و ناپدید میشوند، و داستانها شروع میشوند و با داستانهای بزرگتری غرق میشوند تا نمایی پانورما از جامعه قرن هجدهم را آشکار کنند. در حالی که به نظر میرسد ژاک مسیر خود را انتخاب و رقم میزند، بر این باور فلسفی نیز استوار است که: هر تصمیمی که میگیرد، هر چند عجیب و غریب، کاملاً از پیش تعیین شده است.
دیدرو رمان نویسی چابک و قهار با داستان هایی که در مقابل مخاطب قرار میدهد، خواننده را مجبور به قضاوت میکند اما چندی طول نمیکشد که قاضی را سرزنش کرده و با پیام های فلسفی شما را به چالش میکشد.
لازم به ذکر است این کتاب یکی از بزرگترین پیشگامان ادبیات پست مدرن است.
هدف کلی این رمان (هرچند نویسنده تاکید میکند این کتاب رمان نیست و تنها قصهای است) اصرار بر اخلاقیات و زندگی شرافتمندانه است و مدام رذالت ها و پیامد هایشان را به تصویر میکشد، از کشیش مکار گرفته تا دختری نجیب زاده اما فاسد. خانم میخانه داری پرمهر و یا متمولی سنگدل.
نویسنده در این کتاب زخم زبان هایی نیز به هم عصران خود از جمله دوست خود ژان ژاک روسو نیز میزند و باورهای او را گاهی مسخره میکند.
کتابی دلنشین و خوشخوان که شمارا به فکر وا میدارد و حتی با اتفاقات گوناگون شما را میخنداند.
دیدرو رمان نویسی چابک و قهار با داستان هایی که در مقابل مخاطب قرار میدهد، خواننده را مجبور به قضاوت میکند اما چندی طول نمیکشد که قاضی را سرزنش کرده و با پیام های فلسفی شما را به چالش میکشد.
لازم به ذکر است این کتاب یکی از بزرگترین پیشگامان ادبیات پست مدرن است.
هدف کلی این رمان (هرچند نویسنده تاکید میکند این کتاب رمان نیست و تنها قصهای است) اصرار بر اخلاقیات و زندگی شرافتمندانه است و مدام رذالت ها و پیامد هایشان را به تصویر میکشد، از کشیش مکار گرفته تا دختری نجیب زاده اما فاسد. خانم میخانه داری پرمهر و یا متمولی سنگدل.
نویسنده در این کتاب زخم زبان هایی نیز به هم عصران خود از جمله دوست خود ژان ژاک روسو نیز میزند و باورهای او را گاهی مسخره میکند.
کتابی دلنشین و خوشخوان که شمارا به فکر وا میدارد و حتی با اتفاقات گوناگون شما را میخنداند.
April 12, 2022
ژاک و اربابش به سمت مقصدی نامعلوم در سفرند. ارباب برای رهایی از ملال سفر مدام از ژاک میخواهد تا داستان عشقهایش را برایش بیان کند ولی تا آخر کتاب این داستان ناتمام میماند؛ چرا که در طی سفر همواره حوادثی رخ میدهد که رشتهی کلام را میگسلد و داستانهای جدیدی روایت میشود.
بخشهایی از کتاب:
▪️میپنداریم سرنوشت را خودمان تعیین میکنیم درحالیکه این سرنوشت است که همواره ما را به دنبال میکشد.
▪️واقعیت این است که ملاحظه تصنعی، اهانت زنندهای بیش نیست.
▪️نه آنقدر در مجیز گویی دست و دلباز باش و نه آنقدر در انتقاد تلخ؛ همه چیز را همانطور که هست بگو.
▪️نه هیچ کس به اندازهی آدم الکن میل به حرف زدن دارد و نه هیچ کس به اندازهی آدم لنگ میل به راه رفتن.
▪️نمیتوان همسر خود را تیرهبخت کرد بیآنکه خود تیرهبخت شد.
▪️میدانی کدام پدرها از همه بدترند؟ پدرهایی که اشتباهات جوانی خود را فراموش کردهاند.
۰۱/۱/۲۳
بخشهایی از کتاب:
▪️میپنداریم سرنوشت را خودمان تعیین میکنیم درحالیکه این سرنوشت است که همواره ما را به دنبال میکشد.
▪️واقعیت این است که ملاحظه تصنعی، اهانت زنندهای بیش نیست.
▪️نه آنقدر در مجیز گویی دست و دلباز باش و نه آنقدر در انتقاد تلخ؛ همه چیز را همانطور که هست بگو.
▪️نه هیچ کس به اندازهی آدم الکن میل به حرف زدن دارد و نه هیچ کس به اندازهی آدم لنگ میل به راه رفتن.
▪️نمیتوان همسر خود را تیرهبخت کرد بیآنکه خود تیرهبخت شد.
▪️میدانی کدام پدرها از همه بدترند؟ پدرهایی که اشتباهات جوانی خود را فراموش کردهاند.
۰۱/۱/۲۳
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July 4, 2016Nemam reči da opišem koliko volim Didroa i koliko je on kul lik (najveseliji od svih prosvetitelja, najprosvetiteljskiji od svih veseljaka), ali baš toliko je kul i ova njegova knjiga: pametna, zabavna, vrcava, lukavo-šaljakava, seksi, subverzivna, puna narativnih trikova i zavrzlama a opet pitka i čitka - toliko da bih pola dijaloga sluge i gospodara, ili svađa pisca sa čitaocem, prepisivala da im se svi divimo. <3
April 28, 2025
نوشتن درباره ی کتابا برام سخته ،انقدر که تبدیل شده به یه ترس بزرگ واسم؛ ولی به خودم قول دادم این بار درباره ی این کتاب شده چند خط بنویسم تا بتونم این ترس و خود کوچک بینیم رو کنار بزارم و یه جایی تمومش کنم .
ژاک قضا قدری رو خیلی وقته تموم کردم با همین ترجمه چاپ قدیم خوندمش و سانسور نداشت .
باهاش بار ها خندیدم ،غمگین شدم و از همه مهم تر به فکر فرو رفتم از اولین کتاباییه که از ادبیات فرانسه میخونم و خب عاشق دیدرو شدم مشخصاً یه نابغه ست این مرد .
داستان درباره ی ژاک قضا قدری و اربابش هست که باهم سفر میکنن اما مقصد مشخصی ندارن ،ارباب ژاک بدون ژاک هویتی نداره طوری که ما تا آخر داستان حتی اسمش رو نمیفهمیم .
ژاک قضا قدری رو خیلی وقته تموم کردم با همین ترجمه چاپ قدیم خوندمش و سانسور نداشت .
باهاش بار ها خندیدم ،غمگین شدم و از همه مهم تر به فکر فرو رفتم از اولین کتاباییه که از ادبیات فرانسه میخونم و خب عاشق دیدرو شدم مشخصاً یه نابغه ست این مرد .
داستان درباره ی ژاک قضا قدری و اربابش هست که باهم سفر میکنن اما مقصد مشخصی ندارن ،ارباب ژاک بدون ژاک هویتی نداره طوری که ما تا آخر داستان حتی اسمش رو نمیفهمیم .
June 3, 2020
Alors! What can one say about this book? Another buddy story like Don Quijote and Sancho Panza? As the title says, it involves Jacques and his master and the entire story is their conversation on the road. The big tease is the master just wants to hear Jacques’ “tales of his love conquests” but many stories must come first.
In Don Quijote, I thought these stories within stories was rather unique. It took a certain skill for the reader to remember where one story ended as the next began, so many pages later. While reading this tale, it dawned on me that Don Quijote was not the first to do this. No, it goes back to the original novels, The Golden Ass by Apuleius and Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon in the 2nd century CE. But I digress.
However, Diderot is playing with us by showing this can be very irritating. At one point they both get into an argument about being interrupted but, thankfully, resolved by the mistress of the inn. Men can be so childish. And so much fun. But let’s get to the point.
And what is the point of this tale? We see that Jacques takes life as it happens. He is a fatalist. Il est écrit là-haut. He gets lectured by the master for his actions. Then we discover the master has some faults, in the guise of Agathe, a much younger woman. Oh those love affairs. Is everything so planned out? Wait and see.
Through their conversation we learn about life, death, people, and well a lot of people having affairs. Did I mention this already? Oh dear, I did. They do fill the pages. Nothing like this 18th century love affairs. No ennui here.
A few reviews back I read in a presentation by Carlos Fuentes (A viva voz) that the three great “road” novels are Don Quijote, Jacques the Fatalist and Tristan Shandy. Well two down, one to go.
In Don Quijote, I thought these stories within stories was rather unique. It took a certain skill for the reader to remember where one story ended as the next began, so many pages later. While reading this tale, it dawned on me that Don Quijote was not the first to do this. No, it goes back to the original novels, The Golden Ass by Apuleius and Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon in the 2nd century CE. But I digress.
However, Diderot is playing with us by showing this can be very irritating. At one point they both get into an argument about being interrupted but, thankfully, resolved by the mistress of the inn. Men can be so childish. And so much fun. But let’s get to the point.
And what is the point of this tale? We see that Jacques takes life as it happens. He is a fatalist. Il est écrit là-haut. He gets lectured by the master for his actions. Then we discover the master has some faults, in the guise of Agathe, a much younger woman. Oh those love affairs. Is everything so planned out? Wait and see.
Through their conversation we learn about life, death, people, and well a lot of people having affairs. Did I mention this already? Oh dear, I did. They do fill the pages. Nothing like this 18th century love affairs. No ennui here.
A few reviews back I read in a presentation by Carlos Fuentes (A viva voz) that the three great “road” novels are Don Quijote, Jacques the Fatalist and Tristan Shandy. Well two down, one to go.
June 13, 2014
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 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.
November 9, 2021
3.5 stars
May 29, 2025
به شدت متفاوت با هر رمان قرن هجده یا نوزدهای که خوندین :)
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